EVH 5150III Amplifier Review(michael_britt | Posted 2009-12-17)  The new Fender-made EVH 5150III amp is the latest in the line of signature EVH amps, formerly made by Peavey. The amp gurus at Fender put real Fender tone into the clean channel of this amp and the gain channels are pure Eddie all the way. Now, before I begin, I must confess that I’m not a big-hair rocker or metalhead. I tend to prefer vintage amps, but I’m not at all opposed to trying new stuff and my idea of “enough gain” is in the Plexi realm, maybe with a toe in the JCM800 pool. So let’s begin. First of all, this amp is a beast. It’s large. It’s heavy. It has a bunch of knobs. The cool thing is that it’s got a bunch of knobs... and I’m quite happy with a volume and tone knob, mind you. Most 3-channel amps on the market skimp on the clean channel in favor of face-melting distortion on the other two channels. Many of them only have controls for Volume, Bass, Middle and Treble. The beauty of the 5150III in my opinion is the “Gain” knob on the clean channel in addition to the aforementioned V, B, M, and T controls. Plus, there’s the handy Presence control in the power amp section. The addition of the Gain knob makes this amp special for players like me. You see, I don’t like a sterile, wimpy clean sound that sounds like you just took your Les Paul and plugged it into a walkman. For those of us who like Fender amps turned up to about 5-6 with just a hair of grit when we hit it hard, it’s there in Ch. 1. If you like your Fender amp turned up to 8-9, just turn up the gain some more and you still have the Volume control to level the overall volume with the other channels. So if you want the thin, strummy, “I’m a sensitive Metalhead” clean you’re covered, but there’s also a huge range of spanky Country sounds and Mike Campbell rootsiness in this amp as well. You have to keep in mind that you’re not playing through a low-wattage Princeton and that you have 100 watts on tap, so the feel is going to be a tad stiffer, but the tradeoff is that you have a lot of headroom and your amp won’t get lost behind a loud drummer, which has always been an issue for me. Ch. 1 also takes pedals very well and in my experience in a live setting with the tone controls at 12:00, I use Ch. 1 about 80% of the time, sometimes with a boost or an overdrive pedal in front, depending on the needs of the song. Moving on to Channel 2... This channel enters Plexi world. Eddie’s sound in the 70’s was pure cranked Plexi and for me, Channel 2 is great. The range of gain available via the control layout (G, B, M, T, V---all three channels have the same layout of controls) is pretty big, very similar to a non-master Marshall. For my needs, Ch. 2 has more than enough gain to be used as a lead channel. The tone is thick and throaty with just the right amount of mids to sound like a Marshall but with more bottom end on tap if you need it. If you need that whack-in-the-face attack, there’s still the separate Presence knob for each channel. I’ve used this amp with a variety of speakers and cabinets and it’s not really very picky. It sounds great with the EVH cabinet with modified Greenbacks and I’ve used mine a lot with an open-back 212 loaded with a Vintage 30 and a Celestion Gold. This is not a one-dimensional rock amp, although it does rock! Ch. 3 is an extension of Ch. 2, but with what sounds like about 4 gain stages added. It gets really thick very quickly and I find myself having to turn down the bass at lower volumes. With my style of playing, I use it for true-sounding 80’s rock covers but I seldom get the Gain past 11:00. For those harder players, there should be enough gain for most of you. I wouldn’t be a great judge on the overall tightness of the sound compared to, say, a VHT or Diezel. To me, it’s probably a touch more organic than those with a warmer (dare I say “Brown-er”) overall tone and smoother attack. Keep in mind, this amp was designed by Eddie, who I think tends to favor a saturated but fluid attack. The bells and whistles include a rugged 4-button channel selector/fx loop off/on selector and a pretty darn good fx loop so your delays and reverbs fall after the amp distortion as God intended. Yes, your soundman will tell you to turn down, but it’ll be kinda hard to hear him because it’s hard to stop playing this amp long enough. If I must be critical... The amp is big and heavy. They’ve added extra handles on the sides so you can recruit friends to help you with it, which is nice. The amp is a pc-board design made in Fender’s Mexico plant. That may scare boutique buyers, I’m not sure, but mine has been pretty bullet-proof over a year and a half of road and studio use. And it doesn’t sound like a glassy, class A work of art or a Trainwreck. It’s thick and punchy, a little gnarly, and your notes will smash together just a little bit, but it gets loud and it’s a man’s amp. Be warned, although it can be run at quiet levels the preamp tone alone doesn’t open up until you get the output tubes working with the Volume knobs up past 9:00. If you’re looking for a really versatile 3-channel amp that takes pedals like a pro, I prefer this to anything near it in the price range and even many above it. Despite the many knobs, it doesn't take a lot of tweaking to make it sound good. Set the tone knobs around noon and tweak little bits from there. The clean channel goes beyond “usable” into “hey, this sounds good!” and the gain channels make you think you sound like Eddie... the verdict is still out. 
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