Guitar Gear Forum

Inquiring minds and all that, good sir

I think it is a great sounding amp but it's overkill, since the stock blue channel has more than enough gain for my needs.

And in general the 100w versions sound tighter and bigger, but 50ws are great and the size/features/power ratio is one of the best in the market.

I've tried all other variants. It fits my dual 112 quarter stack perfectly. The 100 watter is supposed to absolutely humongous so T stack would be an understatement I know it's gainy beyond belief but might be cool as a channel switcher?

JiveTurkey wrote:I've tried all other variants. It fits my dual 112 quarter stack perfectly. The 100 watter is supposed to absolutely humongous so T stack would be an understatement I know it's gainy beyond belief but might be cool as a channel switcher?

It is humongous. And even with the ridiculous size, they still had to stick the power and standby switches on the back.

I have the OG 5153 and while it's a great sounding amp, as soon as I get around to it, I'm gonna offload it and replace it with a 5150 or 6505 or maybe something else simply because of the stupid size and the rear mounted switches. Fuck those assholes for putting the switches on the back.

^I feel your pain. Things like that on an amp instantly drive me nuts the older I get.

ZEEGLER wrote:

JiveTurkey wrote:I've tried all other variants. It fits my dual 112 quarter stack perfectly. The 100 watter is supposed to absolutely humongous so T stack would be an understatement I know it's gainy beyond belief but might be cool as a channel switcher?

It is humongous. And even with the ridiculous size, they still had to stick the power and standby switches on the back.

I have the OG 5153 and while it's a great sounding amp, as soon as I get around to it, I'm gonna offload it and replace it with a 5150 or 6505 or maybe something else simply because of the stupid size and the rear mounted switches. Fuck those assholes for putting the switches on the back.

I agree the switches should be on the front for an amp that big, but the switches on the back don't bother me as much as it used to. I played a few gigs with the 50w 5153 this year and whenever I'm setting up on stage, I need to reach the back of the amp to plug the power cord, speaker cable, footswitch etc... so flipping the switches at that point is not an issue.

When I had the amp on a static setting (i.e. home) and had all connections constantly plugged in the back, I was annoyed with it. But once I started to gig the amp, it became a non issue since I have to reach the back of the rig anyway to set up/tear down.

Yeah the 50s is great. It was the amp that finally made me let go of my 5152. I had them both for about 6 months before deciding. I think I kept the 50s for maybe 2 months after I got the 100s. To me, the 100s is the best sounding of all the 5150s I’ve played. I think the 100 el34s is the only one I haven’t played at this point. But yeah anyone considering the 50s, it’s a go on my end.

You probably didn't test this lol; but how crunchy does the green channel get if you crank up the gain knob?

Haha nope. Did not try that.

JiveTurkey wrote:You probably didn't test this lol; but how crunchy does the green channel get if you crank up the gain knob?

crunchy...ehh. It tough to say. Not crunchy tight. But it can get overdriven like a Plexi for sure.But kinda that big bloated crunch. Of course you can try to eq it to be a little tighter but it seems to lose the best qualities of cranking that channel and gets kinda bright.. But yeah, its a legit sound.

I found a YT vid from a rocknchippy(?) who I think is or was on here? He dimed the clean channel and it was certainly (what I think of as)Plexi-ish? Had some tube roll suggestions in the comments section as well to tame it just a bit. I might try grabbing a used one somewhere and seeing how I end up liking it.

EndTime wrote:

JiveTurkey wrote:You probably didn't test this lol; but how crunchy does the green channel get if you crank up the gain knob?

crunchy...ehh. It tough to say. Not crunchy tight. But it can get overdriven like a Plexi for sure.But kinda that big bloated crunch. Of course you can try to eq it to be a little tighter but it seems to lose the best qualities of cranking that channel and gets kinda bright.. But yeah, its a legit sound.

Yeah I agree. It gets crunchy but it's a round, Fender-y type of crunch. More Bassman than Plexi IMHO.

It's cool but hard to balance out with the other channels.

