Wich 5150 ? Buying guide

Wich model of 5150?

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prititing

Idiot
Nov 1, 2005
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Bucharest
As i read this forum for the last year i heard a lot of different opinions about the quality of 5150 models. The last one being this:
DSS3 said:
There is absolutely no difference between the blockletter and signature heads, aside from which tubes they came with from the factory.
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I want to buy a 5150 and i am a little confused about what model to get. Would you please share your experience about that, as i heard the blockletter model is higher in build quality, but the 5150 II and 6505 have better cleans and so on... What about the JSX (XSr) model? Is it worth more than a 5150?

This should be a buying guide for people like me (noobs in search for a good amp) :worship:
 
Well I have experiences with both the block lettered and the signature 5150's
Maybe it was just a matter of tubes, my friend's block letter had svetlana ecc83's on the preamp section and GT's on the power stage, while mine ( signature) had a mix of sovtek LPS and Jan-Phillips on the pre and sovtek 6L6GC on the power stage, mine had less noise and less of those piercing hi mids.
The guy that modded mine later told me about the biasing on block lettered 5150's, he said they had the bias set to run a little colder than signatures, he told me about some PCB's that weren't perfectly grounded on signatures.
He said something about the Effects Loop on Signatures, can't remember exactly, all I know is my amp was nearly redesigned cause of those ungrounded PCB's making noise and some resistors on the powerstage that were almost fried due to a hot bias setting.
It was a different amp tho, but I can't speak more of it cause of the great shame I feel when I think of the reasons I had to sell it ( a fucking dayjob at a supermarket, that was it)
 
powerball rocks but is twice the proce - if you can find one in good working order get a 5150 mk1 or 6505 I heard one of those recently - a band called head on - and I was very impressed by the balls it had.
 
I think it's really just a case-by-case thing. I've had probably 5 different ones in the studio, and they all sounded a little different, even when you swapped out the tubes. So far the best-sounding of all of them is the 6505+ I have now.
 
moose209 said:
powerball rocks but is twice the proce - if you can find one in good working order get a 5150 mk1 or 6505 I heard one of those recently - a band called head on - and I was very impressed by the balls it had.
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Although the 5150mk1 is an awesome head a lot of the balls it had in that instance probably came from Oz, head Ons guitar player.


Where did you see them?
 
i had both block letters (bill steers old one) and signature, both mark 1's. Its a myth about them being different tho the tubes were shot in bills old head.
 
Andy Sneap said:
i had both block letters (bill steers old one) and signature, both mark 1's. Its a myth about them being different tho the tubes were shot in bills old head.
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Nothing has been changed in the design of these amps at all apart from the cosmetic changes discussed here. All the actual workings have stayed the same design from the block letters models right to the 6505s today. The type of valves used has changed basically due to prices available at the time of production.
 
prititing said:
What about the JSX? Is it better then the 5150 overall? I saw it going cheaper then 5150 on eBay.
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The JSX is a different amp entirely. If you saw one cheaper than a 5150 then buy it quick. they retail at £450 more!!
 
the only reason to go with the block letter v.s. the sig is because a lot of people do buy into the hype that the block letter is better, and 20 years from now it may be worth an insane amount

i've owned a block letter, and currently have the sig; it sounds just as good

the jsx is a great sounding and versatile heads...but there's only one way to get 5150 tones
 
moose209 said:
powerball rocks but is twice the proce - if you can find one in good working order get a 5150 mk1 or 6505 I heard one of those recently - a band called head on - and I was very impressed by the balls it had.
Click to expand...

i play bass in head on!
yeah i was gonna say that the guitarsist in one of my bands (head-on) has a block letter and a signiture (both mk1) and with the same tubes etc they sound the same. he has different tubes in them at the mo and prefers the block letter as it has crunchier mids, dunno what tubes are in it tho.
i have a signiture mk 1 and borrowed a mk2 before and found that more hissy but again its a tube issue.
i'd say get the cheapest one u come across and stick new tubes in it, 5150 mk, 2, 6505, + etc r all the same sound. if u really want seperate eq for the cleaner stuff then a mk 2 or + but to be honest u arent gonna get any great cleans out of it either way (can sound cool with some chorus and compressor tho).
havent played a jsx but have heard that they sound like a poor mans xxx so would consider a xxx before a jsx.
 
Descent said:
havent played a jsx but have heard that they sound like a poor mans xxx so would consider a xxx before a jsx.
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Its the other way round Ross the Boss the JSX is an improvment on the Triple x The Butcher
 
Let me quickly hijack this thread and say that tomorrow is the sixth anniversary that I bought my sig 5150... for $300!

Still incredibly happy with the beast. Honestly, you can't go wrong with any of the models.

.j.
 
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