Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

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GilmourD
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Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

Post by GilmourD » Sun Jun 19, 2016 10:06 am

So, I'm generally on the side of not having much cash for gear purchases. I have a couple hundred bucks right now, though, and I found a somewhat worn Peavey 5150 cab with the original Sheffield 1200 speakers for $150 at a local shop.

Would you guys be happy with that for a GB-ish cab on a budget? I otherwise have a stock Peavey 412MS with stock Sheffield 1290s and a Jet City JCA24S (not plus) with the stock Eminence.

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Re: Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

Post by Megaro » Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:42 am

I think it depends what you are feeding it. I think it is a good choice if you are going to use it for an FX cab or if you have a clean amp feeding it a signal. But if you are going directly from a tube amp head into the cabinet, I would spend your money on a 4 x 12 with your preferred brand of Celestions or the like.

I have used at various times a Peavey 5150 4 x 12, a Marshall 4 x 12 with the g12t-75s, and an EVH cab with the 25 watt celestions. The Peavey is not bad in comparison, but it does not sound as good when hooked up to a tube amp head. Those Peaveys have plenty of headroom, but that may not be what you are looking for. In my rig, the Peavey cab did not enhance the tone of the tube amp. But this may be a plus for you depending upon what is in your signal chain before the cab.

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Re: Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

Post by sgill72 » Mon Jun 20, 2016 11:33 am

I think all EVH cabinets sound best paired with the head designed to go with them. The Peavey 5150 with the Peavey 5150 Cab sound best together. Same the the EVH versions.

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Re: Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

Post by GilmourD » Mon Jun 20, 2016 12:12 pm

I'd be using it with a Bugera 1960 Infinium loaded with JJ 6CA7s. I'm looking for something a little more midrangey than what I have.

I also have a line on a Line6 DT50 412 Straight cab. It's basically a Bogner 4x12 straight cab. It's loaded with two Vintage 30s and two G12H90s.

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Re: Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

Post by 5150Watts » Thu Jul 07, 2016 11:20 pm

I use an original 5150 cab with my 78 2203. I thought it sounded better than most Marshall cabs I tried. A vintage Marshall cab with original greenies sounded slightly better, but not by much. I have recently changed out two of the speakers for Scumback BM75's for more bite.

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Re: Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

Post by dirtycooter » Wed Jul 20, 2016 3:59 am

I have two original 5150 PV cabs for my wet outside cabs with a marshall checker greenback 1960 in the middle of them.
I have had all of them torn down before. The PV cabs are exact dimensionally to the marshall and same plywood. The rest is just cosmetics and hardware. One difference though is the front baffle is thicker on the 5150's where the speakers are mounted directly to the baffle. Stronger structurally and tighter tone here.
And I have had one of the 5150's loaded with greenbacks, sounded just as good as my marshall cab with greens maybe a bit better in the thump dept.
The original 5150 speakers though? They sound fine and blend fine and really well with another greenback cab in conjunction. Very similar. They just are a bit smoother in the OD sound dept and handle alot more wattage than a greenback.
Think of a T75 celestion here. Which is under rated as a good speaker and originally designed to be a hi power greenback choice as quoted by celestion themselves.
Bargain cab for dirt prices used these days. Every bit as good a box as a marshall IMHO.

Unless you are still the joker the believes in "magic tone wood".
Its the same 15mm thick, same amount number of plies, same back material, same size, pretty much all of what and how the marshall is built. Not gettin rid of mine ever.
A box is a box to me after seeing the build of each being so close its unreal.

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Re: Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

Post by Santino » Fri Jul 22, 2016 11:34 am

Funny how most people slam the 5150 cab. I'm glad it's getting some love here. Plus it reinforces what I've been saying for years. Bottom line it's a copy of Ed's favorite Marshall cab. Anyone who complains about it being farty sounding, well sometimes the back moves a little. A few screws added down the center solve that problem(I think that's what I recall). My two never had the issue. I've got an EVH 5150 III 2x12 combo with 25 watt greenbacks in it. The speakers sound the same as my 5150 cabs. All the talk about how the Sheffields sound like vintage 30s might not be accurate. At least not the 1200 series in the 5150 cabs.

There's so many stories about Peavey and Ed's old Marshall cab. Hartley himself said it tilted to one side and looked like it would fall over if you leaned on it. Supposedly Ed's head and cab went to Mississippi to be copied by Peavey. Ed didn't like the speakers at first. They made him copies of what was in the Marsahll cab. Problem is they were new. Ed wanted them to sound broken in. The problem was getting a new speaker to sound old and broken in and still have the long life you'd expect from a new speaker. Ed was happy with the end result and there's pictures from as late as 1996 of Ed's Marshall head sitting on a Peavey cab. So I assume he was using that setup at the time.

I've recently learned to not second guess Ed Van Halen when it comes to guitar tone and his EVH gear. If he says it's good it's good.

