Hard decision especially if you are considering the Stealth version. I was told by the shop employee that the Stealth had more gain, but it just seemed to have a different kind of compression or something going on as far as I could tell when I played it, and I liked it a lot too. Either version though is great. Splawns are very straightforward modded Marshall tone pretty much with kind of a vintage feel to me. The 5153 seems to have kind of a processed feel and lead tone that makes it kind of sound more exciting. It's hard to explain but you can hit a note and bend it around, sqeal harmonics, do legato and picked runs, and somehow this processed quality (for lack of a better word) seems to give it some kind of cool elasticity. Man I would have a hard time deciding too because both amps are totally cool. I don't think Splawns get many nods for the cleans but I really like the cleans they put out. Even on the supposedly greatest clean amps, everyone seems to add reverb, delay or something anyway, and you get a fine clean sound with a touch of ambient effects through Splawns so I like both Splawn channels. By the way I used to own a Nitro EL34 version and a 2013 Quickrod. Good luck choosing, can't go wrong eiher way.