Did anyone keep their VHT Sig-X or EVH 5150 III?

[degenaro]

I agree with that. I have not been able to get a Splawn modded marshall yet. They say that those marshalls are some of Scott's best work.

I love my 2004 Splawned 2203X !!

VH I "in a box"

How would a modded 2203 be anything like VHI?

 

[van hellion]

i still have my evh 5153 and i love it. great modded marshall sounds

peace
A Wood

 

[philb]

I still enjoy the Sig-X very much. beside a bad preamp, it's been very reliable.
It gets played quite a bit along with the Mark IV.

 

[stephen sawall]

I have about a dozen amps. The Egnator Rebel-20 is cool for what it is. The amps I plug into the most is my Mesa Mark IV, VHT - Sig -X and my favorite the THD Flexi 50. There are things I like and dislike about every amp I have or least things I wish they could do.

 

[degenaro]

But for the live of me I will never understand folks getting an amp and changing bias and tubes and what not instead of even getting acquainted with it...

Many people like to experiment with tubes and bias settings. I don't think there's anything else to "understand" about it, is there?

really? ypu wanna go there? you over biased the amp, i told you so you didn't belive me and the the complaining about the wrong screenprinting etc..."issues" blah, blah, started. Now if many folks actually had a tad better understanding of this instead of just willy nilly yanking tubes then maybe there'd be less lemming runs off the cliff. Everytime some one has an amp and plays them fot less than an hour before they start "improving" it...yeah I wonder about the ommon sense there...
and I have a sig off the first run that hasn't had any issues...

 

[dwvinky]

I have read about 5 or 6 people with SIG-X problems within the last year.

Yeah, that amp sure didn't get off on the right foot, did it? Kinda sucks, because it's a cool amp with tons of features that isn't super expensive. Has there been any talk about VHT "correcting" the issue that was in the first batch?

I contacted VHT directly and they said there were two initial bugs in the first batch. One was a bad batch of preamp tubes and the other was an i.c. in the channel switching circuit that caused a loud pop when switching channels. They assured me both of these issues have been corrected.

 

[jcj]

I agree with Ed here. One should really live with a new amp for awhile, especially an amp as feature laden as the Sig-X, before messing with tube changes, bias, etc.

Those are pretty minor tweaks for my money, not something I typically screw with unless the amp is sounding waaaay different than what I expected. Not something that needs to be lived with, in my opinion. It's one of those "if this doesn't work, I'm selling it" kind of things....sometimes gear jusn't isn't "one size fits all", again, all IMO.

 

[CocoTone]

You'd like the Sig X Carl. Takes pedals like mofo, lots of big clean headroom too.

CT.

 

[bartmcartman]

You'd like the Sig X Carl. Takes pedals like mofo, lots of big clean headroom too.

CT.

My friend Muddy, who is a tone and pedal maven, loves his Sig-X.
This is a cool demo vid-

http://www.guitarplayertv.com/index.htm ... annel=amps

as well as the one Pat shot at Namm-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMijMa-tbKw

I thought the clean tones and mid gain tones on the guitar player review were really nice but thought he had the heavy gain tones sounding like poo. That amp is capable of much better sounding high gain tones than that. I let mine go and can say that I often miss it. Probably another one in my future someday.

 

[Rufus Leaking]

When I checked the bias on my 5150 III it was down around 16ma when it should have been around 35 The bias pot maxed out at 25ma so it was still cold.

It was a good sounding amp but definitely not a bargain at $2K new.

 

[degenaro]

I agree with Ed here. One should really live with a new amp for awhile, especially an amp as feature laden as the Sig-X, before messing with tube changes, bias, etc.

I think you should always check the bias on a new/used amp to see if it's set correctly. That's just to make sure it's performing the way it should. Has nothing to do with tube changes or whatever.

you check the timing on the engine of a new car? Or you just drive it? I have never checked bias on any of my own amps unless there was a tube change/issue.
But you're conveniently forgetting how this shit went down...you went on to pretty much say that your Crate Power Block was just as good when the Sig failed, and subsequently led the way of bashing them for "systemic failure". You have enough clout on this forum that IMO you pretty much killed that amp around here. Which is your prerogative. But lets not play coy about it.

 

[degenaro]

I agree with Ed here. One should really live with a new amp for awhile, especially an amp as feature laden as the Sig-X, before messing with tube changes, bias, etc.

Those are pretty minor tweaks for my money, not something I typically screw with unless the amp is sounding waaaay different than what I expected. Not something that needs to be lived with, in my opinion. It's one of those "if this doesn't work, I'm selling it" kind of things....sometimes gear jusn't isn't "one size fits all", again, all IMO.

this makes no sense in response to his post....

 

[degenaro]

you check the timing on the engine of a new car? Or you just drive it? I have never checked bias on any of my own amps unless there was a tube change/issue.
But you're conveniently forgetting how this shit went down...you went on to pretty much say that your Crate Power Block was just as good when the Sig failed, and subsequently led the way of bashing them for "systemic failure". You have enough clout on this forum that IMO you pretty much killed that amp around here. Which is your prerogative. But lets not play coy about it.

I'm not conveniently forgetting anything. I don't see how comments about the Crate PowerBlock as a backup relates to checking the bias on the Sig:X. You're clearly just trying to be a dick. Oh well... Sorry your feelings are hurt because some people don't love the amp you praise regularly. No big deal to me.

Let me summarize for those reading along at home, so they don't get the wrong impression from your asshole posts.

