5150III LBXII 15-watt Tube Head Review

Guitar ******

My Peavey 3120 recently cooked, and with the supply chain crap I couldn't find parts anywhere. I loved that amp, it was faithful for over 10 years. Reluctantly I decided to pull the trigger on this thing.I was still a bit sick to the stomach about dropping $ unexpectedly on a new head as I opened the box. New gear is always fun, but only on your terms because you want it, not… read more out of necessity. I kid you not, within 5 minutes I was euphoric. This amp is the best thing ever. The build is solid, the controls are intuitive, and you can pick it up with your pinkie finger and hold it all day. Unless you drink a lot of soy milk, then maybe you'll need 2 fingers. 14 pounds. The first impression I had was how absolutely HUGE it sounds. And LOUD! More loud than you'll ever need. I'm running it thorough a custom 2/12 cab I built myself with Eminence Patriots in it, I think the Texas Heats. This amp has the natural tube compression you didn't know you wanted, some weird spiritual Eddie reverb vibe even though you know there is no reverb on the amp, and holy crap. It is phenomenal. I've been playing 25 years at this point and I have never been so inspired. You just plug into this thing and your testosterone raises 500 points. Groupies and cocaine not included.Even at high gain you can hear every single note of your chord, with that harmonic thing going on that gives every guitarist a woody. This amp is capable of rock/thrash/death/black/doom/heavy metal, as well as blues. The clean channel allows you enough gain to play Jesus Went to Chicago. Even the clean channel kicks ***. Keep in mind though, there is only one EQ section, so if you go clean and dirt a lot it's a tradeoff. The clean channel gets a bit bright. But screw it, you didn't get this amp to spend your time playing clean, did you? No. You bought this amp because you're a dirty, dirty boy. There's a bit of hiss, but not anything bad, actually it's cool. Gives you the sense that you mean business. Someone's about to get smacked.I received my 5150 III last Sunday, 2 days after I ordered it. Sweetwater's service is second to none. The first live gig with it was yesterday, 6 days later. Best show I've ever played. Just hearing all of that tube amp Eddie goodness puts you in the moment. Yeah, I might have sang the same verse twice on a song but that was because I was listening to how awesome this amp is. LP with Mark Morton signatures, BTW.In conclusion, this amp is a monster. Buy it. I can't believe it's only the $.

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Keeper for Life!!!!! No disappointments; awesome tube tone both clean and crunched!!

...Folks, this little amp is the real deal. The Blackstar serves now as a speaker cabinet for the EVH and the tone is awesome and flexible. Like others have said, the cleans are shimmering and sparkling but will break up nicely when the pre-amp or power-amp sections are pushed; just lovely; puts the cleans on the Blackstar to shame. And the blue channel breakup and distortion are… read more pure tube in the EVH, not the tube/MOSFET mash-up the Blackstar uses and yes, there is a sonic difference, although the Blackstar's is equally awesome in its own way. But pure tube breakup and distortion is the correct architecture for guitar volume roll back tone changes and provides you that most authentic vocabulary of percussive and harmonic techniques Eddie so famously popularized. But yes, other reviewers here are right....it is freekin' LOUD. Many guitarists don't understand how much noise even 1 watt can make. I once 'educated' a guitar store department manager by driving a 4x12 cab with a 2 watt Vox amp and he was amazed at how loud it got, which was still WAY too loud for 'bedroom' levels. So then even the 3.5 watt switch on the EVH will not allow low enough loudness levels on the EVH to produce satisfying tone. I find that both the Blue channel master volume and its pre-amp volume have to at least be set to at least 9 O'clock, and the resulting volume level will usually overwhelm the size of the typical bedroom and probably the whole house. This was also a problem on the Blackstar but a good friend of mine (thanks Ian!) turned me on to a 'Custom Carl's Speaker Soak' ... that inserts between an amp's power amp output and speaker. It'll handle 60 watt amps and completely tames the ear-splitting volumes while preserving the tone. I read in these reviews that a JHS device does the same trick in the effects loop, although it may also prevent insertion of actual effects (or not). In any event, you WILL NEED some form of attenuation with any tube amp that puts out more than 0.1 watts if you want cranked-volume tone at loudness levels that others can speak over (even if they have to speak loudly). So budget another $... for the soak I mentioned and you'll be in pig heaven. I feel compelled to add here another comparison. Months before stumbling onto this used EVH head I went back and forth on the Boss Katana 100w Artist MK II amp, buying and returning and then buying it again, and ultimately have learned how to dial in some really satisfying tones on it (see my separate review for it). It even has a 'Brown' channel that I thought I had ultimately gotten to match the sound on the first two VH albums. But the EVH head clearly shows me the difference, even if it is subtle. If you want truly authentic 70's, 80's and EVH tone, GET THIS HEAD. You WILL be able to gig with it and with an attenuator play until all hours with the authentic tone you seek. Even at its full 'new' price it will get you what you want to hear at a price that makes it 'worth it', and yet it will only be 6db less loud than a 50 watt head, and 9db less than a 100 watt head. In most gigging situations that won't make a difference, especially if you mic the amp into the house mains. The bonus (especially for 66+ year old retirees like me whose guitar-playing world was rocked by EVH back in the day), the lighter weight of the lunchbox head (and perhaps the EVH 1x12 cab) will make transport to jams and gigs much less hernia inducing!! As my age suggests, I've been playing for 50+ years and have owned and played through all manner of amps along that timespan. This little head can get you to just about any tone that any other tube amp might provide. The tone stack is very well voiced and manipulating the three controls, and the gain, can get you to just about everything you've ever heard, boutique amp or not. If you didn't already know, Eddie was very heavily involved in the design and even manufacture of all the guitars and amps under his EVH brand, all of which are produced by Fender. Online videos show him asserting his will with the Fender team to make sure that products bearing his EVH logo measured up to his demanding standards. For my purposes, my search for a 'keeper' tube amp is over, although if they come out with an actual three channel 'lunchbox' amp, AND maintain Eddie's high standards, well I'd probably want that!!

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RIP eddie!

Very nice little amp, extremely crisp and definitive sounds. Incredible representative of high gain EVH tones. Low wattage still runs great through my 2x12 cab and it's loud as hell. I'm the pickiest of the picky and this thing has some of the best tones I've ever recorded. My only complaint is that I can't get the gain out, meaning I can't get a great clean tone.

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Evh 5150lll lbxll 15 watt tube head

Best amp head. Worth every penny

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Nasty sounding fun.

Great head and won't blow your head off if needed. Tons of tone options and cleans up nicely. Love it.

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