Peavey Super Festival bass rig....this looks pretty sick

[Magman]

Attachment pulled from ebay auction here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/1973-PEAVEY-F800...2em118Q2el1247

EDIT>> Sorry I'm over quota at the moment to post the image as attachment.

2 folded horn 18 cabs??? Holy cow. Anyone still got one of these?

Modern bass rigs just seem a bit wussy and boring in comparison to these 70's monsters.

I'm curious about the festival heads as well....the bassist from Lynard Skynard used them I believe (not that I'm a big fan).

Well fingers crossed one of those cabs will come up in a yard sale.The days of dirt cheap acoustic 301's are long gone I guess!

[Johnny Mack]

"TheSuperFestival F800 Bass. Heavy."

you betcha.







...i'd love 'em!

[JPaulGeddy]

Pooped my pants just reading the description. Good lord.

[Ric5]

I played through one of those 1x18s in the early 80s. I had a peavey head and a crossover into a 1x15 for the high end.

The cab was all low end no mids or treble. I ended up dumping it for an acoustic 301 1x18 folded horn cabinet that was more of a full frequency cabinet.

Those cabs would make good subs for a PA system.

[Magman]

How heavy was the cab and was it pretty efficient?

I guess the designers at peavey decided to get the BASS part of the spectrum sorted out as a priority!

Theres someone selling empty FH-1 cabs on craigslist...these came up in discussion before on this forum (they are folded horn 18's for PA) but Bill F said a 215 with emminence 3015LF would spank it....

Originally Posted by Ric5

I played through one of those 1x18s in the early 80s. I had a peavey head and a crossover into a 1x15 for the high end.

The cab was all low end no mids or treble. I ended up dumping it for an acoustic 301 1x18 folded horn cabinet that was more of a full frequency cabinet.

Those cabs would make good subs for a PA system.

[chadds]

It better sound real good with a buy it now of $9.99.

[bassteban]

400 watts, 2X18, defies description? I'll take a stab- how about archaic?

[Standalone]

Heavy.

[chadds]

Originally Posted by Standalone

Heavy.

"Marty, is there something wrong with the earth's gravity in the future? You keep saying everything is heavy."

[bstringrandy]

I had one of these stacks in high school back in the 70's!! I would put both Peavey 18 cabinets on the floor and put a Musicman 15 Front loaded cabinet on each one. Then the F800B head went up top with a Musicman 65HD tube head on top of that. It took up a whole wall in the bedroom, but would knock dishes out of the kitchen cabinets from across the house!! The 18 cabinets were monsters. The speakers were accessed through a panel in the bottom.

The amount of air moved by this rig was pretty impressive and the front loaded 15's gave it some mid punch and definition...

I'll have to see if I can dig up a picture of it somewhere.
Randy

[Standalone]

Originally Posted by bstringrandy

I had one of these stacks in high school back in the 70's!! I would put both Peavey 18 cabinets on the floor and put a Musicman 15 Front loaded cabinet on each one. Then the F800B head went up top with a Musicman 65HD tube head on top of that. It took up a whole wall in the bedroom, but would knock dishes out of the kitchen cabinets from across the house!! The 18 cabinets were monsters. The speakers were accessed through a panel in the bottom.

The amount of air moved by this rig was pretty impressive and the front loaded 15's gave it some mid punch and definition...

I'll have to see if I can dig up a picture of it somewhere.
Randy

That's heavy, Doc.

[silky smoove]

Originally Posted by chadds

"Marty, is there something wrong with the earth's gravity in the future? You keep saying everything is heavy."

Classic

[b_carville]

I never owned one ,but I played one once.
It was at a large outdoor party in the 70's.There was 6 bands all the bassists had to use that rig.I was playing a real heavy ash P bass at the time.
It didn't have much mid or top but the low end was massive.Had a real long throw as well.
The soundman said,about all the bands,"The bass is too loud!"
Not a one of us was going into the PA.

[Standalone]

Originally Posted by b_carville

...I was playing a real heavy ash P bass at the time.
...

Heavy.

[BillyB_from_LZ]

When I saw Peter Frampton in 1977, the bassist for the opening band had a stack like that. Not sure why I remember that, but the vision is quite clear...

Didn't one of those heads recently sell on ebay?

[Magman]

Thats a sign of a big enough bass rig...no PA feeds and an irate soundguy ;-)

I like these stories by the way!

I've run 2 18's as my low end previously....it does the job very well.... but 2 horn loaded ones. I still can't quite imagine it. I guess newer drivers you can hit harder but still.

