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Dear god please help Peavey VB-2

Same for me. I got mine last December and have had zero problems -so far. Used it last Sat. night with my NV610 and it just roared. I do bring my Markbass 12' combo along as a back up just in case- and that's because of all these stories I've read on TB. My Marshall Major used to spit out fuses all the time, so far the VB2's been much more reliable than it was.

Its my first expierence with tubes and I think making the switch back to solid state would be a hard one. I love the different sounds i can get with it. I wish I could find another one for cheap, I grab it in a heartbeat. Sick stereo sounds would be had.
 
i had a VB-2, and i took perfect care of it. and one day, it stopped working.
tubes lit up and everything.

just dead.

i returned it.


i think the ohm setting may have affected yours more, but nonetheless, these things are known to die by some people. then again, some people haven't had a single issue.
wish i was one of those people.
 
Mine was only $350 second hand.. and despite this problem I absolutely can't wait to get it running I'd pick it over my friends old svt-4 for my taste.

I'm sure you'll love it. I know some of these problems have deterred people from buying or keeping one, but send that baby to Peavey and they'll get'er running again. You really cant ask for more with the price on these things. I'm thinking its the best value amp for the money on the market.
 
Mine died. Took it to the tech who gave me a good technical explanation of what went wrong. I can't do the explanation justice other than he said he took it from a class a b head to a class b. I'm getting maybe 180 watts out of it now...but he says it should be reliable. It was all covered by warranty.

Used it at practice tonight for the first time since I got it back. For whatever reason I can only run the pre gain at about 2.5 on the active input (i'm using a passive bass equipped with a DiMarzio P). I put it on the overdrive channel and now I am getting a really great tone out of it. Before its death I had been running it on the clean channel but through the passive input. I like the combination of the lower gain setting and the overdrive channel. I was REALLY liking the tone tonight. I would say take your head to get serviced by an authorized repair center and give it another try. When the bugs are worked out its a pretty cool amp.
 
Mine died. Took it to the tech who gave me a good technical explanation of what went wrong. I can't do the explanation justice other than he said he took it from a class a b head to a class b. I'm getting maybe 180 watts out of it now...but he says it should be reliable. It was all covered by warranty.

Used it at practice tonight for the first time since I got it back. For whatever reason I can only run the pre gain at about 2.5 on the active input (i'm using a passive bass equipped with a DiMarzio P). I put it on the overdrive channel and now I am getting a really great tone out of it. Before its death I had been running it on the clean channel but through the passive input. I like the combination of the lower gain setting and the overdrive channel. I was REALLY liking the tone tonight. I would say take your head to get serviced by an authorized repair center and give it another try. When the bugs are worked out its a pretty cool amp.

I agree the tone is great, but now yours is only 180 watts? Shouldn't they replace it if thats the case?
 
:D thanks everyone you've all been really helpful

I actually called peavey this morning and they pointed me in the same direction. Bad Internal fuse/ blown output tube. Thanks for all of the help from everyone I'm confident in whats wrong and I'll be sending my baby into peavey sometime next week

can anyone give me an idea of how much of a charge this fix should be?
 
I also got mine from the same GC deal. I am running it through a new Berg NV412, only having it a few weeks I finally got to use it live and it was amazing. I can say after alot of time and a little money trying I have FINALLY found the sound I have been looking for. Now all I need is one more and another NV412:hyper:

Sporting a pair like that would be positively nuclear :bassist: I run mine through a 212 + 112 as that's all my MK3 Jetta will fit - 212 in the back seat & the 112 in the trunk. For a portable rig, it's pretty gargantuan in volume and tone. Another thing I dig about the VB-2 is that it likes to play nice with ported cabs.
 
:D thanks everyone you've all been really helpful

I actually called peavey this morning and they pointed me in the same direction. Bad Internal fuse/ blown output tube. Thanks for all of the help from everyone I'm confident in whats wrong and I'll be sending my baby into peavey sometime next week

can anyone give me an idea of how much of a charge this fix should be?

I'm not sure what they'd charge. I got my stuff done under warranty. the parts aren't expensive and I'm sure they would charge reasonably for the labor. Not sure about shipping other than they use FedEx. Give the Service Dept a call back and I'm sure they'll get you straight on all the issues. Good luck.
 
I agree the tone is great, but now yours is only 180 watts? Shouldn't they replace it if thats the case?

I think what he meant is that he had a tech bias it "colder" so that it puts out less power, but he should get longer power tube life, in theory.

