The 5150 name was used again by Van Halen in partnership with Fender under the EVH brand in 20. After Van Halen and Peavey parted ways in 2004, the name was changed to Peavey 6505 in celebration of Peavey's 40th anniversary (1965–2005). The amplifier was initially created as a signature model for Eddie Van Halen. The Peavey 5150 is a vacuum tube based guitar amplifier made by Peavey Electronics from 1992 on. THE BOTTOM LINE: Incredibly versatile, packed with professional features, and affordably priced, the EVH 5150III 1x12 50-watt combo offers gigging and recording guitarists unbeatable value without compromise.Guitar amplifier Eddie van Halen playing in front of a wall of EVH 5150 amps and cabs, 2012. Output is continuously variable between 50 watts to one watt via the power level control located on the combo’s front panel.Ĭlean, crunch, and lead channels provide the full range of tones ideal for any style of music from classic country to modern metal. Tubes include a pair of JJ 6L6 power tubes and seven JJ ECC83 (12AX7) preamp tubes that provide 50 watts of output and impressive gain. This is a combo without compromise, and best of all it’s the most affordable pathway to Eddie Van Halen’s current tone zone.ĬHEAT SHEET: The closed-back design and custom internal baffling allows the single 12-inch Celestion G12M speaker to deliver huge bass and focused midrange similar to a 4x12 cabinet. Weighing 65 pounds, it’s also a more sane option for players who don’t have road crews.Įverything about the EVH 5150III 1x12 50-watt combo is professional, from its first-class sounds to its rock-solid construction. This combo is impressively loud, but the power level control allows players to tame the dBs to more sane levels for smaller clubs and studio recording. Thanks to the closed-back cabinet design and ample dimensions, which give the 12-inch speaker more room to resonate and bloom, the amp delivers similar low-end thump and focused midrange to a full-sized 4x12 cabinet. The crunch channel provides Eddie’s modern “brown” sound with sweet treble and slightly saturated sustain, while the lead channel is full-on high-gain distortion that’s perfect for solos or modern metal rhythms.
The clean channel has ample clean headroom that makes this channel ideal for use with a pedal-based rig, and it produces satisfying crisp-but-fat overdrive crunch when the gain control is between three to five o’clock. PERFORMANCE: The sound of the clean, crunch, and lead channels is almost identical to that of the original 5150III 100-watt head, although the latter two channels seem to have a touch more gain that delivers a slightly more aggressive overall edge. The combo is available either with traditional black covering or in ivory at no additional cost.
The 1x12 version of the EVH 5150III 50-watt combo is 19 pounds lighter than its 2x12 counterpart, but its overall dimensions are only three inches narrower and shorter yet 1/2-inch deeper. There’s also a master resonance knob that adjusts the tightness of the overall bass response, a 1/4-inch headphone output jack, and a 1/4-inch jack for the included four-button footswitch controller that engages individual channels and the reverb effect.Ī single 12-inch Celestion G12M speaker is housed in a birch cabinet with a closed-back design and custom internal baffling. The rear panel is packed with a variety of professional features, including a MIDI input jack (for selecting channels and engaging reverb with an optional MIDI controller), 1/4-inch preamp output, and a pair of 1/4-inch parallel speaker output jacks with a 4/8/16-ohm output selector switch. Other front panel controls include a reverb knob to adjust the level of the built-in digital reverb and a power level knob that adjusts the power output continuously from 50 watts to just one watt. Like the EVH 5150III 50-watt head and 2x12 combo, the front panel provides a set of low, mid, and high EQ, gain, and volume controls that are shared by channels 1 and 2, a second set of low, mid, high, gain, and volumes controls for channel 3 only, and a master presence control. The EVH 5150III 1x12 50-watt is much more than just a shrunken-down combo version of a 5150III half stack, offering several exclusive features that make it the ideal all-in-one alternative for club gigs, studio recording, and practice at home.įEATURES: Consistent with the other EVH 5150III amps, this 50-watt 1x12 combo offers three channels (clean, crunch, lead), a single 1/4-inch input jack, and mono 1/4-inch effect send and return jacks and is driven by 6L6 power tubes (a pair) and 12AX7 preamp tubes (seven of them).