Hi guys, just wanted to share my experience with the EV ZLX15p. It started out pretty bumpy. Ordered mine in mid April. Found a provider who hadn't yet raised prices at that time, so € 419, good price. They start from € 499 nowadays. Anyway, DHL screwed up big time and failed to deliver for two weeks. In the meantime the shop had a second one shipped to me via UPS, so I could get going. Took it to rehearsal and the guy went just crazy about it, because it was so much clearer and more present than my previous Peavey 4x10 rig (which I managed to sell in the meantime).
I took the chance to read through this thread again from the beginning. Must say, that what you did here, Charlie, Andreas, Ticol and all the others is nothing short of awesome and saved me incredible time and frustration to get my Zoom+ZLX rig set up. If any of you guys should make it to Berlin some day, drop me a note and I'll treat you to a few drinks.
OK, it turned out with the ZLX at 250W RMS, headroom is the decisive factor. I am currently playing in a three piece post-punk set. Drummer is pretty loud and guitard has an Engl 50W + 4x12 Marshall cab, and he loves to play distorted, so it's loud inevitably. I can keep up with them, but I need to take care, not to run the preamp into clipping. So it has turned out, that leaving the preamp at one to two o'clock and controlling the overalll volume with the master knob is fine. Having master volume at 0db is OK for rehearsal.
I followed your advice on the B3 and have global and total volume at 100. My impression is, that I could have gone at 120 both, but I just didn't want to max it out. For the band, I needed four settings: clean, clean overdriven, tube dirty and tube dirty overdriven. I chose the SWR and the SVT sim. I started out with them all EQ settings at neutral and cab sim at zero. Then I adjusted gain and master to my liking but tried to keep the volume level with amp sim witched off. Then I dialed in tone and cab sim to my liking. I can confirm, that in a band setting you will find yourself reducing bass and boosting mids. Highs don't matter that much, I have them mostly neutral or maybe at two. Cab sims mostly 100%. For the clean overdriven setting I added the BassPre, and it does a fairly decent job. For the dirty overdriven setting, I just created a second patch, where I just cranked the SVT sim more up. Works. Also, I can confirm, that boosting the mids ad 1.2 kHz works nicely in a band setting, as it adds clarity but without the zing you get when you boost the highs too much. For more vintage thumpy tones I prefer boosting 200 Hz.
Here's my current arsenal:
The SMX compressor comes in handy when you whant to attenuate various basses. I passive and active basses with different output levels. I can use the input knob on the SMX to adapt to that.
The thing that makes me most happy is, that the ZLX delivers the full tone even at low volumes. So it's perfect for practising at home. Just set the volume at -30db and you're done, and the neighbors won't complain. So, when DHL finally decided to deliver, I simply kept the second ZLX. One at home, one at rehearsal, and both of them when I need volume. The only drawback so far is really, that the volume knob is on the back, I still need to see how this works out in a gigging situation. Consider buying a volume/expression pedal for volume setting. Next gig will most probably be on August 1st. Will keep you posted.
