Peavey 5150 II

the 5150 2x12 is a streight ford amp. nothing too special. it has 2 power amp tubes and 4 or 5 pre amps. it has an effects loop and a high and low input which is niceand a speaker ext. it has a pre for both chanels. the only thing that i thought that this amps could use was two seperate eq chanels. both chanels share the highs, mids, and lows. there's a pres and res settings too which helps alot to shape out your sound. and dont forget about the reverb that i dont use. the reverbs good but i just dont use reverb with my sound. one thing that i found nice was that you can unhook the 2x12 speakers and hook it up to another cab.

this amps is loud.i have a 5150 2x12 and i plug it up to my hughes and kettner warp7 cab and i get a crushing sound. i use a schecter 006,c-1, and a esp h-120 all loaded with emg hz's and i get a killer tone with it.i play streight up metal and this amp has what it takes to have the amount of clarity and gain you need. the res n pres knobes do the overall trick. when your kranking the gain and volume up all the way this amps could use a noise suppresor.the clean channel is awsome too. its as clear as a whistle.id like to add some rack gear like a band eq and a maxamizer to thicken up my sound some more.but thats just because i like extremely thick sounds. just as a suggestion if the 50150 starts to sound like its breaking out and weak i would get some mesa tubes. i have come to believe their more punchier and have more gain behind them. they also seem to hold the sound together more at higher setings.

this amp is a behemoth. umm. ive luged it everywhere and i know that this amp can take a beating. it's solid.

i've been playing guitar for about three years now and i've gone through acouple amps and rackmout gear and nothing compairs to it.i use to have a randall classic 100,i still have the huges and kettner warp7 half stack,ect.there have been acouple things that i get bumed out about with this amp and i think that its trying to get a thick/high sound. i have trouble getting the two together but that just might be because i dont have it tweeked out yet.but overall i think that this is a killer amp.its cut through. n/e one that wants the whole despided icon,god forbid,unearth feel you should pick up this amp.

Made in 2003. Bought it new in Nov/2004. I play with a major pop star from my country, Serbia And Montenegro, and in a band doing classic/hard/heavy rock covers. The amp pretty much covers it all. It has two main channels "rhythm" and "lead". Bright and crunch switches on rhythm channel. Resonance and presence for each channel. Series effects loop, preamp out (never used this), 4-8-16 ohm switch, bias test points, 6 12ax7 (came with 3 EH and 3 Sovtek LPS' tubes), 4 6L6 (Sovtek WXT+), 120W R.M.S., 3 button footswitch (main channel select, crunch on/off, loop on/off). Never turned channel's master volumes behind 12 o'clock! Very very LOUD!

I'm using this head with Wolfgang standard tremolo and stock EB/MM Silhouette (h/s/h). However, played it with various guitars - Gibson SG, LP, Fender strats, Ibanez, Hamer, Kramer... We are doing Gov't Mule, Zeppelin, Black Crowes, early VH, Grand Funk, etc covers and it suits everything, even though I like to dial in a bit more gain than Mark Farner has, but it doesn't hurt the smokin' guitar solo in "Footstompin' Music".:)
There is a certain amount of noise in lead channel (pre gain on 6) whic

Made in 2003. Bought it new in Nov/2004. I play with a major pop star from my country, Serbia And Montenegro, and in a band doing classic/hard/heavy rock covers. The amp pretty much covers it all. It has two main channels "rhythm" and "lead". Bright and crunch switches on rhythm channel. Resonance and presence for each channel. Series effects loop, preamp out (never used this), 4-8-16 ohm switch, bias test points, 6 12ax7 (came with 3 EH and 3 Sovtek LPS' tubes), 4 6L6 (Sovtek WXT+), 120W R.M.S., 3 button footswitch (main channel select, crunch on/off, loop on/off). Never turned channel's master volumes behind 12 o'clock! Very very LOUD!

