Critical Analysis of the 5150

[TheWinterSnow]

Some time ago I made a thread asking about speakers in frustration to my tone. Considering that every time I mic'd my cab I was getting really notched artificial sounding eq which I later blamed the T-75 for. Behold I hear a couple clips on youtube that had me realizing that a 5150's special one and only sound is very similar to the tonality of a T-75.

I have spent the past couple of days running through many different tone setups and recorded a few clips for every variation on the amp that is possible with the equipment that I have at my disposal. I figure this could be great educational material for any 5150 lovers (and haters).

Here is Youtube clips that IMO show the tonalities of the T-75.



From this clip you can see a very similar coloration of the mids. On top of that, the speaker lacks dynamic definition, bite, and an overall balanced tone.

Considering that the characteristics of both the 5150 and the T-75 are the same thing, this can become a real nightmare when trying to tackle this issue. When I record my 5150 and compare it to an amp sim, even though the 5150 sounds more balanced recorded than it does in person, when stacked up to another setup, this coloration and uneven tone is still very noticeable.

Maybe I am just being too critical on my tone, but after these clips I find myself liking the T-75's even less, the 5150 already has enough of that high-mid dominate characteristic, I do not need to exagerate that even more with my speakers. Again maybe I am being too hard on the T-75's, but in all honesty, 5150s and T-75s do not complement each other very well.

So here are the various clips doing every tweak imaginable, at the very least it can give someone the detailed insight of the tone of a 5150 in every way imaginable, or it can prove that my tone absolutely sucks, either way, it should be valuable information

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1170463/5150 Test.rar

The test goes over eq sweeps, mic positions and volume settings, every folder has a readme which gives details on that setup. The first benchmark clip contains a dual tracked clip with all settings on 5 to get a reference on the other clips.

 

[Wolfeman]

Haven't had a chance to watch the vids or listen to the clips, but I know what you are saying. It's one of the reasons I messed with the tone stack on my 5150 and added a sweepable mid, to make it more to my liking.

I will admit, I love the sound of the 5150 with my uberkab, which has T75's and V30's. Sounds great in the room, but I never put a mic up to the T-75. Can't get a useful tone out of that speaker.

 

[Fragle]

guess i'll have to disagree with your post.
i've been using the 5150 both in studio and as my main live amp for 5 years now. i've heard it's sound through a lot of cabs.

i'm not quite seeing why you think of the 5150 as scooped low mid with pronounced hi mid, unless we have very different ideas about where these areas sit frequency wise.
the 5150 has an abundance of mids around the 600-800 mark (which in my book is lower and core mids), and (for my taste not) enough around the 2-3k hi mid range. you can easily tell by turning the midrange up and trying to compensate using vst eq - you'll have to cut a lot of car honk 800hz-ish midrange stuff.

and to add on top of that, every time i hooked it up to a 1960A/B it sounded great. the 5150 is a very midrangey amp, and the slightly scooped nature of the gt75 goes well with that. really, i can't see how anyone could call the 5150 scooped, especially in the lower mids.

actually, a prime example of what you just described would be my engl fireball 100. hi mid centered, not a lot of low mid punch, and sounds like crap with a scooped speaker.

and btw, yes i watched the video, and yes the 5150 sounds tinny and hi mid centered when put up against the recto. but geez, it's an axe fx. search the forum for some recto and 5150 clips (there are heaps of them), the 5150 will always be the core mid centered amp, with the recto being scooped in that range and having more fizz and lowest mids/high bass punch. thats the reason they blend so well in the first place.
edit: actually, i remember the 5150 I-III shootout that showed pretty well how thick the 5150 is in the lower mids. especially the 5150 I.

 

[Kazrog]

IMO those clips don't resemble the real-world amps at all. Wow...

 

[Harry Hughes]

This must be the first time I've heard a 5150 described as having a very scooped out low mid.
So the moral of the story is...........use a Mesa Boogie Rectifier Oversized with V30s instead ?

 

[drew_drummer]

I dislike T-75's.

