Guitar Gear Forum

I was bored and happened across some extra cash so I made a deal to buy an EVH 5150 III. I'm picking it up on Sunday.



I know a lot of you guys had owned these in the past. Anything specific I should keep an eye out for that could be problematic?

I was initially thinking of grabbing a Peavey 5150, 6505, or even a 6534, but this caught my eye, and I was impressed when I tried one out years ago.

What the fuck is with the power and standby switches on the back? That's pretty stupid.

The switches on the back are SO FUCKING ANNOYING hahaha. Also these amps are unnecessarily enormous.

Nothing really to keep an eye out for. These are pretty straight forward and easy to make sound good. Almost all the ones I had came with bad tubes. I've had 4. Even my brand new stealth that I had before the Mesa, I had to change so many preamp tubes in that thing. Can't really blame the amp for that, I guess.

Yeah the switches in the back are really annoying especially when they have that really huge pilot light in the front. They could easily have placed a 3-way switch in there (off/standby/on) with the light built into it.

But these amps are great. The blue channel is a great rock tone and the red channel is great for metal or for leads. Clean channel is good too.

Yeah, somehow Mesa manages to make a Roadster with 4 channels, and with the power and standby switches in the front, AND the amp isn't ridiculously huge.

The seller says all the tubes are original, so I fully expect to be replacing the power tubes. I have a good sized stash of preamp tubes.

Hopefully I got a decent deal on it.

ZEEGLER wrote:Yeah, somehow Mesa manages to make a Roadster with 4 channels, and with the power and standby switches in the front, AND the amp isn't ridiculously huge.

The seller says all the tubes are original, so I fully expect to be replacing the power tubes. I have a good sized stash of preamp tubes.

Hopefully I got a decent deal on it.

You might not have to. These amps are biased on the cold side at the factory and tubes last a long time. If the amp sounds good don't worry about it.

Nice!! Post a shootout with the roadster!


a 5153 is still on my shortlist (although prolly a 50 watter)

ZEEGLER wrote:What the fuck is with the power and standby switches on the back? That's pretty stupid.

i HATE that!!! with my 50W, it has the resonance control on the back, too

Yeah, I would expect the power tubes to be fine.

Well that's good news about the power tubes. Since they are likely cold biased from the factory, should I think about setting the bias a little warmer?

I wouldn't worry about it. All your tone is coming from the preamp anyway, so meh.

ZEEGLER wrote:Well that's good news about the power tubes. Since they are likely cold biased from the factory, should I think about setting the bias a little warmer?

I wouldn't bother with that either. Power amp distortion plays little to no factor in the 5153 tone so a bias won't do much (other than wear your tubes out faster). You may notice a bit warmer tone with the higher bias but it's not something than you couldn't achieve with the amp EQ anyway.

Nice! As far as pre tubes you can try different brands, but from my experience these almost Always sound best with JJs. It’s pretty pronounced difference ime. Other tubes just don’t seem to work well for some reason.

Also these aren’t SUPER cold from the factory. I think it’s set at 25ma per tube for the 6l6.

Boosted blue on these is pretty special. The blue channel on all the 100 watt heads is one of the more “pure” and raw, but perfectly tweaked channels out there. This version has the lowest gain, but just to give an idea, that last Meshuggah album Immutable was this head on the Blue channel boosted with a Precision Drive. It’s not my fave tone of theirs but it’s still awesome and just give you an idea that it can handle low tunings awesome as well. While I love my el34, if I had to go back, I’d at least like to do a real fair A/B with this version. Cause I think there are some things I might prefer about it. But… Who knows?! They are all good

And can I say, what’s with all the anger about the switches in back??! Haha. It’s never really even crossed my mind. Anyway… I’m sure you’ll get over it. Lol.

But I remember the designer talking about why, and it simply came down to space and the design. You can see the front panel is basically pots all the way across with room for the input and jewel light. Could you imagine if they said fuck it and made it another 2 inches bigger and it would be wider than virtually every cabinet?!? Hah. Then people would be pissed! Lol

EndTime wrote:Also these aren’t SUPER cold from the factory. I think it’s set at 25ma per tube for the 6l6.

yeah that's super cold. These tubes are 30w 6L6GC, and the amp's plate voltage is 430v.. so 60% dissipation - which is average - would be around 41mA/tube.