Originally Posted by b_carville

I never owned one ,but I played one once.
It was at a large outdoor party in the 70's.There was 6 bands all the bassists had to use that rig.I was playing a real heavy ash P bass at the time.
It didn't have much mid or top but the low end was massive.Had a real long throw as well.
The soundman said,about all the bands,"The bass is too loud!"
Not a one of us was going into the PA.

[Magman]

I'm really curious about those heads... overdrive circuit, 400 '1970s' watts... sunn and acoustic models of similar power/era are really collectible nowadays.

Unless you're doing dub reggae or similar, sounds like a 210 would be needed with those cabs.

I have the old grey whistle test DVD with Lynyrd Skynyrd doing freebird...the bassist has 2 festival amps and at least one 215....gibson thunderbird bass and a really nice quite modern sounding tone (quite a bit of treble, back when rolled off tone control was pretty common it seems).

So where are those cabs hiding? They must have made a few hundred at least...

Originally Posted by BillyB_from_LZ

When I saw Peter Frampton in 1977, the bassist for the opening band had a stack like that. Not sure why I remember that, but the vision is quite clear...

Didn't one of those heads recently sell on ebay?

[Bard2dbone]

Originally Posted by b_carville

I never owned one ,but I played one once.
It was at a large outdoor party in the 70's.There was 6 bands all the bassists had to use that rig.I was playing a real heavy ash P bass at the time.
It didn't have much mid or top but the low end was massive.Had a real long throw as well.
The soundman said,about all the bands,"The bass is too loud!"
Not a one of us was going into the PA.

I've told this story a few times but you just reminded me of it. I played an outdoor festival-type gig back in the early '80's, where everyone was encouraged to set up there backline way in advance, like the night before.(They had security guards watching our stuff. That kind of made us feel like real rockstars. Shows what we knew.)

So seven or eight bands worth of amps were there all day. It didn't take long at all, like maybe by the second band, for people to start thinking "Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...What if we daisy chain all these inputs together?" So they did.

So everyone ended up using all the amps at once. It wasn't a great sound. It was a complex sound. And it was certainly a LOT of sound. The bass rig was a '66 Fender Bassman, some Peaveys (a TNT 130 and a Mark II, I think.) an SVT, my Acoustic 360, a Fender PS400 (So that's now TWO folded 18's) an old Kustom with the tuck and rolled purple-blue metalflake 2x15 cab and I think a GK of some kind.

The guitar backline was equally bizarre, Marshalls, Fenders, Peaveys, Crates, a Vox, a Mesa/Boogie, a Carvin, a Laney,a Randall...who knows what else.

It was excessive...but fun. I probably did more damage to my hearing that day that I did in the military.

[Son of Sanford]

Originally Posted by Magman

Attachment pulled from ebay auction here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/1973-PEAVEY-F800...2em118Q2el1247

EDIT>> Sorry I'm over quota at the moment to post the image as attachment.

2 folded horn 18 cabs??? Holy cow. Anyone still got one of these?

Modern bass rigs just seem a bit wussy and boring in comparison to these 70's monsters.

I'm curious about the festival heads as well....the bassist from Lynard Skynard used them I believe (not that I'm a big fan).

Well fingers crossed one of those cabs will come up in a yard sale.The days of dirt cheap acoustic 301's are long gone I guess!

I used to own one of those cabinets. I did not think the Vega 18 was original. I bought it for $100 in the late 90's and sold it for $50 to a friend the night I moved because it wouldn't fit on the truck (I had other gear). That guy gave it to a mutual friend. I do not know if he still has it.

[iammr2]

Originally Posted by BillyB_from_LZ

When I saw Peter Frampton in 1977, the bassist for the opening band had a stack like that. Not sure why I remember that, but the vision is quite clear...

Didn't one of those heads recently sell on ebay?

That was Tommy Shannon playing with a guitarist named Van Wilks. Was just listening to Van this morning.

I used to see them back in the '70's & '80's. Shannon moved on but his replacement(Reggie Witty) used one of those amps(two for large and outdoor shows). Played a '50s P bass and had two large homemade/custom 1-18 cabs for each amp. Big crunchy tone to it. Sounded really cool. Was always curious to try one but they aren't around anymore.

And yes they were heavy. But I'm sure I'm not the only old geezer that used to haul around my own 100lb cabs(which were usually called "bins" because they were so big). And we used to do it barefoot, in the snow, uphill, both ways. Heck the amps weighed more than a lot of todays cabinets. It makes me laugh when people complain about how heavy 40lbs is.