 

[Josh Burgess]

guess i'll have to disagree with your post.
i've been using the 5150 both in studio and as my main live amp for 5 years now. i've heard it's sound through a lot of cabs.

i'm not quite seeing why you think of the 5150 as scooped low mid with pronounced hi mid, unless we have very different ideas about where these areas sit frequency wise.
the 5150 has an abundance of mids around the 600-800 mark (which in my book is lower and core mids), and (for my taste not) enough around the 2-3k hi mid range. you can easily tell by turning the midrange up and trying to compensate using vst eq - you'll have to cut a lot of car honk 800hz-ish midrange stuff.

and to add on top of that, every time i hooked it up to a 1960A/B it sounded great. the 5150 is a very midrangey amp, and the slightly scooped nature of the gt75 goes well with that. really, i can't see how anyone could call the 5150 scooped, especially in the lower mids.

actually, a prime example of what you just described would be my engl fireball 100. hi mid centered, not a lot of low mid punch, and sounds like crap with a scooped speaker.

and btw, yes i watched the video, and yes the 5150 sounds tinny and hi mid centered when put up against the recto. but geez, it's an axe fx. search the forum for some recto and 5150 clips (there are heaps of them), the 5150 will always be the core mid centered amp, with the recto being scooped in that range and having more fizz and lowest mids/high bass punch. thats the reason they blend so well in the first place.
edit: actually, i remember the 5150 I-III shootout that showed pretty well how thick the 5150 is in the lower mids. especially the 5150 I.

Agreed... The 5150 is far from scooped. Most people are recording it with the mids at around 3 (9:00 on the dial), because it has so much mids... It can be a little bright... it's aggressive, but it doesn't have scratchy high mids. It has a good amount of low mid thickness. Rectos are more bassy and more scooped, but the 5150s have plenty of low mids. I'm not a big fan of the t-75s... I don't absolutely hate them, but I'd much rather use v30s. The t-75s have a very hollow sound.

 

[::XeS::]

In my opinion, 5150 and t75 are awesome on hardcore stuff like Hatebreed or Earth Crisis, at least fit well open chords and slow/mid tempo stuff.
V30 is better for death metal or thrash metal

 

[Mikaël-ange]

In my opinion, 5150 and t75 are awesome on hardcore stuff like Hatebreed or Earth Crisis, at least fit well open chords and slow/mid tempo stuff.
V30 is better for death metal or thrash metal

Can sound great with DM too imo
Listen at Wieslawski bro job, v30 and g12t75 every time I think (sure for last Vader and Trauma).

 

[::XeS::]

Yes....I spoke about a "guide line" for that combination.
Anyway those youtube samples are shit.....in the first video there isn't a sample that sounds like the real deal. At least my 6505+ eats that shitty sound.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

I just love how some of you listen to everything that I said. For starters, I did say that I was aware that the YT clip was an axe-fx, but I said that the tones on that clip are exactly what I heard when I had my 5150 with T-75's paired against a Dual Recto with K100's. So we can't all agree with what we want to designate as which frequencies, however, the scoop I am talking about is the boarder of the upper lows and lower mids, which is exaggerated when you have a high mid bump.

I can say that I have thrown my 5150 on a Spider cabinet and found that the tone was much more balanced, although brittle and lacking balls, the recorded clips of that session only lacked balls, and aggression. In the clips of the speakers I again restate that I found the tone of the T-75 as hollow and lacking an in your face punch, it just sounds nasty and not even remotely pleasing to my ears. The v30 on the other hand sounded like the most balanced of all the speakers.

This must be the first time I've heard a 5150 described as having a very scooped out low mid.
So the moral of the story is...........use a Mesa Boogie Rectifier Oversized with V30s instead ?

Randall Smith can go fuck himself, I would much rather buy an avatar or if I get the money, a bogner cab.

Haven't had a chance to watch the vids or listen to the clips, but I know what you are saying. It's one of the reasons I messed with the tone stack on my 5150 and added a sweepable mid, to make it more to my liking.

I will admit, I love the sound of the 5150 with my uberkab, which has T75's and V30's. Sounds great in the room, but I never put a mic up to the T-75. Can't get a useful tone out of that speaker.

Definitely take a listen to the clips when you can and let me know if thats the sound you are talking about. What were your typical 5150/mic setup when you tried micing a T-75 on your uberkab and what exactly didn't you like about the end result?

