In 2007, Eddie Van Halen launched a tube amp under his EVH gear banner, the EVH 5150 III, that continued the legacy of one of guitar music’s most beloved high-gain amps.
As such, it should come as no surprise that Van Halen took the development of the amp very, very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that he developed a mad-scientist torture test to ensure the amp was borderline indestructible.
“The process was long and difficult, because the amp was reimagined from the ground up, which meant we had to establish a new foundation to build up from,” Bruck says of the amp, which has been selected as one of the most influential pieces of gear of the 21st century.
He adds, “This meant a new chassis and formulating the transformers, which are amazing, built like a tank and over spec’ed – the way they should be if you’re going for something great.”
While Bruck is quick to point out the lengthy R&D phase, Wolfgang highlights the testing phase, for which his father devised “the most rigorous testing an amp could go through”.
“I remember Dad testing it up in the studio. You could hear it from the bottom of the house, this slight feedback,” he remembers. “As you went up toward the studio, it started to get louder. Then you opened the door to the first room, and it was a little louder.
“When you opened the door to where the guitar was, there was a guitar sitting there, with every knob pinned, feeding back. He literally kept it there for a week, just to crash-test it and make sure it didn’t explode.”
Bruck says Eddie called it the “crash testing” phase, and while those around him were a bit skeptical of his methods, Van Halen himself held his nerve.
“It was where he would just try to destroy a piece of equipment,” Bruck adds. “It was so when it went to market, it would be reliable. He just dimed the thing, left it leaning against the cabinet and created this eternal feedback loop. I was terrified the place was going to burn down.
“I was saying, ‘It’s going to get hot. It’s going to explode. We’re going to have a fire.’ He was like, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll see how long it goes.’
“After about five days, he was like, ‘Okay, it passed the test.’ That gives you insight into the uncanny genius and how much of an outside-the-box thinker Ed was.”
Safe to say Eddie Van Halen’s “crash testing” methods left an impression. A few years ago, his rig builder Dave Friedman spoke about his guitar amp “torture test”.
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