Open Box EVH 5150III 15W LBX-S Head Level 1 Black

The Green channel is fine. You need to use an EQ with this though. The Green channel takes pedals well. The Red channel has way too much noise/hiss/air noise. Way too fizzy even with cutting the gain all the way down. Not usable at all.

Using this with a 4-12 cabinet. An EQ is a must. The Green channel is fine. It's clean. Works well with pedals. The Red channel not so much. With or with out the EQ, there is way too much airy noise with the Red channel. Kind of like the sound from a Jet Airplane exhaust. Way over powering. Maybe a Noisegate is needed to quite this. EQ has very little effect on the Red channel. The resonance knob on the back does bring up the lower end to where it needs to be.

If you aren't familiar with the 5150 line of amps and what they (and EVH) have done for guitar tone, there is a lot to be said.. I had a 6505MH for mainly bedroom volume metal playing and though it was always a great amp with awesome features packed into it, I felt the low end was missing just a bit and I'd rather have better tone than extra features. I always wanted to upgrade and get the tight saturated sound of the 5150 iii amps. For years they were 50 watts and up and over $1k. Not only does this amp deliver the 5150 tone, but it does it at bed room volumes and is arguably one of the coolest looking amps I have ever played/seen. It glows green on the clean channel and red on the red/lead channel. Looks aside, if I had to characterize the stealths tone vs some of the other 5150 variants, I would describe it as a modern tone with more low end focused with less harsh high end presence and slightly less mid punch than the original 5150 iii 50 watt head (that and the OG 15 watt iii). I tend to push the mids pretty hard on this amp to compensate for the darkness/low end of the tone and find the resonance and low pushed basically full really adds nice low end thump/chug for a 15 watt amp! This amp can do the Eddie brown sound or heavy modern chugging metal with ease! In fact I personally believe that the 5150s takes the crown for the best modern metal/djent tones. Just throw a solid OD pedal in front of this amp with the level at full, tone full, and gain zero and you'll have your guitar screamin/chuggin instantly. The gain knob and volume knob have a very gradual transition, and I find that you start to get into the higher gain tones after noon. The volume knob still taps into bedroom volume fairly quickly, but I find that even at full power I'm able to get a full quality tone at a pretty low volume. You can drop this head to half power and that will help further to achieve lower volumes. I find the difference is small though, so I keep it at full power for the fuller tone. I was interested in the OG 5150 iii 15 watt for the mid punch that amp has, but the immediate spike on the volume knob made it a pass for me since I'm mainly an apt/bedroom player these days. That being said, I have no doubt this amp could absolutely play at gig volumes. Any time I do start to turn it up more, it only sounds better! I thought the whole duel knob situation for volume and gain would feel terrible, but given that I mainly use the red channel even for blues and rock just dialed back, I rarely use it. The second knob is actually not terrible considering it's shared design, just a but lighter feeling. That being said, the other EQ knobs feel big and have a nice dampening that feels smooth and kind of weighted. Some amp knobs are too loose and it's hard to dial tones in more gradually. These feel fantastic. The presence adds cut without fizz like the 5150 iconic can if you push that amp too far. The resonance and low knob actually feel like they add thump/low end which is great for a amp this size/price! The one main con that I need to mention is the distinct pop that can be heard when switching channels on the amp. It's disappointing to see an amp of this quality and tone not figure out a way to eliminate that harsh noise. It's not super loud, but hearing a pop from any amp is never something you want to hear, especially if you like to switch channels mid playing with a foot switch.. That's why I gave this amp 4 stars. Also the cage like structure pretty much exposes the tubes/hardware of the head to dust or any elements that can reach the amp. If you play outside at all, you might need to take this amp off your list.. My final gripe is the lack of a reverb knob. That being said I run a zakk wylde OD and Boss NS-2 noise gate through the front end, and an oceans 11 reverb pedal through the affects loop and it sounds fantastic! Plus that reverb pedal gives me several types of reverb and extra control that a basic reverb knob could never provide, so I don't miss it. Once I had this bad boy dialed in, I just wanted to keep playing all day. The combination of great clarity, punch, low end, saturation, mean looks, and light weight package makes this a no brainer for any at home metal player. Especially if you can find one used in great condition for less money like I did! Hope this helps someone out there!

This amp is very pedal friendly. The only negitiveish thing is...I own a EVH LBX II and I run a bi-amped rig. With both amps at the same exact setting....the same speaker cable and same EVH 112 cabinets...the LBX II is louder and more open sounding than the LBX S...

If you want a cool practice amp for home use I'd look at this head.

I'm really loving this amp. It sounds great a low volumes, as well as cranked up. I've put some pedals through it, & everything works fine, but I prefer not to use them, & feel this amp doesn't need them.