PEAVEY 80'S AND 90'S AMPLIFICATION

[Doug4321]

for years I had a Mark IV and the matching 215 with the big office chair casters.

I had something like that Mark IV but a few less features, bought used, probably 1980 vintage. With TWO 2x15 cabinets on casters. Plenty of oomph for high school gigs. Back in the eighties, trying to emulate both McCartney and Entwistle with the same equipment, while everyone really wanted to hear Sex Pistols, The Clash, or X.

I really liked the graphic eq. Especially nice to control low vs. upper bass tones, then notch out certain mids.

 

[fuzzychaos]

I had a Combo 300, my first amp. It rolled down a flight of stairs and not a thing happened to it. Worked and still looked new.

 

[AudioTaper]

I had a Combo 300, my first amp. It rolled down a flight of stairs and not a thing happened to it. Worked and still looked new.

I was told mine had rolled down a flight of steps when I bought it. And you're from Ohio also...
Same amp?! Or do Ohio stairwells just like to abuse the Combo 300?
Mine was an 1988. I had it from 1995 to 1998ish

 

[fuzzychaos]

I was told mine had rolled down a flight of steps when I bought it. And you're from Ohio also...
Same amp?! Or do Ohio stairwells just like to abuse the Combo 300?
Mine was an 1988. I had it from 1995 to 1998ish

I lived in Indiana when that happened, lol.

 

[spatchthepunk]

I put casters on my 300, but because of its shallow depth, any crack in the sidewalk or parking lot caused it to tip over. I must have tipped mine over a hundred times but it didn't seem to faze it nor did it ever seem to scratch the truck bed like coating.

 

[MrB64]

Cockroaches and 80s / 90s Peaveys are all that will be left after a nuclear holocaust.

 

[Kitsapbass]

We're all remembering how heavy Peavy stuff was, I have Boris the Blade from the movie 'Snatch' in my head saying "Heavy is good, heavy is reliable. If it does not work, you can always hit him with it."

ALWAYS a fun movie to watch too....

 

[FFEJY]

I love the classic Peavey design/look.

I have a couple of the last USA-made VB-210 cabs. I decided to make one LOOK like Peavey of yester-year, since it is the last of the old-school Peavey cabs.

I turned the grill upside down (since the grill hides 1/3 of the drivers in stock form) and flipped the logo. I removed the tweeter (yuk!) and installed a mid with an aluminum phase plug, tweeking the crossover for approximately 500hz-4k 12db/octave response with a level control that I honestly keep turned off as it isn't necessary - but the hole was already there. I then installed a solid heavy cast silver Peavey logo and added silver piping (instead of the OEM white), added the iconic aluminum side edge strips, installed stainless screws on the handles and jack panel, and finally installed aluminum dustcaps on some Celestion Vintage 10 drivers as I love 70s overdrive mid-heavy old-school bass tones. Interestingly, the OEM drivers were sourced from Celestion. The OEM drivers are nice, but they are slightly scooped, bass-heavy, not very efficient, and waaaay too polite and "nice" sounding. The Vintage 10's have that old Black Widow midrange aggressiveness and vowel-like character. I'm driving them with an Alphabass.

By the way, Scorpions would have looked great as well. I have some 10" Black Widows I could have used, but the dustcaps are huge and even 4" aluminum ones wouldn't cover their footprints. I went with 3" on the Vintage 10s.

Now, the cabinet sounds amazing and definitely LOOKS the part.

Classic Peavey!

 

[BrentSimons]

The information in this thread is from a couple of old Peavey Catalogs I have. Not all amplifiers are listed such as the Mark V and Firebass 700 as they were introduced at later dates, but a baffling omission is the very popular Mark IV bass head...I guess even Peavey or it's catalog printer makes mistakes. Anyway...enjoy!

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Awesome! There’s my Alphabass! Wish I still had it!
Thank you for the memories!
Brent

 

[Giffro]

In my opinion it's that beautiful punchy sound of the 2 10" Scorpions that are the driving force of the 1820 cab that support the 18" Black Widow bottom end.

 

[StereoPlayer]

In my opinion it's that beautiful punchy sound of the 2 10" Scorpions that are the driving force of the 1820 cab that support the 18" Black Widow bottom end.

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Did ever us the ROS feature from the Rickenbacker using both channels of the head? It works great for that!

 

[Giffro]

Did ever us the ROS feature from the Rickenbacker using both channels of the head? It works great for that!

Hi SP..after a couple years of dragging 2 amp systems around for a couple years..1 for each Ric pup..I did end up for a couple more years splitting the pups between ch 1 and ch 2..it certainly did sound good and it was a pleasure just to drag the one rig around...and that 1820 cab weighed 122lbs lol, although the sound from the 2 amps either side of the drummer was amazing.

 

[FFEJY]

In my opinion it's that beautiful punchy sound of the 2 10" Scorpions that are the driving force of the 1820 cab that support the 18" Black Widow bottom end.

You know how to make it sound even better?

Run both the 10s and 18 full range. Just use two speaker cables, one to the 10s and one to the 18 on the input jack cup as those jacks bypass the internal crossover. The Scorpions can take tons of power, and are sufficient for bottom end. They are housed basically in a sealed 210 cabinet. Don't be afraid to pound them.