Yes....I spoke about a "guide line" for that combination.
Anyway those youtube samples are shit.....in the first video there isn't a sample that sounds like the real deal. At least my 6505+ eats that shitty sound.

again reciprocates what I have heard in person with real amps.


I made another clip comparing my typical tone of my amp sim setup and my 5150 mic'd up. The issue is not as intense as it is in person or as I have even mentioned only because I have the mic position and settings dialed in as best as possible.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1170463/5150 vs Sim.mp3

 

[::XeS::]

t75 it's a really hard speaker, because it's a 75w speaker....so in my opinion it vibrates with more difficult than a v30 or a greenback. It involves a more "linear" sound that's very cool as I said, in long tuned down chords.
It needs more volume than v30s for sure and it doesn't fit every genre. For example, I don't like it on very fast stuff because compared to the v30's it lacks bottom ends when you do a palm mute...or better, it's more complicated to get the right sound.

 

[Machinated]

yeah, t75's can be fiddly to mic up and can sound phasey very easily (id guess to the higher wattage).

I normally mic them quite close to center. also they can sound really cool with 5150's but again totally dependant on the band/mix etc

 

[::XeS::]

In fact you don't have to mic it aiming the junction like a v30...or better the distance from the center could be the same, but you don't aim the junction but the cup...because it has a bigger cup.

 

[drew_drummer]

With my Marshall 2x12 cab which has T75's in it, I usually get the mike as close as I can to the cone, like Machinated said. I find this helps the guitar sound more direct, and less blurry. With high-gain tones, these speakers can easily blur up the mix.

 

[Wolfeman]

I did mess around with micing a T75 with an Audix D6, pretty much near the edge of the woofer. When blended in low with a standard v30 micing technique track, it had a pretty cool sound. I suppose it's all about how you work it in.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

yeah, t75's can be fiddly to mic up and can sound phasey very easily (id guess to the higher wattage).

I normally mic them quite close to center. also they can sound really cool with 5150's but again totally dependant on the band/mix etc

its not that it is phasey, no matter how I dial the settings, or where the mic is, the result is a very harsh tone that lacks warmth and crunch. Its not like I am a noob at micing amps, I can spend days just tweaking with mic positions, eq, you name it, and for how an amp sounds in the room, I can pull of killer tones. I have mic'd on other cab before and while I didn't spend much time on it, the results were much better, sad thing is that it was a $400 cabinet that sounds like shit.

Some of you are getting the idea that I don't like the sound of a 5150 and thats far from the truth, I just really think that a T75 doesn't pair well with a 5150 very well.

anyway, the original clips that I provided were to give everyone an idea on many different tonalities of a 5150 and to get an idea of what you guys think of the tone that I got, and an opinion on what tones they liked the best.

In fact you don't have to mic it aiming the junction like a v30...or better the distance from the center could be the same, but you don't aim the junction but the cup...because it has a bigger cup.

with the Chinese remakes of the T-75s they have the same sized dustcap as the v30.

EDIT:

Just threw a sine sweep and white/pink noise on the input of the best setup, the upper spike that I noticed is definitely there, and its about 20db louder than everything else, which I think is giving me the illusion that the lower mids are not there as much as they should be.

I could eq this out but it would loose its natural tonalities because you would be killing the harmonics over a 1000Hz range by up to 20db. I know it won't be a full 20 db, as the 1.5K to 2.5K area is really important to the sound, and balancing it out completely would be a bad thing most likely. You can also notice that everything beyond 5K is non existent, which is why I have had comments on my tone before about it sounding like there was a blanket over the speakers.

Sine sweep with PAZ:

White and Pink Noise held on SPAN:

Doesn't look too pretty.

 

[Fragle]

oh geez, it's mixing by numbers time again....

for the record, the axe-fx clip in the OP does neither sound like a recto, nor like a 5150. [disclaimer: not talking about the axe here!]. if you say that the sound difference between those two is exactly the same in RL, then more power to you.

but well, i'd say you stop hooking up a 5150 to a gt75 loaded cab, and be happy with it.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

did I get that right?
we're supposed to learn about an amp by listening to a modeller?
nah, won't work

 

[jangoux]

I have both a british g12t75 and a chinese one and the dustcaps are exactly the same size. The chinese one is around 5yo..