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Re: Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

Post by dirtycooter » Thu Sep 08, 2016 8:07 am

There was a huge article on the design of the speaker between PV and Ed. It was taken down immediately after Ed parted with PV. But it stood a long time on PV's website articles how the two worked closely in designing a speaker with that "english tone".
I found it interesting so much would go into a speaker alone. This was before I knew how much a simpke speaker could attribute itself to the tone.
But rest assured the PV 5150 original speakers are pretty nicely blended with my center dry cab green backs.
Crazy how close in sound yet different they are. I feel the PV's are axtually smoother in a way.
The new 6505 cabs from PV are not the same speaker at all. Not even the frames are the same.
I do remember the little pamphlet flyer at the music store on the "Sheffield Speaker" tone PV was promoting when in the early mid 90's it was huge deal Ed was playin PV and all the hype it generated.
But I bet the cab Hartley talks about that was fallin apart is pretty "literal".
Probably a donor cab to disect and inspect for dimensions and materials. That simple. Take it apart and copy it.
Not rocket science to figure out.
A Marshall AX, AV, 800, 900, Classic, all the same thing as PV and EVH 5150 cabs.
Its so nothing to me anymore about the actual box wooden structure of a 4x12 cab really.
If its a certain spec I am good. Don't care what year it is. Thats not tone critical once the spec is met. Cabs become cabs and nothing more.
Speakers?? Different story though. And its amazing how pluggin one head into V30's, T75's, Sheffield 5150's, Greenbacks, can affect the tone so drastically. Yet the 75's Sheffs, and Greens live more in a zipcode than many realize.
Actually a metallica tone fan. I found the KH Randall tube head and cab amazing. It was 75's and V30's in a x pattern and man.... There was THE metallica tone.
A complex thick crunch tone that just sizzled metal all day perfectly.
Its all sum of parts in the end for tone

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Re: Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

Post by fivecoyote » Thu Sep 08, 2016 4:32 pm

Great stuff to know, DC, tx for posting man. Always wondered about this -- as in they couldn't have sucked, could they?
dirtycooter wrote:I have two original 5150 PV cabs for my wet outside cabs with a marshall checker greenback 1960 in the middle of them.
I have had all of them torn down before. The PV cabs are exact dimensionally to the marshall and same plywood. The rest is just cosmetics and hardware. One difference though is the front baffle is thicker on the 5150's where the speakers are mounted directly to the baffle. Stronger structurally and tighter tone here.
And I have had one of the 5150's loaded with greenbacks, sounded just as good as my marshall cab with greens maybe a bit better in the thump dept.
The original 5150 speakers though? They sound fine and blend fine and really well with another greenback cab in conjunction. Very similar. They just are a bit smoother in the OD sound dept and handle alot more wattage than a greenback.
Think of a T75 celestion here. Which is under rated as a good speaker and originally designed to be a hi power greenback choice as quoted by celestion themselves.
Bargain cab for dirt prices used these days. Every bit as good a box as a marshall IMHO.

Unless you are still the joker the believes in "magic tone wood".
Its the same 15mm thick, same amount number of plies, same back material, same size, pretty much all of what and how the marshall is built. Not gettin rid of mine ever.
A box is a box to me after seeing the build of each being so close its unreal.
At it awhile, still learnin'

Get woodalicious tonology factoid learnin' at http://www.WOODYTONE.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;!

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Re: Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

Post by psychotech » Sun May 30, 2021 2:32 pm

i think people have the wrong idea about speakers in general. most speakers can sound good but they all have slight differences in what they offer. of course celestion has a great rep. i have some classic 30w g12-H 55hz greenbacks that are probably the best guitar speaker ive ever heard. im running a be100 through a marshall 1960B with G12-T 75w celestions. i needed a little more headroom so i decided to pick up a 5150 cab from a local pawn shop for $300. it sounds "perfect". it added a bit of mid push and high mid clarity to my sound and put my up in the mix just enough to hear myself even at low volume above that asshole bass player. i used to rock two 5150 cabs with a vintage 50w marshall it was the best sound i ever had even compared to my vintage cabined. imo the sheffield 1200 75w speaker is an absolute sleeper. what you get for the money is outstanding i can't say enough about how good these cabinets sound. from super clean funk to classic rock to blues and metal and djent these cabinets are biggest bang for the buck out there. go for it.

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Re: Would you buy a Peavey 5150 cab if you're on a budget?

Post by jnew » Sun Sep 12, 2021 7:31 pm

So to answer the OP's question, take a good look at the cab, the wood and its construction. I have had countless Marshall cabs. Still have two of them, have a Divided by 13, 68 repro, Scumbag 68 repro and two Peavey's from late 80's Butcher/VTM era. I can assure you that the Peavey's from that period are rock solid tanks with all birch construction that sound every bit as good as any Marshall or expensive boutique repro. Mississippi Marshall's. I think they are 412MS cabs. And they can be found dirt cheap. You won't be sorry. Your favorite speakers will sound lovely. Also, don't forget that changing grille clothe pays miles in dividends. I changed the stock thinner light stuff for the vintage Marshall Cane/Basketweave and simply put, it's a vintage Marshall cab. :wink:
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