Peavey 5150 vs EVH Iconic

I was super impressed with the Iconic. I currently do not own a high gain head, and I am strongly considering buying one for the price and tone. I have just been lingering around waiting for someone to reveal some bad aspect of it but it's not happening
 
The Iconic is a much brighter amp but that’s what the knobs are for. When I played a 5150 in the 90’s I always felt it lacked a good top end and upper mid range clarity. But it was a glorious sledgehammer all the same.
 
Love those OG 5150s, one thing always weirded me out is the presence does nothing until you hit 8. That and the mids pretty much all the way down is money.
 
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I played an Iconic a hour ago, loud through 1960AV. I must say I was very pleasantly surprised, it's damn good. At first hearing, I'd say it's better than the 5150 III 6L6. Of course, this is subjective and a matter of taste, 5150 III is not bad at all.
 
Love those OG 5150s, one thing always weirded me out is the presence does nothing until you hit 8. That and the mids pretty much all the way down is money.

I just rediscovered this strange feature yesterday. I don't actually own a 5150 anymore, but I've had one in my house for close to 30 years because it belongs to the other guitarist in my band. I sold my own block letter maybe 8 years ago and haven't really played one since then. Yesterday I was messing around with all my amps and decided to try out my buddy's 5150. I guess I forgot about the presence thing because I initially thought it was broken.

While I was playing around with all the amps, it occurred to me that My Rev Blue Uber, and the 5150 sound surprisingly similar. Both have that really cool bottom end thump that a lot of amps just don't have.
 
I’ve had my Iconic for a while now and my opinion hasn’t changed, it’s still by far the best amp out there for the money. It’s a real shame it got black balled from the start.

Yeah EVH put out that pretty poor sounding official demo which set the tone for forums idiots (who can't hear where the amp stops and the cab or guitar starts) to loudly write them off forever because of one shitty clip.

The Iconic is a great amp.
 
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Love those OG 5150s, one thing always weirded me out is the presence does nothing until you hit 8. That and the mids pretty much all the way down is money.
I red somewhere that the presence pot should be linear, but instead is log. That’s why you have to turn it up high to get an effect
 
I red somewhere that the presence pot should be linear, but instead is log. That’s why you have to turn it up high to get an effect

Word is that Ed told James Brown he liked the Presence knob like that, so James did it that way, and that design persisted all the way up until the EVH 50w head where it was changed to a more linear design, and funny enough, it’s where James Brown took the Iconic’s Presence knob design from as well.
 
I played an Iconic a hour ago, loud through 1960AV. I must say I was very pleasantly surprised, it's damn good. At first hearing, I'd say it's better than the 5150 III 6L6. Of course, this is subjective and a matter of taste, 5150 III is not bad at all.
Absolutely better than the III 6l6.
 
Bummer. My Iconic failed today. Low volume so I put new tubes in. Turned it on then loud hum for a second then nothing. At least one internal fuse blew. Off to the tech tomorrow;(.
 
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