Help: Ultra-Lead, Archon, or 5153 ???

[Mailman1971]

Out those 3...I would get the Archon. Its just a nut grabber from the get go!

I didnt like the VHT. But the 5153 is a kick ass amp.

 

[sjk]

Out those 3...I would get the Archon. Its just a nut grabber from the get go!

I didnt like the VHT. But the 5153 is a kick ass amp.

That Archon sounds great!

 

[Mailman1971]

Out those 3...I would get the Archon. Its just a nut grabber from the get go!

I didnt like the VHT. But the 5153 is a kick ass amp.

That Archon sounds great!

Just last weekend I had one at my house. Had 4 other guitarists over. We did about 15 A/B tests against my Diezel VH4 channel 3. God Damn if the Archon wasnt nailing the same tone. Serious.
Other people may say no....but we had 4 guys that play all the time say....yes it does.
And I trust their ears 100 percent.

 

[prsplayer86]

Well Im getting the vht this Saturday just out of the sheer resale / trade value . I'm sure if it doesn't tripp my trigger I'll just trade it for something else or throw it on here and eBay .

Does anyone have any experience running 6550s in a UL ? I've got a killer set of fairly new 6550's and Im thinking about putting them in the UL.

 

[rottingcorpse]

Stick with the kt88s. If you must swap peamp tubes, get with some of the other ul guys here, they have swapped every pre tube imaginable to come up with great recipes.

 

[locoed]

I have an Ultralead and a 5153, while I totally dig the 5153, saturation and tone, best bet is the
Ultra, does cleans better, it's tighter, it's the most reliable amp I've owned.
Cons- the ultra isn't a forgiving amp, but it'll make you a better player if your not lazy.
And it tracks well, not to say the 5153 doesn't but, be safe and get an Ultra.
Not to mention Steve is a cool helpful guy. I'm hoping I'll never have to deal with
Fender, try to imagine that phone call if you have a tech question.

I will say this, I ran both amps today, 2 heads 2 cabs and it was a monster.
Uber-metal-stereo

 

[xGYPSYx]

here's the FNG's 2cents for ya....

I just had an archon....kept if for 3 weeks....returned it.

Dirty channel - great, neat, complex, fairly deep front to back. You just power up, run all knobs to 12'oclock, come off standby and go. Gobs of gain.

Clean channel - the after thought. The last 16 bucks of their r&d budget. Something duck taped on to the final product right at the end.

"we have 16 bucks left....what should we do?"

"Shit....I guess throw a clean something or other on there so we can say it's got two channels and charge more."

"10-4 boss."

That bloopy, water droppy jazz sound from the PRS youtube video already posted is the only thing it does. Nothing really changes no matter how dramatically you get after dem'knobs. You can run the volume (gain) up but it just gets farty and nasty....and if you run it too hot on the master it gets farty as well. Not a lot of head room on either channel really.....even in 100watt mode.

The dirty channel is really similar with regard to the fact that there's not much versatility. It has this one predominant color....not a lot of variation. Just minute variations on the shades of it's color...and for a 2k new, 1k used amp....you need more color on your tonal pallet.

Ultimately, I found my dream amp, an Einstein and thus far (it's only been a few days) and so far so good but I'm also in the middle of testing some iso cab designs so I haven't done much "playing" so much as I've done a lot of listening as I sub damping materials and play with porting.

I've recently become very critical of my tone and I'm on fully in the throes of an earnest quest....so who knows what tomorrow will bring.

 

[Racerxrated]

here's the FNG's 2cents for ya....

I just had an archon....kept if for 3 weeks....returned it.

Dirty channel - great, neat, complex, fairly deep front to back. You just power up, run all knobs to 12'oclock, come off standby and go. Gobs of gain.

Clean channel - the after thought. The last 16 bucks of their r&d budget. Something duck taped on to the final product right at the end.

"we have 16 bucks left....what should we do?"

"Shit....I guess throw a clean something or other on there so we can say it's got two channels and charge more."

"10-4 boss."

That bloopy, water droppy jazz sound from the PRS youtube video already posted is the only thing it does. Nothing really changes no matter how dramatically you get after dem'knobs. You can run the volume (gain) up but it just gets farty and nasty....and if you run it too hot on the master it gets farty as well. Not a lot of head room on either channel really.....even in 100watt mode.

The dirty channel is really similar with regard to the fact that there's not much versatility. It has this one predominant color....not a lot of variation. Just minute variations on the shades of it's color...and for a 2k new, 1k used amp....you need more color on your tonal pallet.

Ultimately, I found my dream amp, an Einstein and thus far (it's only been a few days) and so far so good but I'm also in the middle of testing some iso cab designs so I haven't done much "playing" so much as I've done a lot of listening as I sub damping materials and play with porting.

I've recently become very critical of my tone and I'm on fully in the throes of an earnest quest....so who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Well, hang on to your wallet..I was in the same boat as you a few years back.....take my word for it. If you can try something out and return it in 30 days, that's your best bet....

 

[prsplayer86]

I guess my only question based on your experience is , how does it take pedals? If it has a pristine clean channel, then how well does it take distortion or boost pedals?