Biasing power tubes is a balancing act between reliability and performance. The VB-2 is balanced in between. You can go either way to a certain degree, but you shouldn't try unless you know what you're doing.
 
I think what he meant is that he had a tech bias it "colder" so that it puts out less power, but he should get longer power tube life, in theory.

Biasing power tubes is a balancing act between reliability and performance. The VB-2 is balanced in between. You can go either way to a certain degree, but you shouldn't try unless you know what you're doing.

Speaking of biasing, if you're still using the EL34BHTs, how are you biasing them to get to 280 watts and how are they holding up? I'm just thinking ahead for when the power tube change eventually comes. Thanks for your knowledge in advance.
 
Honestly, I don't think that's what happened to your Mark VIII, unless you hooked up more than 2 cabs - since those amps are 2 ohm capable... I'm just sayin'....



- georgestrings

I don't know, it may not have been. What I do know is that I daisy chained two four ohm cabs and put them into one speaker output, and when I turned it on, It did this crazy noise and never turned on again.
 
I think what he meant is that he had a tech bias it "colder" so that it puts out less power, but he should get longer power tube life, in theory.

Biasing power tubes is a balancing act between reliability and performance. The VB-2 is balanced in between. You can go either way to a certain degree, but you shouldn't try unless you know what you're doing.

Yes, that is my layman's understanding. For whatever reason he thinks that wth the design it was just asking too much for the tubes to be putting out 225 watts. Its still pretty loud.
 
I bought this head back in January. I used it for one gig and one rehearsel. During the gig ( happened after the rehearsel) it started making a funny noise and then just died. I took it back to the shop I bought it from and they shipped it back to Peavey. Peavey wasn't able to repair it quickly enough so they sent a brand new one out to me. Long story short the same thing just happened again. I love the tone that I am getting out of this amp but if I can't depend on it to work then it has to go back. :bawl:
 
I bought this head back in January. I used it for one gig and one rehearsel. During the gig ( happened after the rehearsel) it started making a funny noise and then just died. I took it back to the shop I bought it from and they shipped it back to Peavey. Peavey wasn't able to repair it quickly enough so they sent a brand new one out to me. Long story short the same thing just happened again. I love the tone that I am getting out of this amp but if I can't depend on it to work then it has to go back. :bawl:

Yup I went thru two of them and both died within a day of getting them. I lost confidence in them and canceled the order.
 
I bought this head back in January. I used it for one gig and one rehearsel. During the gig ( happened after the rehearsel) it started making a funny noise and then just died. I took it back to the shop I bought it from and they shipped it back to Peavey. Peavey wasn't able to repair it quickly enough so they sent a brand new one out to me. Long story short the same thing just happened again. I love the tone that I am getting out of this amp but if I can't depend on it to work then it has to go back. :bawl:

You should have waited for the repair. My VB-2 has been totally dependable since I got it back. Having a backup head definitely helped during the repair as well.
 
This may sound stupid, but I understand that if you engage the tuner switch, it mutes the signal for silent tuning. After all these technical suggestions, and as good a logic as they have, it might just be that the tuner switch is engaged. Just a thought...

Koy Carson
West Texas

**Fender American Deluxe P-Bass
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Hey guys I also bought a Peavey VB-2 a little while before christmas and I've been having some problems with it the last couple weeks.

Every now and then while I'm playing normally I hear a rather loud popping noise, just a single one. It does this off and on somtimes and sometimes it just does it once and doesnt do it anymore for the next few days.

Another problem I've been having is that instead of the poppin noise, its a loud TWANG! sound, this has happened twice the last time I played my amp and there was no popping noise. Maybe the problem is getting worse?

I'm know pretty much nothing about tube amps so I was hoping to get some feedback from some people at TB on the severity of my problem. I can try and provide more detailed explanations if needed

Thank you everyone! And sorry for invading the original posters thread, I thought I would post here instead of making a new thread.
 
Every now and then while I'm playing normally I hear a rather loud popping noise, just a single one. It does this off and on somtimes and sometimes it just does it once and doesnt do it anymore for the next few days.

Another problem I've been having is that instead of the poppin noise, its a loud TWANG! sound, this has happened twice the last time I played my amp and there was no popping noise. Maybe the problem is getting worse?

It sounds like the power tubes. Sometimes they make those sounds while they slowly reach full operating temperature. Try letting the tubes warm up longer before you start playing.