I'd run the green channel with the gain at 12 or 1 o'clock at the most. That's still clean but with a touch of breakup and it responds well to an OD pedal if you want more gain.

Blue channel with the gain low will give you more of a legit crunch tone IMHO

I want a 5153 but on the fence about what version to get. Been leaning towards 6L6 stealth.

GuitarBilly wrote:
More Bassman than Plexi IMHO.

...Blue channel with the gain low will give you more of a legit crunch tone IMHO

I like the idea of this actually. I'd ideally like to use it as a channel switcher vs. stacking gain on top via pedals. Lord knows it has enough gain built in

JiveTurkey wrote:I found a YT vid from a rocknchippy(?) who I think is or was on here? He dimed the clean channel and it was certainly (what I think of as)Plexi-ish? Had some tube roll suggestions in the comments section as well to tame it just a bit. I might try grabbing a used one somewhere and seeing how I end up liking it.

Yeah I’ve seen that vid and that guys vids of his 5153’s. They are pretty accurate Altho he definitely dials em like later era vh. I believe he claimed that 6l6 stealth 100 may just be the hidden feature on the green is to to turn em all to 10!

I tried it with my el34 100 and it’s a bit too bright like that but the green also gets overdriven on that amp too. I can’t remember how the 50 watters responded

Here’s a breakdown of all the models made by one of the old Fender amp designers. Howard Kaplan.
Altho I couldn’t attach a pdf and just took a screenshot. Not sure it’s all easy to see/read

If you can read it, you’ll see all the combos are basically Stealth versions. And if you’ve ever played one you’ll hear those things really scream!

EndTime wrote:If you can read it, you’ll see all the combos are basically Stealth versions. And if you’ve ever played one you’ll hear those things really scream!

I can see it on my phone but old man eyes render it unreadable I'm pretty sure I will end up with a 50 watt stealth here before too long

JiveTurkey wrote:

EndTime wrote:If you can read it, you’ll see all the combos are basically Stealth versions. And if you’ve ever played one you’ll hear those things really scream!

I can see it on my phone but old man eyes render it unreadable I'm pretty sure I will end up with a 50 watt stealth here before too long

Yeah it's a great amp and it would integrate into your rig very easily with the MIDI capabilities.

One of the great things I like about the 5153 is you can put a cord in the headphone output and it acts as a speaker defeat. I used to run mine without a cab into WOS and use their power amp sims for different tones.

Chris Z wrote:One of the great things I like about the 5153 is you can put a cord in the headphone output and it acts as a speaker defeat. I used to run mine without a cab into WOS and use their power amp sims for different tones.

I wish that headphone out was direct without the baked in cab emulation. I could do some things with that

JiveTurkey wrote:

Chris Z wrote:One of the great things I like about the 5153 is you can put a cord in the headphone output and it acts as a speaker defeat. I used to run mine without a cab into WOS and use their power amp sims for different tones.

I wish that headphone out was direct without the baked in cab emulation. I could do some things with that

Is that supposed to have a cab sim on it? Christ

That thing is the only “downside” of the regular version to me

Definitely get a stealf

JiveTurkey wrote:

Chris Z wrote:One of the great things I like about the 5153 is you can put a cord in the headphone output and it acts as a speaker defeat. I used to run mine without a cab into WOS and use their power amp sims for different tones.

I wish that headphone out was direct without the baked in cab emulation. I could do some things with that

They have a preamp out for that, which is separate from the headphones out and fx loop.

The features on the 5150 50w are unbeatable. It's probably one of the most flexible amps in the market.

^Absolutely. Just wanted the full amp minus cab emulation enchilada. I am probably going to end up with a Suhr reload at some point. For reasons I am not really sure of

JiveTurkey wrote:^Absolutely. Just wanted the full amp minus cab emulation enchilada. I am probably going to end up with a Suhr reload at some point. For reasons I am not really sure of

The headphone output is also from the preamp only. The only way yo get the whole amp is with a load.

I don't think it make a lot of difference in an amp like that though. Most of the tone is in the preamp.