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The Evolution of my Gear

My First real amp...a Peavy block head logoed 5150 half stack.  What a difference between this and my little Fender!  No need for the Boss HM-2 pedal from this point on.  I sold this halfstack two years ago to a kid in IN after it sat collecting dust in my room for a couple years.  Mint condition too. 

A friend of mine liked my 5150 so much he bought himself a combo.  Later that same year he needed to sell the amp and a store wanted to give him next to nothing for it so I bought it from him for a more reasonable price to help him out....it became my main amp and the half stack collected dust.  Used it as my first power amp after I started to get into rack gear.  Sold it 8/2002 locally.

I picked up a BBE 462 after hearing great things about it and hooked it up with the 5150.  Soon after I picked up the Rocktron Prophesy preamp/effects processor to and my intro to rack gear began.  At this point I was using the 5150 combo as a power amp and speaker cab.  I bought an All Access foot controller for the Prophesy.

 

 

 

 

I needed to get a power amp now, so I won a VHT 2150 on Ebay for about $590 with a shittyy SKB 4 space rack.  I received the amp damaged from FedEx because the people I got it from (J+S Music in PA)

can't pack for shit.  So FedEx came, picked it up and ended up shipping it back to J+S who then went outta business, kept the amp, my money, and wouldn't return any of my calls, emails, or letters.  Luckily I received most of the money back from my credit card company.  About a year later I noticed it up on Ebay again (in the damaged state).  They changed their Ebay ID to zuzutoys or something like that.  It's a husband and wife, Josh and Staci Levine in PA....real Assholes!  I had a rather difficult time finding another VHT 2150 so I bought a Mesa 295 instead (the good one with the controls on the front). 

Well, I ended up finding another VHT 2150 on Ebay later on for a little more $$, but he was in Indiana so I met him up and didn't have to worry about shipping.  I'm still using that power amp in my rig.  Here are a few shots of some 2150's.  They were available for a limited time in custom anodized front panels like purple, blue, and red.

 

 

A little while after I found another 2150.  This one is serial #8, made in 1989.
Here's a picture of my rig with the two VHT's and one of the 2 Mesa 295's I had.  I picked up an Anvil 14 space shock mount rack for the ultimate protection for my gear.  

 

 Around this time I picked up a Mesa Half Back 4X12 cabinet loaded with 2 black shadow's and 2 EV's.  I still play through it and I picked up a matching straight version to run true stereo that's loaded with 100W Celestions. 
Last year I was lucky enough to find a CAE 3+SE preamp for sale.  After finding an RSB-12 switching system I was able to play through the preamp.  I was a little disappointed with it (but that could be because I really didn't have enough time to sit down with it and tweak it enough).  I couldn't justify keeping such an expensive preamp while I'm still in school (and don't have enough time to play) so I sold it four months later to a really nice guy in Japan.

 

 Here's a picture of my rig at that time.  As you can see, I outgrew the 14 space Anvil with the addition of a Furman AR-117 line voltage regulator.

It was time for a "Refrigerator" sized rack now!  Here's a picture of the new 21 space shock mount (center) and the old 14 space Anvil.  At this point I had waaayyy too much gear :)

 

This picture is circa summer (June) 2004.  The live rig was the Engl head (pictured) with another slant Mesa recto 4x12 (not pictured) and the small rack on the stack with a Furman line volt. regulator/drawer/HUSH.

 Here is what my rack was looking like in early 2003.

Circa Oct. 2005.  Keeping the rack simple but yet effective. Power conditioners, BBE, Prophesy preamp/effects, Peterson strobe tuner, and dual VHT 2/90/2's.