The switches on the back has been a I've seen posted here a few times. It's kinda funny, and also really annoying, which makes it kinda funnier. First time I saw one of these, I was like how the fuck do you turn this thing on?? lolol.

The thing is HUGE. Sure, they could've found a way to implement the switches in the front. Like Bill said with the jewel light is one solution. Maybe double stack the controls. I dunno...anyway, I'm sure Eddie had something to say about how he wanted the amp single stacked controls and they made it work. Who knows.

yeah I like the way my Uberschall Twin Jet was with the single switch for all functions, that's the best way to do it IMHO



Just use a lighted switch if you want to have a pilot light although the EVH doesn't need it as the channel lights can indicate when the amp is on.


The Randall MTS system with the stacked switches works well too.



Both system would fit the EVH no problem.

It's not a deal breaker though. Just annoying lol

GuitarBilly wrote:

EndTime wrote:Also these aren’t SUPER cold from the factory. I think it’s set at 25ma per tube for the 6l6.

yeah that's super cold. These tubes are 30w 6L6GC, and the amp's plate voltage is 430v.. so 60% dissipation - which is average - would be around 41mA/tube.

The PVs were 10-15 ma. So SUPER cold. Lol

But actually I think people over estimate bias. Cause when volume goes up, so does the draw of the tubes. So I guess that 60% dissipation is trying to take that into account. But I’ve left the bias probe on my 5153 while playing and it’ll draw like 80ma during some heavy palm mutes etc. obviously It’s only for moments. But when I got my el34 I didn’t realize the factory bias was only 90ma for all 4 and I used to bias the he amp at 140, so 35ma per tube and I redplated numerous tubes before I biased it down to the factory and haven’t blown any since. So I think their 25 is a setting that is actually in the ballpark for that amp and how it actually draws when it’s at band levels etc.

Yeah the PVs are even colder but 25 is super cold for that amp. I measured the plate voltage of the one I had, it is 430v. I biased it at 41/tube played a bunch of gigs with it and nothing ever redplated, because 60% dissipation at idle is safe for every decent amp.

I never tried the 100w EL34. But I had the 50w EL34 and measured that one too. Plate voltage was 475. So a normal bias would be about 31/tube. Which for a whole 100w amp amounts to 124, not 140. 140 is close to 70% dissipation and some tubes can redplate at that range...
But 90 for the quad is again, super cold. It sounds fine though. These amps don't really depend on power amp for distortion or tone. so yeah I'd just leave it at the stock setting.

Did you measure the plate voltage of your 100w? I'd be curious to know if it's the same as the 50w...

Congrats! My favourite amp ever. The matching cab is a must for this.

madrigal77 wrote:Congrats! My favourite amp ever. The matching cab is a must for this.

Well, unless I find one used, that ain't gonna happen. What speakers do they have? I've got 5 different 4X12s and a 2X12. I'm sure at least one of them will sound decent

ZEEGLER wrote:

madrigal77 wrote:Congrats! My favourite amp ever. The matching cab is a must for this.

Well, unless I find one used, that ain't gonna happen. What speakers do they have? I've got 5 different 4X12s and a 2X12. I'm sure at least one of them will sound decent

EVH Greenbacks: https://celestion.com/product/g12-evh/

yeah the matching cab is really good. But the EVHs work with a number of different cabs. When I had mine I was running a 1960A with Greenbacks and it was great match for that amp.
am sure most of your cabs will work well with it.

Let me ask this: Is the 5150 III close enough to a 5150 to scratch my 5150 itch, or am I still going to end up with another Peavey?

ZEEGLER wrote:Let me ask this: Is the 5150 III close enough to a 5150 to scratch my 5150 itch, or am I still going to end up with another Peavey?

They're in the same family for sure. But no, they're not the same. If you are talking about the OG 5150, that is a very different amp. The OG has a bit more sag than the amps that came after and its darker overall.

The 5150 II would be closer to the EVH but the Peavey has more midrange and maybe tighter? Although I never pushed them much in terms of tightness since I don't play metal with them. But the 5150 II seems like a more focused amp while the EVH sounds wider. But they are definitely in the same ballpark. I think the EVH is a better hard rock amp FWIW.

For metal both are great, I guess. I know some metal players that made the transition and never looked back while others went back to Peavey. EndTime and Raf are the experts on that here


but IMHO if you want the PV get the PV. It's cheaper anyway so....