- I got the Sig:X and wasn't sure I loved it from the beginning
- Checked the bias as I do with all amps to see where it's at, then I set it according to the instructions from VHT
- Posted about it on the VHT board and they said their instructions are wrong, so I set the bias back close to where they recommend
- Amp went down on the last set at a gig. No sound at all.
- Hooked up the Crate PowerBlock to get back up and running expecting to hate every second of it and to everyone's surprise, it sounded great. Definitely not THAT much worse than the Sig:X. Everyone in the band agreed, as well as the soundman. It was the topic of discussion for the rest of the night.
- I contacted VHT and they said the amp probably went into thermal shutdown because of a power surge at the club.
- I looked around in the amp and used it for several more weeks and no more issues, so I sold it.

Now what am I leaving out? Nothing. But since this is a free country, feel free to continue making shit up to make me look like an inexperienced guy that "broke" my amp and tried to blame VHT. There are alot of folks on here that know I'm truthful and you're an ass, so I'm not too worried about it.

Gotta go for now.

right...you go big guy...you have such a fucking chip on your shoulder. My asshole posts? fuck you, Chris, as for your truthfulness...right, not like the shit you pulled under fake handles about THD in the past.
Ban me...

 

[jcj]

I agree with Ed here. One should really live with a new amp for awhile, especially an amp as feature laden as the Sig-X, before messing with tube changes, bias, etc.

Those are pretty minor tweaks for my money, not something I typically screw with unless the amp is sounding waaaay different than what I expected. Not something that needs to be lived with, in my opinion. It's one of those "if this doesn't work, I'm selling it" kind of things....sometimes gear jusn't isn't "one size fits all", again, all IMO.

this makes no sense in response to his post....

I'm not sure how it makes no sense....A. Swapping tubes, or checking bias, is not a big deal B. If I'm doing that, it's because an amp doesn't sound right to me, and I'm trying to eliminate faulty tubes as the issue. C. Sometimes an amp just doesn't fit everyone, so even with no issues, it gets moved on. I don't get your confusion. Not talking about the Sig X, just gear in general. Maybe I wasn't clear, if that's the case, sorry to ruffle feathers.

 

[degenaro]

I'm not sure how it makes no sense....A. Swapping tubes, or checking bias, is not a big deal B. If I'm doing that, it's because an amp doesn't sound right to me, and I'm trying to eliminate faulty tubes as the issue. C. Sometimes an amp just doesn't fit everyone, so even with no issues, it gets moved on. I don't get your confusion. Not talking about the Sig X, just gear in general. Maybe I wasn't clear, if that's the case, sorry to ruffle feathers.

Now it makes sense. Yeah if it's off then sure, but how many times do we see guys that toss new tubes in a brand new amp before they even turn it on, and have no point of reference.

 

[zewango]

I picked up a 5150 III. It sounded much better through the EVH cabinet then my Greenback Marshall.
After a week I decided to return it to Sam Ash. Wasnt worth $2k (for me) even though I paid less.

 

[van hellion]

in reffernce to what ed said about tube swapping new amps.....not just that (great point) but what about how much research and development that is put into some of these super $$$$ amps. wouldn't you think the folks producing it would spend the time to find the perfect brand/type of tube for you? i know that having several different amps i like diferent sounds, but if i want a 6l6 type of sound i am going to choose an amp designed around those tubes (boogie for example) same wih my Diezels. i know for a fact Peter spends countless hours trying to figure out what tubes work and he is the guy designing and updateing the amps so wouldnt he know how to pull the best out of it?

just my 2 cents

A Wood

 

[ejecta]

right...you go big guy...you have such a fucking chip on your shoulder. My asshole posts? fuck you, Chris, as for your truthfulness...right, not like the shit you pulled under fake handles about THD in the past.
Ban me...

Just a perspective with no dog in the fight...... your posts as of late and in this thread are coming off very condsending. The only reason I'm posting is somemone posted a comment about me acting like a dick not long ago and it helped me see that I was. Now Im not trying to start shit but your posts this time around are getting pretty hostile and maybe me posting this will help you rethink what you are saying and how you are saying it.

 

[Giga]

in reffernce to what ed said about tube swapping new amps.....not just that (great point) but what about how much research and development that is put into some of these super $$$$ amps. wouldn't you think the folks producing it would spend the time to find the perfect brand/type of tube for you? i know that having several different amps i like diferent sounds, but if i want a 6l6 type of sound i am going to choose an amp designed around those tubes (boogie for example) same wih my Diezels. i know for a fact Peter spends countless hours trying to figure out what tubes work and he is the guy designing and updateing the amps so wouldnt he know how to pull the best out of it?

just my 2 cents

A Wood

You would only be right if your "tonetaste" was exactly the same as the amp designers'. I think the most important criterium in tube choices for designers is reliability even if that means tone suffers.
And I don't mean the choice between EL34 vs 6L6 f.i.; there aren't many amps that are plug and play with different powertube "families" so to speak.

Giga.

 

[Giga]

You would only be right if your "tonetaste" was exactly the same as the amp designers'. I think the most important criterium in tube choices for designers is reliability even if that means tone suffers.
And I don't mean the choice between EL34 vs 6L6 f.i.; there aren't many amps that are plug and play with different powertube "families" so to speak.

Giga.

True. I actually agree with spending at least some quality time with an amp before changing the tubes. However, I was simply talking about checking the bias to make sure it's set where it's supposed to be.

Haha, hey now, you don't have to defend yourself on my account ! Actually, for me it's standard procedure too, to check the bias of a new amp.

It's weird though; normally Ed seems like an amical (sp?) enough dude but every now and then he turns into a grumpy internet masochist...

Giga.