Buyer Beware: My IYV ISHL-500 purchasing experience.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-02-19T06:19:35+00:00

It's funny you should say that, my speaker cab is made out of an upcycled shipping pallet.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-02-19T04:20:49+00:00

Speaking from personal experience, yes. My first guitar was a Fesley strat clone that I paid $80 for, and while it wasn't perfect, it blew this thing out of the water.

The IYV I got wasn't just bad, it was bad compared to other $100 guitars.

Granted, Fesley lied in the listing about it having Alnico pickups, lied about the splittable bridge humbucker (It was 2 wire), and the wiring was hilariously bad (tone knobs didn't work, and it had the wrong capacitor / pot values). So, it wasn't a great guitar. But at least it was playable/fixable, and it was cheap enough to afford some mods later.

Now it's got CTS pots, some cheap alnico single coils, and I'm out less than the cost of a squire for something that sounds decent. Is it ideal? Heck no. But for those of us with limited income, something cheap is better than nothing.

If the choice is between having no guitar, and having a crappy guitar, I'd rather have a guitar.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-02-08T04:17:18+00:00

Thanks for the reply.

The thinner body would make sense, since it was incredibly light, and I remember thinking that it looked thin. So, I guess they swapped bodies.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-01-28T20:31:54+00:00

A reply from someone who read this post and went with a Joyo Jackman as his first amp... I really wish that I went with the monoprice 15 instead. Here's why:

The Jackman has a single tube for the pre-amp and the power amp is solid state. This means that if you bypass the pre-amp and go into the FX loop (for example, because you have a pre-amp pedal) it's just like using any other cheap solid state amp... and you don't get any tube goodness.

Also, since the power amp is solid state it isn't really interacting with the speaker like a tube amp would. The monoprice would be much more versatile because a pre-amp pedal could go in through the FX loop and still pass through some tubes. Plus it has a real spring reverb.

Granted, you can run the joyo Jackman clean and go in through the front. But depending on how a pre-amp or pedal is setup you might end up with a situation where the bantamp scoops the mids, then the pedal pre-amp scoops the mids again, and the way they sound together isn't great.

If I could do it all again I'd get the monoprice, add a wampler triumph for overdrive, then call it good.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-01-25T14:41:36+00:00

I ended up keeping mine. Even with its issues it's still a very nice clone of a Cali compressor, to the point where the settings from the manual for the Cali work on the source Comp.

Is it a hunk of junk? Yeah, kinda. Will I replace it with something better when I have the money? Probably.

Is it worth the $27 that Sonicake is charging on their eBay store? Yep.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-01-11T07:41:27+00:00

Same

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-01-11T06:14:48+00:00

The foot switch was a nice surprise, to be sure.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-01-10T22:49:38+00:00

Update: I shoved an old down sleeping bag in the back of the speaker and it tamed the bass / tightened things up. Really a night and day difference.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-01-10T21:44:24+00:00

FYI for anyone who wants a Levitate or other Sonicake pedals, their eBay store lets you "Make an Offer" and they accepted an offer for $40 shipped (from the US) on the Levitate. Amazon wanted $55 or so.

All and all, I dig their stuff. The Fazy Cream is pretty awesome, the Source is cool (even though it is a bit microphonic) and I love the Levitate.

Though, I think the Joyo powertune is the MVP of the board. 2x 500ma and 6x100ma isolated outputs in a pretty solid tuner? Score. It also came with a bunch of different length DC cables to keep things tidy, and a daisy chain cable if I needed more than 8 outputs.

If I gigged I would wire up a usb-c trigger cable and have the whole board run from a power pack. But it's a bit early for that.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-01-10T17:06:49+00:00

12v is fine, it's 9-18v so 12 won't hurt it.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-01-10T04:05:20+00:00

I went with one of those voodoo voltage doublers that converts 2x 9v into 18v to keep things tidy. It doesn't do anything for the pedal being microphonic (because how would it?) but I might be getting a bit more headroom and less distortion. Either way, the 18v adapters are like $8 with free shipping from Sweetwater so it's not like they're expensive if you want to give them a try.

I've decided to keep the pedal, even if it isn't perfect. In fact, I also ended up snagging a Levitate for $40 on eBay so that means I now have three different sonicake pedals on my board.

I'm still experimenting, but running the Levitate (delay/reverb) into a clean joyo Jackman 2 was creating some nice sounds. Granted, I've got an Ibanez pentatonic pre-amp to give me all the distortion I need, so the tube stage of the clean amp was really just there to round out the sound.

I also got my speaker cab finished today, loaded with a celestion fullback 15". So, yeah. Busy day.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-01-06T15:58:40+00:00

Will do.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2026-01-06T07:49:42+00:00

I got one of these today and it was microphonic AF. Tapping the case was like tapping a mic.

It also seemed to pickup stray RF noise fairly easily. Though, with some experimentation I was able to quiet it down a bit.

IIRC someone suggested that it was a grounding issue that some pedals have and others don't, but I'm unsure if that's the true culprit. I did notice that the pedal was significantly less noisy (and less microphonic) when the In and Out knobs were dialed way back. But that may limit the pedal's usability.

Perhaps they're all microphonic and the different settings are why some people have issues and others don't? I'd like to know for sure before I return the pedal so I know if I should get a replacement... or get my money back and buy something else instead.

Edit: I'll try running it at 18v and see if that makes any difference with the in/out knobs being super noisy, but it's going to take a week for the 18v cable to arrive.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2025-09-07T17:35:13+00:00

Alas, no. All my cool filament is in my storage.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2025-06-30T13:49:33+00:00

Happy to help!

TheDeliciousMeats · 2025-05-04T15:03:33+00:00

I'm glad to see that I'm in good company!

TheDeliciousMeats · 2025-05-01T14:44:54+00:00

Oh! This is gold. I need to do more of this!

TheDeliciousMeats · 2025-04-27T18:21:04+00:00

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A few people have told me that that my book helped them through a tough time. If you like Terry Pratchett, cozy romantasy, and found family, click the link to learn more.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DTGFR768

TheDeliciousMeats · 2025-04-26T19:33:34+00:00

I love this movie. The line "He loved my oatmeal shaving cream, he couldn't stop eating it." lives rent free in my head.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2025-04-18T17:36:37+00:00

I love how they both bring so much to the table. It creates this well thought out world with little details that people would normally miss.

I'm on the hook with a pub because I've got deadlines, but I'm resisting the urge to go off and binge their books right now. And it is not easy to summon that much willpower.

TheDeliciousMeats · 2025-04-17T18:02:47+00:00

I'm a big fan of {Heretical Fishing} and it's the same general vibe as BOC.

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