I'm using this head with Wolfgang standard tremolo and stock EB/MM Silhouette (h/s/h). However, played it with various guitars - Gibson SG, LP, Fender strats, Ibanez, Hamer, Kramer... We are doing Gov't Mule, Zeppelin, Black Crowes, early VH, Grand Funk, etc covers and it suits everything, even though I like to dial in a bit more gain than Mark Farner has, but it doesn't hurt the smokin' guitar solo in "Footstompin' Music".:)
There is a certain amount of noise in lead channel (pre gain on 6) which is absolutely bearable, because you don't hear it in bedroom playing levels and in the clubs, with the crowd going crazy, you'll probably forget that your amp has any noise at all!
I use it with old Marshall 4x12 slant cab loaded with g-12h30 Celestions. Overally, the sound is punchy, fat, dense and warm with just enough clarity and presence to get through the crowd, because I hardly go thru the P.A. and I'm drivin it pretty hard (master volumes on 4.5 - 5)! This is loud! But in the same time you can stand 6 feet in front of it and don't feel uncomfortable 'bout the high volume! It's simply awesome!
Don't use the clean mode, and I agree with 99% of people who say that it sounds thin and lifeless. It gets distorted easilly at low pre gain settings, but it gets useful in some situations. I'm hardly ever using it...
Crunch ON! Well, you can nail pretty much any medium to hi-gain rock sound with it. It is kind of raw distortion, with a bit more hi mid punch compared to lead, and a bit less top end compared to lead. Very tight!
Lead! Like jumping into hyper-space in star wars! Brutal! Tons of gain! Sustains for days! Great low end! HUGE!!! It's just sounds great, plug in EVH Wolfgang you'll get new era Van Halen, get the L.P. and bring up the mids - Gary #$%^!& Moore with all of his 10 amplifier set-up! Lower the gain, neck pick-up on, there you have it - Mr. Warren Haynes himself! It just blows me away, every time I turn it on. Don't want to mention the sickest, baddest, !@#$%^' metal sounds you can get out of this thing, cause it's not my territory... But I've heard it in action!
However the tone is very subjective issue, and I'm just makin the statement that this is great amp that covers lots of stuff without tweakin' it too much.

After I got it and used it every other day, first preamp tube started to crack and hiss... Just replaced the tube, and continued abusing it on the road:) Built like tank. Very respectable amp, don't need or carry back-up.

Contacted Peavey via e-mail for schematic of the amp, when I encountered bad tube problem. Got reply within an hour or so with .pdf schematic, pc board layout and complete parts list. It turned out that it was just a bad tube.

I've been playing for 19 years. Had mainly Marshalls, and always dreamed about hi-gain heads, and I got my hands on this one! There are not much amp dealers in this part of the world (mainly Fender and Marshall) and it is very hard for a guitar player to even try some of the amps which are on "every other corner" in United States or so... I had the luck to play thru VHT Pitbull, Mesa Dual Rectifier (didn't like that), Triple XXX, JSX, Crate BV150 (lots of tubes:), Hughes&Kettner Tri-Amp (that one was very dissapointing) Engl Richie Blackmore (sounds awesome) and in the price range of 1000 euros> there's simply no better amp for me out there. Period. Would be very sad if stolen or lost, because I would have to wait for at least 3 months before my dealer gets the damn thing! Still I'm very interested in trying other amps, still gettin chills when somebody says: Soldano or Bogner, though I never had a chance to play thru it.
This is a great amp for the money you'll pay, and it's definetely worth checking out!

I bought the amp head and cab new two years ago. I play mostly death metal/melodic death metal/thrash/power metal etc and this amp is suited perfectly for playing those styles. It's got plenty of gain but if you eq it right now matter how much distortion you throw on you wont lose harmonic clarity. Within those generes it is a very versatile amp, splitting lead tones with high end to boot and more than enough mid range crunch for riffing. However, when i play jazz, this is not my amp of choice, the clean channel is basically shit, it sounds dry and has no feeling. I generally use this amp in small to medium size venues (those of you in the midwest thing The Rave in milwaukee) and it has plenty of power and presence for those places as well as smaller places such as my bands practice studio or the occasional legion hall of vfw.

Right now im using two Music Man John Petrucci Signiture models and the tone I get out of this amp with those guitars is just fucking amazing.It suits my style perfectly, in that i need to have the ability for a brutal riffing tone and also access to cleaner high end distortion for playing leads/solos in the same amp. The amp can be a little noisy on about any setting with the gain past 4 or 5 but i have a sonic maximizer ,graphic eq, and a feedback ferret, so i have zero problems, its quiet as a mouse. Within the realm of high gain sounds you can get basically any sound you want out of this amp, but if you're going to be using the clean channel a lot or you want a more low gain crunchy distortion, i would not say this is the amp for you. and basically, like i've said repeatedly, the distortion on this thing is brutal as fuck.

I tour a lot, which means my equipment can sometimes take a beating, and even so i have no qualms about using this amp without a backup. the only time i have ever had a problem with it was one time (before i had it in a head case) it got tossed around in hte trailer and all the power tubes broke, but that would happen to any amp.

never had to deal with them, but from what i hear Peavey is excellent in this area.

