After owning this for a while now I thought I would post a review and clip. This is from the Divinity album, re-amped by Mark at Audiohammer through a Mesa cab with V30s, 57 and 201 mics blended. No EQ or post processing here, just two tracks panned left and right.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2183128/5150III_Clip.mp3
One of the best amps Ive ever owned for sure. The amp to me sounds like the perfect blend of the original 5150 saturated roar with a bit more smoothness and tightness along the lines of a Mark series Mesa. This is perfect for me and my style as somewhat of a meeting between Prog and Death Metal.
The amp is very versatile; the clean channel is really nice if you dial it right. You have to run the gain VERY low and use the volume to compensate. A little compression and reverb and its beautiful.
Channel 2 is hugely versatile on its own; it can go from Marshally crunch up to pretty serious high gain. More middy and vintage then channel 3.
Channel 3 is of course the br00tz channel and the marquee sound of the amp for me. Super easy to dial in a sick sick rhythm sound for Metal and great for leads with some tweaking or external EQ as well.
Loop works great and channel switching is very quick. Occasionally makes a small pop but nothing you could hear in a live situation and Id rather have that then a drop-out.
I havent owned the amp long enough yet to comment on reliability, taking it on tour though so well see. No problems yet anyway, other than a bad preamp tube in V1 which I swapped for a Chinese HG+.
Ill tell you how I came to own since it was kinda unexpected, we used it for the album but at the time I was using an ENGL SE live. Then I planned to use an Axe-FX+VHT rig live, but we had a show and I hadnt got it all together yet, so I rented the EVH. Plugged it in and BOOM it fucking slayed, and became my rig.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2183128/5150III_Clip.mp3
One of the best amps Ive ever owned for sure. The amp to me sounds like the perfect blend of the original 5150 saturated roar with a bit more smoothness and tightness along the lines of a Mark series Mesa. This is perfect for me and my style as somewhat of a meeting between Prog and Death Metal.
The amp is very versatile; the clean channel is really nice if you dial it right. You have to run the gain VERY low and use the volume to compensate. A little compression and reverb and its beautiful.
Channel 2 is hugely versatile on its own; it can go from Marshally crunch up to pretty serious high gain. More middy and vintage then channel 3.
Channel 3 is of course the br00tz channel and the marquee sound of the amp for me. Super easy to dial in a sick sick rhythm sound for Metal and great for leads with some tweaking or external EQ as well.
Loop works great and channel switching is very quick. Occasionally makes a small pop but nothing you could hear in a live situation and Id rather have that then a drop-out.
I havent owned the amp long enough yet to comment on reliability, taking it on tour though so well see. No problems yet anyway, other than a bad preamp tube in V1 which I swapped for a Chinese HG+.
Ill tell you how I came to own since it was kinda unexpected, we used it for the album but at the time I was using an ENGL SE live. Then I planned to use an Axe-FX+VHT rig live, but we had a show and I hadnt got it all together yet, so I rented the EVH. Plugged it in and BOOM it fucking slayed, and became my rig.
