NAD: 5153 6L6 50 Watt v1

[greatmutah]

Well I went to Motor City Guitar and decided to try sine amps. I grabbed a slime green Charvel off the wall and set about playing. Started with the Big Daddy Stealth 6L6 through the matching cab. Channel 1 wasn’t my favorite. It’s more of a crunch than clean. Not a fan. Channel 2 Blue Channel was the goods. I could live on this channel. It’s glorious and everything ait was hyped to be. Channel 3 red was solid and I could get what I wanted out of it. $1800 price tag wasn’t bad at all but more than I wanted to spend.

Tried the Iconic 100 watt. I didn’t like this amp at all. The amp felt very solid state. I know the 5153s have tons of gain but they still feel like a tube amp. This one just didn’t work for me.

Tried the 50 watt 6L6. Green was clean and was great. Excellent clean tones and another clean flavor that I will use. Blue channel was on par with the 100 watt Stealth minus power section differences. Really dug it on this amp too. Red channel I think I liked even more on the 50. $1000 less than the Stealth too. I said let’s do it. No pics yet as I’m about to be driving home, but I’m happy with this purchase. Gonna get done time in with it before I go pick up my son from my parents house. He’s spending today with them playing with his trains there.

[ninjaraf]

Nice! Good choice.

Agree the clean on the 100S is barely a clean. I keep the gain almost all the way down to get a clean sound. Also, blue channel gain affects the red channel gain on this amp. Not the case on the 50 watters. I live on the red channel on mine.

[greatmutah]

I did notice the blue channel gain working with the red. I actually dug that a lot. But for me and what I do, the 50 will work and then some. With both amps I didn’t feel I’d need a boost either. Kinda dug that.

[ninjaraf]

Yeah, for sure. I don't even own a boost lol. But yeah, if it's not your primary, it definitely makes sense to go for the 50. Like I said, I still have a 50, also, and it's great!

HNAD

[greatmutah]

I just realized that the sweep of the presence knob in the 50 covers more of the whole range than on the 100 hahahaha. Crazy. Pulled it back to like 10:00-11:00 and there’s some classic style 5150 tones hahaha.

[greatmutah]

Welp, I’m a fan. Sounds great, gives me a different flavor of high gain outside of Marshall and Orange and overall it’s a fun amp to play. I’ll play around with it a bit and see what else I like or dislike but so far it’s a keeper. Great amp for under $1K for sure. And while it doesn’t need a boost, it sounds pissed with my SD-1 in front. Love it.

[Guitarbilly]

I think in terms of price × tones x features × size the 6L6 50w is hard to beat. They really have a good balance of everything there.
The 100w power section is awesome when you open it up, but it comes with a cost and size difference.

[spawnofthesith]

Congrats!!! This is one of those amps that everyone should own. So good, and very difficult to dial a bad sound in on

[greatmutah]

Thanks, gents! Billy I agree. I love a 100 watt amp. I really do. But tone to cost ratio is excellent on the 50s here.

Spawn this thing is pretty easy to dial up. Sounds great with my 1960 with Greenbacks. Sounds good through the IRs too.

I saw that a few years back Fender started offering retrofits of the older amps to have the newer concentric volume and gains for channels 1 and 2. I live close to one of their authorized service places (they did some work on my old Helix and were great) so if they still offer the retrofit kits I may take it up to have that mod done. It’s not something I need right now, but would be nice to have all the same.

[RaceU4her]

Nice! If I find a 6L6 version for a good price I’m gonna grab it and compare it to my el34. There’s an el34 the town over from me on craigslist right now for $750