I have been playing guitar for 5 years, and for 3 of those years i have been playing at least 6 hours a day. I also own a bbe sonic maximizer, a graphic eq, a korg rack tuner, a furman power coniditioner, and a peavey feedback ferret. Like i said, this amps clean channel is shit, so i also own a fender '65 twin reverb. If this amp where stolen or lost i would replace it without a second thought. Before i bought it i compard with with many other amps (marshall jcm 2000, mesa boogie dual rectifier and road king, peavey xxx, marshall m4) and this amp basically trumps all of them if you're playing metal.

i have had this amp for about half a year and i have to say it is one of the best amps iv'e ever played. This amp is very versatile i can get a variety of sounds from it...from 80's crunch to the heaviest metal. This amp has three channels..channel switching, and effects loop but no headphone jakc. I do wish this amp had reverb but as one person had mentioned up top that it would make it even more heavy, which does make sense. I use alll the features on this amp its awesome.
(GEORGE (SHITTIEST PRES EVER) BUSH PLEASE EMAIL IF READ

I currently am playing a schecter c-1 with a emg 81 in the bridge and 85 in the neck. I am in a band who played technical metalcore(just like the guy on the first comment. This amp can get noisy at high levels and if you have the gain all the way up you will get feedback. The 5150 can make pretty much any type of sound you want like i said before up top but the clean isn't all that great you might want to look into a small fender and get a a/b switch if you perform.

This amp is highly reliable..ITS extremely heavy but built like a tank. I always play gigs with this amp without a backup and hasn't failed me yet.

Never dealt with peavey

I have been playing for about 4 years, i used to own a marshall avt275...it had great tone but it just couldn't deliver the volume and tone that the 5150 has. If it was stolen i would probably try to find a 5150 but if i couldn't i would just buy a 6505. I pretty much like everything about this amp exept for the no reverb thing(I understand why they don't add it for heaviness)

Bought this used a few months ago. Went to the Peavey site and found out it was made in 2000. Bought the matching cab that was made in 1999.

If you want to know how versatile this is, listen to the guitar tone on these 3 albums:
Soulfly - Soulfly (1st album)
Superjoint Ritual - Use Once and Destroy (1st album)
The Haunted - any album
*That right there will tell you how versatile this head can be and then some. To me, that's true versatility....and this is before mentioning that EVH used this for recording "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge"

A lot of people will tell you the cleans are bad. You can get them to sound pretty decent, but there are other amps out there that have better cleans.

I've used this amp in practices and on small stages. It has way too much power that I need to buy a THD hotplate with it. Until then, I turn up to 3 and I'm in a very LOUD metal band.

Another thing that makes this a very versatile amp is the # of pre-amp tubes. Since this head is mainly for distortion, the 12AX7's make a difference...NOT a big difference, but it is audible. Don't rely on tubes alone for tone. You need to look over your whole rig and deal with the major components (and keep it simple at the same time).

My current setup:

Guitars -> Wireless -> Wah -> Amp -> FX loop (Holy Grail and soon a Boss EQ-20 Advanced) -> 5150 slant cab/Homemade 2x12 with Celestion V30's.

It suits my metal style really well.

Some people may complain about noise or a "hiss." To me, it's either their setup, their tubes, or that any high-gain amp HAS background noise. If you're in a room with a HUGE P.A. setup and you turn the volume up with nothing coming out, you're going to hear a hiss. That's power to me.

As said in the previous section, the clean channel can be set good. It does distort a little at higher volumes, but you just gotta turn down the pregain a little.

The distortion is so brutal. Here's a quote I love: "6L6GCs are for the more modern metals with detunings, and lots of chug-chugging. These would be good if you want to cave in your chest."

Since I bought it used from a person, not a store, I asked about the history of the amp. No one's pushed it as much as I have. Point being, this thing IS built like a tank, but I opened it up to clean it. Some screws were loose, so I just tightened them down after dusting off the area.

I've had it for 6 months now. It's defintiely past its warranty. Inside looks like there were no previous repairs or mods. I think this thing will last for awhile. I'm definitely going to buy a new 6505+ (same thing) and keep it in the box until this one fails (if it ever does!)

I cannot give an opinion on this section. I've not dealt directly with Peavey, although I'm on their message boards everyday now. One Peavey employee is on there often and he's totally friendly and often gives non-biased opinions.

I started off with really bad equipment when I was younger (haven't most of us?). I sold my Marshall DSL 50 for this since I had to use a rack setup to get the distortion I wanted. The Marshall was great, but it does not have the built-in distortion or half the volume this thing does!!

