Members guitarbilly74 Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 I bought this amp last Tuesday and I have been playing it by myself for the whole week and I was really liking it but I was not sure it was going to sound good with the band. Well it does. When I first walked in with the combo my band mates had some negative comments for it being a Peavey and they said that they didn't think it would be a good idea to replace my current rig (DSL50 for crunch and lead with an A/B box to a Fender Super Twin for cleans) with it. But as soon as I fired it up and dialed a tone, heads started turning. This combo has just as much punch as my half-stack and a lot more gain and clarity on top of it. I used a GE7 though the loop set flat with a slightly volume boost for solos and my solos cut through the mix perfectly. Heavy rhythms are tight and defined too. I was able to dial a pretty decent clean tone out of it as well, which surprised me because I always hear bad things about the clean channel - perhaps people just don't know how to dial it? With the Les Paul there was still a little bit of break up on the clean channel, but with my HSS strat , using the single coils, it was perfectly clean. I can't say the clean channel is as good as my Super Twin though, no big deal, I wasn't expecting it to be. But it's a tone I can definitely live with, specially because now I can carry a single 2x12 combo to gigs and get all the overdrive I need and 70% of my clean tone. I will continue to use the twin for cleans on recordings and stuff but for live the 5150 will definitely do the job. I had to do a couple of things on this amp to get it exactly where I wanted it to be: I replaced one of the speakers with an old Celestion G12-70M and replaced the original Chinese tubes with JJ power tubes and a hand selected combination of preamp tubes (GTs, JJs, and an NOS RCA for V1). Stock, the amp sounded ok but the new tubes and speaker improved the tone 100%. I still want to replace the other speaker with another Celestion (not sure which model yet) but it's not really a priority. The things I did not like about the amp: None of these things are deal breakers though and I am very happy with the amp overall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Smachimo the T Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 Great, great, but how does your BACK feel after all of this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members kmanick Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 Cool, I found pretty much the same thing with the 5150 combo I had. When retubed with JJ's and a tung sol re-issue in V1 my clean was actually pretty good. On the lead channel I used to run a clean boost in front of it and keep the gain on the amp at around 4 1/2 and that kept it a lot quieter and a little tighter. When playing 6 stringer's in standard tuning I loved using my Marshall 1960Ax with greenbacks. when I switched to using 7's I switched to V30's and C90's and it sounded great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Symmetry2170 Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 I owned a 5150 head for a while and it definitely didn't suit my needs. I needed something more versatile. Prior the 5150 I owned a Triple XXX, and my first amp was a Peavey Rage 158. So, I'm very familiar with Peavey amplifiers. But, if it works for you and you're happy with it, that's the most important part, dude! Congrats! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarbilly74 Posted June 8, 2008 Author Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 Great, great, but how does your BACK feel after all of this?It feels awesome. I installed casters on the amp the first day I got it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Smachimo the T Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 It feels awesome. I installed casters on the amp the first day I got it success! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mavesicles Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 Glad to hear it can handle band situations. Can't wait to get my 6505 combo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Smachimo the T Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 Glad to hear it can handle band situations. Can't wait to get my 6505 combo. be prepared for a speaker swap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mavesicles Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 be prepared for a speaker swap.Haha. Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarbilly74 Posted June 8, 2008 Author Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 be prepared for a speaker swap. Definitely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Smachimo the T Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 Definitely. seriously, I despised the tone of my combo with a passion, I thought it was the epitome of suck. i then unhooked it's speakers to a different cab to see if it made a difference.. yeah........ so then i swapped the speakers, and all was good, but it was still noisy as hell when i had the pre gain up to where I liked it. so i had to ditch it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarbilly74 Posted June 8, 2008 Author Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 seriously, I despised the tone of my combo with a passion, I thought it was the epitome of suck.i then unhooked it's speakers to a different cab to see if it made a difference..yeah........so then i swapped the speakers, and all was good, but it was still noisy as hell when i had the pre gain up to where I liked it.so i had to ditch it. Replacing the tubes (especially V1) definitely helped with the noise issue. Then again, I don't use my gain very high, since I am not playing metal with it.I had at 4.5 today and there was very minimal noise, definitely acceptable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Smachimo