Tried a 5150 Iconic yesterday

[Baba]

Man, that little 1x12 combo sounded good!

I’m no “block letter expert”, but this amp sounded (to me), like the old one, NOT the EVH ones, which, was probably by design? I liked it BETTER than the EVH series TBH.

Complaints:

1. ALL of the sounds were good, and useable, but for the love of god, how could they POSSIBLY design an amp with a volume difference between two modes??? Did they not learn their lesson from v1 of the EVH 5150 series?

The clean channel has this overdrive mode/button, which sounds really good to me, but it makes the volume jump way too much when it’s engaged, so, useless if you want to use it, and the clean, in a live setting.

2. You cannot get to that overdrive setting from the footswitch, you can only select the channels or the “burn” setting on the dirty channel. That overdrive setting makes this a versatile amp that goes from clean to mean, not just clean AND mean, so, without it being accessible via footswitch, it’s kind of a wasted feature IMO.

All in all, a VERY good sounding amp though.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I've never cranked one but I've tried the combo a couple of times at different GCs and I liked it. I'd love to hear one at volume.

 

[DrewJD82]

I played the combo a couple weeks ago and found it to be a lot better than the reviews lead me to believe. I’ve had a couple block letter 5150’s over the years and those are tough to beat, but for the price, it’s really hard to say No to the Iconic. I wouldn’t bitch if I showed up somewhere and it was the house amp!

 

[la szum]

Cool! I'll have one of the heads here before too long. I don't dig the 5150 IIIs either. Just way more
compressed and a bit honkier in the mids to my ears. Those old Block Letter 5150s will go down in
history as one of the pre-eminent amps of the rock era. No wonder they call the new ones "Iconic."

 

[la szum]

Oh, and who needs a "Clean" channel???

 

[Orvillain]

As I recall in the early days the Tesseract guys used 5150's with a PodXT into the return for their clean tones, precisely because of the same design limitations on the older amps.

Bit of a shame to hear they didn't address those issues.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Went amp browsing at GC a while ago with my son, we saw and tried the head into the 2x12 and he wanted to take it home.

I told him if we're taking it home it's going in my room and he can have my Katana.

 

[Baba]

Oh, and who needs a "Clean" channel???

coverband’d

 

[Baba]

As I recall in the early days the Tesseract guys used 5150's with a PodXT into the return for their clean tones, precisely because of the same design limitations on the older amps.

Bit of a shame to hear they didn't address those issues.

Well, the clean channel is nice, and it has its own volume, so it’s fine, it just has this “overdrive” button that makes it too loud when engaged. The tone of all the modes/channels is good though.

 

[JerEvil]

I’ve been tempted to try one but there’s a 5150 module that’s been developed for Synergy so kinda just holding for that.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I’ve been tempted to try one but there’s a 5150 module that’s been developed for Synergy so kinda just holding for that.

OG era I assume?

 

[JerEvil]

OG era I assume?

Yep. Supposedly first run block letter from the same guy who loaned the the IIC+

 

[Whizzinby]

Yep. Supposedly first run block letter from the same guy who loaned the the IIC+

Awesome. Been waiting for them to drop something new. 5150 would fit well in that ecosystem.

 

[hemmelight]

Just tried one today at my local Long & McQuade - really liked it!

I brought my Barefaced Reformer 1x12 cab (with Neo Creamback) and tested both the Iconic 80w head and the 5150-III 50w head. Not the combos. I've never played any of the EVH amps or OG Peavey 5150s so I'm not an authority or anything, but I do like Ed's sound through the years. I lean more into the Marshall tones personally (VH II is basically my grail rock tone reference album).

I only played the Iconic on the 1/4 power mode (so, 20 watts?) as we were in a tiny practice / lesson room, but even at "low volumes" (1 on the masters) the thing rips. Lots of chunk and thump - I had to turn the resonance back to 3 with my cabinet. Little guy is the beefiest 1x12 I've heard. I should have taken a photo of the huge amp sitting on my little cab, as it was kind of hilarious. The little EVH head fit just right, though.

The two amps are of course quite similar, but I actually preferred the Iconic out of the two, same as @Baba .
Even at the low power setting the Iconic felt (and sounded) bigger compared to the 50W EVH. I guess that may be due to the bigger power section / transformer in the Iconic.
The Cleans on the Iconic were fine, but I was mostly interested in the crunch sound of channel 1 with the Overdrive button engaged.
Channel 2 was cool as well, but I slightly preferred the channel 1 OD sound overall. Having on-board reverb is cool, too. Even a little bit helps, so it was kind of stark playing the EVH which was super dry. I'm too used to using an always-on plate reverb that I feel naked without it.

On the EVH, I found Blue was basically all I needed - Red was practically unusable. It was so over-compressed and had a ludicrous amount of gain. I couldn't even play it with gain above 2.

Both cool amps, but if I had to choose one to buy and use as my only amp it would be the Iconic for sure. The head, anyway.
It's a little more old-school Marshall vibe, which is more up my alley. Not that it sounds like a Marshall, though. It's kinda like a poor man's Soldano.

 

[Deadpan]

Played the head at Guitar Center, wasn't bad but really prefer the 6505+. Besides, I had my 6505+ modded to be switchable to 5150 specs and take 6L6 or EL34.