5150 Iconic - New Budget 5150 from EVH Gear

[amptweaker]

James - it just blows me away with what you’ve been able to achieve with the 5150 Iconic for so little. Playing it back to back tonight against an amp 2.5x the price and it holds its own. Clearly some trade off like the shared EQ. But tone wise you’ve really nailed it. Brilliant circuitry.

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Thanks!
James B

 

[amptweaker]

Agreed. I love reading the info about the design, and wishing I were smart enough to put something together that efficiently for that price. I think the tone/dollars makes this my favorite 5150 design ever. I love that this is affordable to a lot of people.

You know when Ed came to Peavey back in the beginning, his goal was to make sure the amp was affordable so anybody could have one. He talked about being a kid who couldn't afford expensive gear, and had to resort to building guitars himself. So after years of making more and more improvements to the 5150 amps, he wanted to do some that got back to the basics of what you need to get a great tone, without throwing a bunch of money into the design. Along with the rest of the team, we stripped out whatever we could and still have what you've GOT to have, and I think the results speak for themselves.

thanks for the compliments!
James

 

[LCW]

James (@amptweaker) - Am I crazy, or am I hearing that the Iconic's Green Crunch channel is voiced a bit like a modded JCM800?? Seems to be a bit more mid focused that Red and just nails that perfect 80's thrash tone. Despite it being 6L6, that's what I'm hearing.

 

[amptweaker]

James (@amptweaker) - Am I crazy, or am I hearing that the Iconic's Green Crunch channel is voiced a bit like a modded JCM800?? Seems to be a bit more mid focused that Red and just nails that perfect 80's thrash tone. Despite it being 6L6, that's what I'm hearing.

It's pretty much the same as the Blue channel of the 5150 III 6L6 50W amps....BUT we increased the gain a little bit so it kind of overlaps what the Red channel does, in terms of gain...but it's a little bit more chimey like a Plexi Bright input. So it does come into that range of gain and tone you mention. That channel started from the original 5150 Combo Crunch button of channel 1, which I modified further by adding another preamp tube devoted to Channel 1 on the 5150 II, and when they did the 5150 III amp they added the extra controls and further tweaked it. I used the 5150 III 50 W 6L6 to go by this time, and then bumped up the gain a little bit more We spent more time on that channel to try and get it to sound more like how Ed used his Plexi.....cranked up and then clean it up with the guitar volume.

You can just about use the Channel 1 with OD pressed with the footswitchable Boost, and your guitar's volume, and do about anything you can think of with it!

James

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

This is wishful thinking from me, but an Iconic with 2 cloned green channels (Kinda like the Badlander) would be cool. The green channel seems to be well-loved all around.
Something to consider if ya'll ever wanna do an Iconic II like y'all did with the lunchbox amp heads lol

 

[Hollowway]

This is wishful thinking from me, but an Iconic with 2 cloned green channels (Kinda like the Badlander) would be cool. The green channel seems to be well-loved all around.
Something to consider if ya'll ever wanna do an Iconic II like y'all did with the lunchbox amp heads lol

Shoot, the iconics are so affordable you could get two heads and still be under budget for a high gain head. And have FOUR channels!

 

[complex-barb.0t]

Shoot, the iconics are so affordable you could get two heads and still be under budget for a high gain head. And have FOUR channels!

I came here to say just run 2 amps. Beat me to it!

 

[amptweaker]

This is wishful thinking from me, but an Iconic with 2 cloned green channels (Kinda like the Badlander) would be cool. The green channel seems to be well-loved all around.
Something to consider if ya'll ever wanna do an Iconic II like y'all did with the lunchbox amp heads lol

Well, actually with the addition of the Burn button on the Red channel, the Iconic can get the lower gain tones of the Blue channel easier than the 5150 III's.....it has a little bit less gain at the same settings than the 5150 III models when the Burn is OFF. The pot taper was also tweaked to help it get very low settings well, so the end result is you can set the Red channel cleaner than the Green OD cranked, if you were to want that. So it does a good job of what you're asking for, although the lead channel doesn't clean up 'quite' as chimey clean as the Ch1. But I get your point, and that's why I tweaked it that way. I was trying to make it so it could already get all those variations of the different lunch boxes.

James B

 

[LCW]

It's pretty much the same as the Blue channel of the 5150 III 6L6 50W amps....BUT we increased the gain a little bit so it kind of overlaps what the Red channel does, in terms of gain...but it's a little bit more chimey like a Plexi Bright input. So it does come into that range of gain and tone you mention. That channel started from the original 5150 Combo Crunch button of channel 1, which I modified further by adding another preamp tube devoted to Channel 1 on the 5150 II, and when they did the 5150 III amp they added the extra controls and further tweaked it. I used the 5150 III 50 W 6L6 to go by this time, and then bumped up the gain a little bit more We spent more time on that channel to try and get it to sound more like how Ed used his Plexi.....cranked up and then clean it up with the guitar volume.

You can just about use the Channel 1 with OD pressed with the footswitchable Boost, and your guitar's volume, and do about anything you can think of with it!

James

Thanks for the in depth background story on that James! So fascinating! You definitely nailed it with this Iconic! Can't wait to see what's next...