Same for the drive channel, does it allow pedals to color its tone ? Some of my favorite tones every have been from old fender amps and reeeeeeaaaallyyy good distortion / boost pedals. Not saying I disagree that an amp of that price point should have more than 2 tones, but if the amp itself can take pedals well.. then you can definitely get more tonal options.

here's the FNG's 2cents for ya....

I just had an archon....kept if for 3 weeks....returned it.

Dirty channel - great, neat, complex, fairly deep front to back. You just power up, run all knobs to 12'oclock, come off standby and go. Gobs of gain.

Clean channel - the after thought. The last 16 bucks of their r&d budget. Something duck taped on to the final product right at the end.

"we have 16 bucks left....what should we do?"

"Shit....I guess throw a clean something or other on there so we can say it's got two channels and charge more."

"10-4 boss."

That bloopy, water droppy jazz sound from the PRS youtube video already posted is the only thing it does. Nothing really changes no matter how dramatically you get after dem'knobs. You can run the volume (gain) up but it just gets farty and nasty....and if you run it too hot on the master it gets farty as well. Not a lot of head room on either channel really.....even in 100watt mode.

The dirty channel is really similar with regard to the fact that there's not much versatility. It has this one predominant color....not a lot of variation. Just minute variations on the shades of it's color...and for a 2k new, 1k used amp....you need more color on your tonal pallet.

Ultimately, I found my dream amp, an Einstein and thus far (it's only been a few days) and so far so good but I'm also in the middle of testing some iso cab designs so I haven't done much "playing" so much as I've done a lot of listening as I sub damping materials and play with porting.

I've recently become very critical of my tone and I'm on fully in the throes of an earnest quest....so who knows what tomorrow will bring.

 

[prsplayer86]

As it turns out, a buddy of mine ordered a 5150 III Stealth and through some sort of a mess up on AMS's part... they aren't going to have enough heads. Now he is getting a 50 watt Archon. I'll try and see If I can find a 5153 and do a comparison video of all 3 with the same guitar/cab/mic.

Actually, if anyone is in the OKC/DFW area and has a 100 watt 5150 III or 100 watt Archon and wants to get together to compare.. hit me up!

 

[xGYPSYx]

As it turns out, a buddy of mine ordered a 5150 III Stealth and through some sort of a mess up on AMS's part... they aren't going to have enough heads. Now he is getting a 50 watt Archon. I'll try and see If I can find a 5153 and do a comparison video of all 3 with the same guitar/cab/mic.

Actually, if anyone is in the OKC/DFW area and has a 100 watt 5150 III or 100 watt Archon and wants to get together to compare.. hit me up!

Wish we could have stumbled upon eachother just a few weeks ago. I would have been totally down for this.

 

[xGYPSYx]

I guess my only question based on your experience is , how does it take pedals? If it has a pristine clean channel, then how well does it take distortion or boost pedals?

Same for the drive channel, does it allow pedals to color its tone ? Some of my favorite tones every have been from old fender amps and reeeeeeaaaallyyy good distortion / boost pedals. Not saying I disagree that an amp of that price point should have more than 2 tones, but if the amp itself can take pedals well.. then you can definitely get more tonal options.

here's the FNG's 2cents for ya....

I just had an archon....kept if for 3 weeks....returned it.

Dirty channel - great, neat, complex, fairly deep front to back. You just power up, run all knobs to 12'oclock, come off standby and go. Gobs of gain.

I'm not a pedals guy, I run a tuner, a wah and a DD3 I play with at times. I've heard people get some killer tones from pedal/amp combos but I've been an amp kinda guy (something I'm actually breaking out of as we speak, bur for now...) but I didn't try any with it.

I wouldn't have called the clean pristine. It's not vivid and brilliant. It's just that one bloopy, fat, darker jazz tone....almost sounds like you're on the neck pickup even when you're on the bridge. That clean was a one trick pony (kind of like the dirty, but the dirty was a really neat one trick pony) and I wouldn't imagine it's the best blank canvas for pedals.

Someone with more pedal knowledge could chime in. I played a friedman HBE and the Cantrell the other day...now those clean channels are complex, pristine....would seem to be great candidates for pedal players....the archon clean doesn't come close to those (on the off chance you've heard them....if you give me some clean tones you're real familiar with I could try and relate them to that if I've heard them too.)

 

[gtr31]

As it turns out, a buddy of mine ordered a 5150 III Stealth and through some sort of a mess up on AMS's part... they aren't going to have enough heads. Now he is getting a 50 watt Archon. I'll try and see If I can find a 5153 and do a comparison video of all 3 with the same guitar/cab/mic.

Actually, if anyone is in the OKC/DFW area and has a 100 watt 5150 III or 100 watt Archon and wants to get together to compare.. hit me up!

That would be great love to hear the 50 watt Archon ..

 

[cujo]

Prs archon 100 watt. Rips faces off studio n live !

 

[prsplayer86]

Well all this hubbub for nothing.. I backed out of the deal. It was going to be a 6 hour drive on my part and the guy tells me it has a "power section" issue... Thankfully I didn't waste 12 hours driving to get it.. but damn.. I was curious about it.

I'm still going to get the 50 watt Archon in my studio in the near future, and I'll try and find a 5153 50 watt to compare with. I do have a pittbull classic in the studio (not mine) but I'm sure I can borrow it for a quick comparison video. I'll post it on this thread once I have it.