the T Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 Replacing the tubes (especially V1) definitely helped with the noise issue.Then again, I don't use my gain very high, since I am not playing metal with it.I had at 4.5 today and there was very minimal noise, definitely acceptable. I've replaced my tubes to a low gain kit and it just lost the aggressiveness that I had originally bought it for. I needed to have my pre at 8 w/o a boost to get tone that my band required for live performance... and that.. was just.. yeah, wasn't cutting it one bit. I then picked up a randall XL v2 archetype and that.. killed the combo by a longshot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarbilly74 Posted June 8, 2008 Author Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 I've replaced my tubes to a low gain kit and it just lost the aggressiveness that I had originally bought it for. I needed to have my pre at 8 w/o a boost to get tone that my band required for live performance... and that.. was just.. yeah, wasn't cutting it one bit. I then picked up a randall XL v2 archetype and that.. killed the combo by a longshot. Gain on 8?? AND a boost?? yeah we're definitely playing different styles..LOLI play mostly hard rock/funk.. this is a pretty new band so we are doing mostly covers for now and we play things like RHCP, Hendrix, RATM, Living Colour, Kravitz, Eric Gales etc.. so it's not all that heavy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Smachimo the T Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 Gain on 8?? AND a boost?? yeah we're definitely playing different styles..LOL I play mostly hard rock/funk.. this is a pretty new band so we are doing mostly covers for now and we play things like RHCP, Hendrix, RATM, Living Colour, Kravitz, Eric Gales etc.. so it's not all that heavy. no no, without a boost we're playing original tunes, extreme metal, gain, saturatedy goodness WITHOUT fizzing up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gunsnblades91 Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 Glad to hear it can handle band situations. Can't wait to get my 6505 combo. What's your current amp? And a 6505 for thrash? 0.o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mavesicles Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 What's your current amp?And a 6505 for thrash? 0.o VK What's wrong with a 6505 for thrash? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gunsnblades91 Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 VK What's wrong with a 6505 for thrash? It seems like there would be better amps for that price for thrash...like a used Mark IV but each to their own...And that's my current amp too, well, the 112 combo...Except sometimes I just hate it...If you own either combo, have you swapped the tubes and/or speaker? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tws! Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 It seems like there would be better amps for that price for thrash...like a used Mark IV but each to their own... And that's my current amp too, well, the 112 combo... Except sometimes I just hate it... If you own either combo, have you swapped the tubes and/or speaker? 5150 is a tight amp, perfect for thrash. As far as being noisy, you have a preamp tube problem. Mine was noisy, switched the tubes and it was dead silent. I was running the gain on 4.5-5 for metal, and it had plenty of gain for me. Don't let the haters get you down, Peaveys are great amps. They are built like a tank, made in America and the 5150 series is a road proven warrior. Oh yea, with the crunch channel it is a pretty versatile amp. The cleans are not good, but you can live with them if you have some good pickups, roll the volume back and use some delay, chorus or reverb. Even dry it is workable. The 5150II has a footswitchable clean/crunch function, the 5150 you have to hit the button, but you can definitely get some 80's tones in there with that crunch channel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JonathanD Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 The combo cleans are better than the head cleans, from what I've heard. Most people bashing the cleans are speaking about the heads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gunsnblades91 Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 5150 is a tight amp, perfect for thrash. As far as being noisy, you have a preamp tube problem. Mine was noisy, switched the tubes and it was dead silent. I was running the gain on 4.5-5 for metal, and it had plenty of gain for me. Don't let the haters get you down, Peaveys are great amps. They are built like a tank, made in America and the 5150 series is a road proven warrior. *must resist from posting obnoxious "teh beez" picture and thus joining the bandwagon* Sorry, I just thought because of the voicing it wouldn't do thrash as well as other amps to be had for $1000... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tws! Posted June 8, 2008 Members Share Posted June 8, 2008 *must resist from posting obnoxious "teh beez" picture and thus joining the bandwagon*Sorry, I just thought because of the voicing it wouldn't do thrash as well as other amps to be had for $1000... Used 5150s go for 100s less than $1000. Although, they can sound like utter crap, you have to eq them right and not set the gain like you do on other amps. Like I said earlier, I was running the gain at 4.5 for metal. After 6 it turns into a muddy mess, and the presence knob needs to be low. It doesn't do much until it hits 7-8 and then, yes, the bees do come out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bdubbs Posted June 9, 2008 Members Share Posted June 9, 2008 You should be able to make the crunch switchable by wiring the button to a 1/4" jack and using a mono plug footswitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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