Using the non-full range inputs, the highs are limited to the 18 via the crossover, and the lows are cut from the 10s as well.

However, if you still want to cut the lows from the 10s, then it is still a good idea to run the 18 full range along with the 10s crossed over. This is easily done by bypassing the crossover only for the 18 by bypassing the inductor on the crossover circuit board. Easy-peasy.

The 18" Black Widow with the aluminum voice coil/dustcap makes a GREAT grimy musical vocal aggressive midrange on its own with very good top end. It is a SHAME to limit that tone. The 18" BW isn't merely a woofer; it is a great full-range musical instrument speaker and has an amazing "mwah-ish" singing character, even moreso than the Scorpions, which are much more neutral and accurate.

Try it. You'll like it.

 

[Giffro]

 

[Giffro]

You know how to make it sound even better?

Run both the 10s and 18 full range. Just use two speaker cables, one to the 10s and one to the 18 on the input jack cup as those jacks bypass the internal crossover. The Scorpions can take tons of power, and are sufficient for bottom end. They are housed basically in a sealed 210 cabinet. Don't be afraid to pound them.

Using the non-full range inputs, the highs are limited to the 18 via the crossover, and the lows are cut from the 10s as well.

However, if you still want to cut the lows from the 10s, then it is still a good idea to run the 18 full range along with the 10s crossed over. This is easily done by bypassing the crossover only for the 18 by bypassing the inductor on the crossover circuit board. Easy-peasy.

The 18" Black Widow with the aluminum voice coil/dustcap makes a GREAT grimy musical vocal aggressive midrange on its own with very good top end. It is a SHAME to limit that tone. The 18" BW isn't merely a woofer; it is a great full-range musical instrument speaker and has an amazing "mwah-ish" singing character, even moreso than the Scorpions, which are much more neutral and accurate.

Try it. You'll like it.

I will give that a go..but didnt you mean to say "just use 2 guitar cables"???

 

[FFEJY]

I will give that a go..but didnt you mean to say "just use 2 guitar cables"???

No.

You use two speaker cables from the amp; they are in parallel. Plug one speaker cable into the "Hi" input feeding the 10s and plug the other into the "Low" input feeding the 18.

This will present a 4 ohm load to your amp and all speakers will run full range.

Don't use guitar cables for speaker cables! The conductors are insanely small and can seriously hurt your amp at louder volumes.

 

[Giffro]

No.

You use two speaker cables from the amp; they are in parallel. Plug one speaker cable into the "Hi" input feeding the 10s and plug the other into the "Low" input feeding the 18.

This will present a 4 ohm load to your amp and all speakers will run full range.

Don't use guitar cables for speaker cables! The conductors are insanely small and can seriously hurt your amp at louder volumes.

Ok ..yes I understand you now..I have never used the BIAMP inputs before in all the years ive owned this amp..i've always just used 1 speaker cable from the MKIV head into one of the the full range sockets on the cab.
So you suggest taking 2 speaker cables from each of the 2 output sockets on the head to the HI and LOW side of the BIAMP sockets on the cab..check the pic i put in a few mins ago...have I understood you right now?
ps. I would never use guitar cables in place of speaker cables btw..lol

 

[FFEJY]

Ok ..yes I understand you now..I have never used the BIAMP inputs before in all the years ive owned this amp..i've always just used 1 speaker cable from the MKIV head into one of the the full range sockets on the cab.
So you suggest taking 2 speaker cables from each of the 2 output sockets on the head to the HI and LOW side of the BIAMP sockets on the cab..check the pic i put in a few mins ago...have I understood you right now?
ps. I would never use guitar cables in place of speaker cables btw..lol

Yes. From the two speaker outputs on the back of the head (they are paralleled), connect two speaker cables from there to the Hi and Low inputs on the cab.

If you never used those inputs, run the 1/4" jack in and out several times to be sure you make a good connection.

 

[Giffro]

Yes, out of the two speaker outputs on the bacon the head (they are paralleled), connect those two cables to the Hi and Low inputs on the cab.

If you never used those inputs, run the 1/4" jack in and out several times to be sure you make a good connection.

Interesting idea..splitting the 2 speaker systems using the amp head dual outputs.

How depressing..since mid 80's I could have been using the MKIV amp head into the 1820 cab wired the way you suggest for an even better sound..and now i'm pushing 71 and look back and wonder why they put 2 outputs on the MKIV head lolll..wakey wakey Giff..oh well too late now as i'm not gigging much but I certainly will try it as you suggest at home.
ps. I'll take eggs sunny side up with my bacon loll

 

[FFEJY]

Interesting idea..splitting the 2 speaker systems using the amp head dual outputs.

How depressing..since mid 80's I could have been using the MKIV amp head into the 1820 cab wired the way you suggest for an even better sound..and now i'm pushing 71 and look back and wonder why they put 2 outputs on the MKIV head lolll..wakey wakey Giff..oh well too late now as i'm not gigging much but I certainly will try it as you suggest at home.
ps. I'll take eggs sunny side up with my bacon loll

Oh it doesn't sound bad running it like you did, it just to me is louder and more aggressive in the mids running everything full-range. Less hi-fi.

I first learned this with a similar cab over 30 years ago, the 3620. It is the granddaddy to this cab as it has two 18s and two 10s. It was a shame to limit both those giant 18s to 500hz!

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