You've all been really helpful, thank you for your input. The dealer has offered me a full refund for the 670.00, and I'm shipping the amp back soon. So basically I've got 700$ to buy a new, WORKING amplifier with. Should I stay with a 5150 combo, or look at something else?

I personally prefer the 5150 heads over the combo. A 5150 with a 2x12 would be a nice setup if you wanted something that's not too hard to carry and doesn't take up a lot of space. That would run you more than $700 though unless you scored a great deal. The Peavey Ultra combos are pretty nice and they're still pretty cheap.
Jerry

Hrmmm ... that is true. The 5150 combo goes for 5-600 on E-bay all the time, I paid way too much for mine.


Peavey Ultras ... you mean these?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...ssPageName=WDVW

Yeh thats the Ultra, the one I played seemed pretty similar to the XXX.

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Probably not, but John Holland might shoot your ass if he catches you fucking around with his amp. If he shoots you in the back then maybe the titanium will protect you.

you could probably score a 5150 head for about $500 and then find a used 4x12 like the peavey ms412 for like $200-ish.

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Yup, those amps smoke! You can find them pretty cheap if you shop around.
Jerry

The Peavey MS cabs are the absolute worst sounding cabinets I've ever heard next to the Behringer cabs. Very loose and muddy sounding. The Peavey VTM cabs are a great buy. They have Celestions in them. The 5150 cabs were pretty cheap, I'm not sure what they've been going for lately.
Jerry

i hope you're joking.

i don't know what was wrong with your peavey ms cab you were playing..but i used to OWN one, loose and muddy werent even in it's vocabulary. it was really tight and well balanced in sound.. also built pretty tough. it had sheffeild 1290's in it.
it sounded alot like a 5150 cab.

great cabs, especially for the money.

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No joke, I've never owned one but I have had several customers that had them. Their amps sounded terrible thru them. They weren't buying what I had to say till they played their amps thru a Marshall cab or my 5150 cab. Once they did the MS cabs were up for sale. I have played thru no less than 5 of them and they all sucked. That's just my opinion and the opinion of every customer of mine that ever owned one and tried a Marshall or something else.
Jerry

well, different cabs are obviously going to sound completely different even with the same amp.

hell, i'd prefer a marshall 1960a over a peavey ms too, but then again different speakers and build, you're comparing a different enclosure with completely different speakers. not to mention a used 1960a will go for abot $150 more. even if you play another "high end" cab like a mesa or something to a 1960a it's going to give a completely different sound.

and the way you described them? me being a previous owner, i had to stand up for it because imo the way you described it was completely false. "one of the worst cabs ever"? no way, best cab in the $200 used range imo... "loose and muddy"? pretty much the opposite.

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I'm starting to think of other amps that I've loved but never owned ... like a Marshall Valvestate 8100 or a Randall RG100 ( or Vmax ). I know its blasphemous to choose something like this over a 5150, but a.) To some extent I prefer the sound of a high-quality solid state and b.) A Marshall 8100 half stack will require much less maintenance than a 5150 will.

Well yeah different cabs are gonna sound different, some are good and some are bad. I personally feel the MS is the worst cab I ever played thru. I understand they're cheap but if it doesn't sound good it's of no use to me. I can't see running a killer sounding head thru a cabinet that isn't going to allow the amp to sound it's best. If you like them that's great. Everyone has their own taste in music and just because I don't like something doesn't mean anyone else has to not like it, and just because you like something doesn't mean anyone else has to.
The world would be a pretty boring place if we all thought exactly alike.
Jerry

Yeah, I use a Valvestate with two 1960B's and run it clean. I use external effects. Low maintenance, flexible, less expensive. I don't see any reason to put wear and tear on a high end tube amp at the moment since I'm not in the recording studio or playing major gigs. Besides, you have to crank those tube amps to get a good distortion sound and my neighbors are bunch of nasty old fucks who will call my landlord or the cops before they bother to get off their ass and knock on my door like normal humans would. When I get bored of that rig, sometimes I jack my guitar into the tube amp on my Hammond M-102 organ. I installed a switch to disengage the tone wheel drive motor. It's got a killer spring reverb unit and a very unique sound with the open back. I picked it up for $88 at a piano/organ clearance sale because the stupid fucks didn't know how to operate it and thought it was broken...

I like my Peavey MS, its tight enough for Unearth breakdowns.. and I dont think I need my sound to get any tighter.

Hell for $130 its a great cab, good match with my XXX cab.

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when did you grab that? $130 is a real good price, does yours have sheffeilds?

i think they origionally had them loaded with celestion g12-85's or something, then somewhere along the road they switched em to sheffeild 1290's.

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that's totally fair for you to have your own opinion... i mean, we all have different tastes, but i just thought you were being a little harsh on a cab that is actually pretty good imo by describing it how you did.

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I got it maybe 6 months ago, locally. And yeh it has sheffeilds.. sometime down the road I might throw some Eminence in there.

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Speaking of cabs, I'm thinking about getting an Avatar Two 12/1 15. Then again there's a Randall that has the same features.