Some may refer to this as a "Poor man's Mesa." I don't believe that's so since you cannot get them to sound exactly alike. They are differently voiced. If you talk to a Mesa owner, they'll bash Peavey and vice-versa. I am very happy with this and will always be behind Peavey and I think Mesa's are great. My choice of Mesa is the Tri-Axis with a 90/90 or the MK4 over the Rectifiers.

I hate rating everything so high, but I love my 5150 better than anything I've owned, which was not every amp, but a lot, including rack stuff

My 5150 II was apparently the last ones brought to my country before this new 6505 series, so I was lucky enough to grab this baby home with me.I play mostly heavy metal but I also like to play lots of different kinda music -> rock, ballads, a little bit of blues. And this amp does it for me. There are basicly 3 channels -> clean, crunch and lead. All I need. All tube and it?s a killer.

I use Schecter C1 Classic and I think it really brings out the best of this amp. Very versatile sounds with this baby! For the lead channel I should propably get Boss noise suppressor but it goes fine with out it too. I was stunned by the variety of sounds I got from the amp ?cause according to what majority of people where saying about it the amp has only one killer tone. It wasn?t like that at all. I found it to be very versatile ?cause it can produce that killer distortion and it also does the less distorted bluesy sound (crunch). The clean channel seems to get a bit distorted at high volumes though.

In a word the distortion u get from this amp IS brutal.

I?ve owned about three weeks now and I haven?t got any problems with it yeat.

Great! I contacted them ?cause I was building a cabinet for the amp and they gave me some directions what measures I should use. In a word awesome.

I?ve been playing about 15 years now and for the first time I decided to get gear that I would really enjoy playing and have awesome tone. I bought the schecter, 5150 II and build a cabinet for the amp. Now I?m just smiling all the time during our bands rehearsal - it?s just so nice to sound good and play with proper equipments. 5150 II is a great value for the money. I compared it to several different amps like Marshall and Line6. None came even near what 5150 II sounded to me.

Basic 5150 II Amp. No Tremolo or Reverb, but it does have an EQ for each Channel.

This is a good sounding tube amp. I use two Fender American Series Stratocasters with it and it has awesome distortion. However, the Clean channel is terrible. It does not do the clean stuff good, even with a Strat. The Clean Channel even distorts. Awesome distortion, terrible clean.

This amp will take a beating. I like how the tubes and filter caps are all safely tucked behind a steel plate.

I have never spoken with them.

I wish this had a better clean channel, but for distortion, almost nothing beats it.

120W All-tube head
6 x 12AX7 pre valves
4 x 6L6 final valves

My head was made in 2004, one of the lasts to be produced before the split between EVH and Peavey. I was lucky to get the last 5150 ever imported to Italy!

2 channels: rythm (with bright and crunch switches) and lead.
Eevery channel has indipendent bass/mid/treble controls, pre (gain) and post (volume) controls, resonance and presence controls.

Features also:
- effects loop (switchable from foot control)
- preamp out (useful if you use an external effect unit)
- 4/8/16 ohm switch

The foot control enable you to insert effects loop, select clean/crunch on rythm channel, select rythm/lead channel

It has a just a bit more than basical features, but they're enough for my needs.

With this head you can play a lot of different genres. It's been used by a lot of bands, such as Earthtone9, Soulfly, Diecast, Sick Of It All, Burst, Machine Head.. Since it has tons of gain it's good for any heavy kind of music: formerly I was in a hardcore/crossover band, now I play in a posthc/doom/psych and it still sounds perfect.

I have a Epiphone SG with Seymour Duncan JB-4 on bridge position. I use it both passed through effects and straight into the amp and it sounds good in both ways. If you don't use any noise reduction on high gain levels it becomes noisy.
Normally my setup is:

guitar > korg dt-10 tuner > boss ns-2 noise suppressor with dod compressor in the loop > peavey 5150 II

The rythm channel is a bit weak and if you need to use it both clean and crunch the the volume difference is huge. To avoid this problem I use a compressor between the guitar and the head to boost the signal when I play it clean. I like it with pre at ten with bright on, so you can get a warm and coloured sound, as old tube amps.

The lead channel is perfect and very verstile. If you need deftones-like open sound, if you need tight sound for thrash/death metal, If you just need rock distortion, you'll get any of them. With six preamp tubes it has tons of gain, but it never goes out of control (as happens with Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier).
Also, using the resonance control, you can really make your cabinet singing adding more charachter to your tone. I needed a bit of practice to understand how it works and how to use it, but now I think it's one of the most important features of this head.

I never had a problem with it. I own a little Rage 158 since 1996 and I can say Peaveys are built as tanks. I gig regularly without backup (also because I can't afford another 5150)

Never dealt with them. It's good since my amp is only 7 months old.

It's the most important part of my rig. If it were stolen I'd buy another (a 5150 II used or a 6505+ new, since 6505 is the new name of old 5150 serie).
It has the sounds I've always dreamt of, warm clean channel and versatile lead. In fact I bought it because many of my favourite bands use this amp.

Also, keep in mind it costs around 1000 euros, which is absolutely affordable compared with other top-liner heads (as Mesa, Randall, Crate). It's in the same price level of Laneys or Marshalls, but I think it sounds much better.

I have no idea what year this amp was made in but I'd say it was recently because this was the last shipment of the 5150's before Eddies contract ended with Peavey and they started making these amps as the 6505+. But yeah this was one of the last two 5150II amps still for sale in the country so I was stoked to get my hands on one. Anyways yeah not too many settings to fuck with your head, just enough to get a really nice metal sound outta it, I'm really impressed with the pressence dial, without it the amp would be really muddy and dull, but it really brings your sound out when turned up. Basically this is pure and simple a brutal metal amp, if your looking for anything less don't look here cause this amp was built for one reason only. Its got all the usual features most amps have nowadays, effects loop, standby switch, etc. The 5150II is an all tube amp, 10 Tubes in total. 6 12AX7 preamp tubes and 4 6L6GC power amp tubes. Its a good idea to maybe turn your amp on and leave it on standby for 2 minutes allowing the tubes to warm up, this way the tubes last longer and its good for your amp. 120 watts power, fuck I've only had this amp on 3 and that was loud enough for me in my place, I would only consider having it on 5 at most gigging venues, its just really loud.

I still can't get over the sound of this amp, its blasts my fuckin' face off everytime I play. I play my 5150II through a Mesa/Boogie Standard Rectifier Cab. I use a variety of ESP's but my favourite is my white Explorer-400 with EMG 81/60 pickups. The combination of these two are just fuckin' mind blowing, the sheer sustain and harmonics are intense, and the gain is just right in your face, it just sounds absolutely huge. I use hardly any effects at all, I just mainly wanted an amp for the gain factor. I rarely use the cleans, but they are okay if you bother to dial in a nice setting. The one thing about the 5150II is that its really hard to get a distinct signature sound, it seems no matter what tone you dial in you always seem to sound like Chimaira, or Machine Head, but I suppose that has to do with tunings as well. But in the near future I'm hoping to add a Boss GT-6 to my rig being now I seem to be writing a lot more melodic riffs and looking for kooky sounds and whatnot to add a new dimension to my music. But also the sound is really warm, its a pleasant sounding amp and each string as you strum it can be heard within the sound, its amazing! This amp is definately for the kind of metal heads looking for a huge sound along the likes of Arch Enemy, In Flames, Soilwork, Dark Tranquillity, Devildriver, Ektomorf, Children Of Bodom, Machine Head, Chimaira, Fear Factory and others. If your a big fan of those bands sounds then yeah this amp is for you for sure. Its a little noisy sometimes, I just run a MXR Smart Gate infront of my signal and it seems to work out real well. Soon enough I'm going to add a BBE Sonic Maximizer in the effects loop and really bring out that sound and clean up any loose ends. Like many other amps it can get noisy without some type of noise gate, especially when the gain is set to 10, having active pickups doesn't really help it either but you get that, overall though it fuckin slays! I'd be lost without it.

I bought the 5150II brand new and straight out of the box, I was so excited to plug in and shred away but I was absolutely devastated when I had nothing but background noise, it took me and my mate a good while to sorta figure out whether it be the speaker cable, the cabinet and so many other little things. The problem turned out to be a valve, which was the last thing I thought would be wrong with it seeming so it was brand new, but within a week the problem was fixed and its been an absolute machine ever since.

Never really dealt with Peavey themselves but the support I recieved from Just Wares was great, still under warranty they fixed me up real fast and yeah like I said before its been working great ever since.

Haven't really owned anything else, I swear by my 5150II and my ESP's to get that real heavy sound. I had tried a variety of amps before I bought the Peavey those being the Marshall Mode Four, AVT150, DSL100, TSL100 and a variety of other Marshalls recognised for their high gain abilities, never got the chance to play any Randalls, although the Marshalls are great amps in their own right, they just didn't produce that tube driven gain I was looking for, and some were solid state. But since I had bought my 5150II the company Krank had introduced the late Dimebag Darrells Krankenstein. I would love to play that amp, but yeah my 5150II will definately be my main source of amplification for quite some years. If it was stolen I would be devastated, but I think I'd pick up the 6505+ and hope that it was just as good.