Peavey Amp Club

[Count Bassie]

Lots of good stuff in the news here!
Hey @Heavy Blue , there's a guy in my neighborhood who's fairly knowledgeable with the Peavey gear, I'm give him a shout, see if there's a connection for you.

 

[rojo412]

I get to play around with this thing for a spell. My buddy got it in a deal and he's not a bassist. So I'm putting it through its paces and checking it out, before a possible sale (assuming I don't fall head over heels for it, that is...).
For 1974, I'm kinda shocked at how modern it can sound.

 

[AudioTaper]

View attachment 5228072
I get to play around with this thing for a spell. My buddy got it in a deal and he's not a bassist. So I'm putting it through its paces and checking it out, before a possible sale (assuming I don't fall head over heels for it, that is...).
For 1974, I'm kinda shocked at how modern it can sound.

Super clean!

 

[BassBeginer64]

Why would Peavey set the fixed bias so low?, my Alphabass runs 6L6GC, should be 40-42. taking it in to get biased and put a pot in to finite the tone.

 

[bassguitarist85]

Why would Peavey set the fixed bias so low?, my Alphabass runs 6L6GC, should be 40-42. taking it in to get biased and put a pot in to finite the tone.View attachment 5228842

View attachment 5228840

As I mentioned to you and for the benefit of others I'll post it here. The AlphaBass is basically a souped up guitar head voiced for bass and they used the Peavey Mace head as a platform.

Like the MK1 Valve King heads they used a single resistor to set the fixed bias. The majority of the tone was meant to come from the preamp and not the power amp section. Unfortunately over time the tolerance of components would actually make the power amp section run to cold to the point you hear crossover distortion. Some VKs head crossover distortion out of the box so there was that too. They corrected this issue in the MK2 Valve King heads by adding a bias pot to allow adjustment of the power amp section.

For the Alphabass, snip R9 which is a 15K resistor, and replace it with a 10K potentiometer and a 4.7 k 1/4 watt resistor in series across the original R9 leads. This is basically the same modification that many did to their first edition 1992 5150 heads. The power supply section for many of the Peavey amps are similar.

 

[BassBeginer64]

Thank you again Gary !

 

[Marko 1]

Did y'all know that the Tour heads will (unofficially) do 2-ohms? I just read this. Expand the quoted post below and read what I have bolded.

Here's a little bit of Tour 450/700 history for the club...

Lots of people are familiar with the Peavey Firebass and Nitrobass. Those amps were updated slightly in the early 2000's, mostly cosmetically, and were called Max 700 and Max 450, respectively. The Tour 450/700 were the replacements in the bass lineup. Wood sleeve heads had fallen out of favor, and there was a push for lighter weight. We started working on these around 2005, right before Hurricane Katrina. The feature set of the Tour's was defined by Dave Ellefson of Megadeth, who was head of Peavey artist relations at the time. One of the unique features of the Tour was Dave's idea--the failsafe DI, which allowed the DI to work (with phantom power) in case of amp or power failure on stage.

The power amplifier used in these was unique. It was a class AB amplifier with a patented design featuring an efficiency boosting system called "Smart rail". We've never used that system since because we went back to doing class D power amplifiers almost exclusively. The power amp was designed by Lee Santillano, who had his name on many Peavey power amp patents. The Smart rail system allowed the amp to achieve higher power with less heatsinking and power transistors, which served as a weight reduction. The official minimum impedance limit on these heads is 4 ohms, however, these amps will power 2 ohm loads safely (do it at your own risk). Bobby Dall from Poison did a whole tour with a Tour 700 driving two 4 ohm 810 cabs.

I designed the preamp section and was the project lead, so I was responsible for stuff like assembling prototypes, testing, and writing the manual. This was the first bass product I worked on. I had graduated a few months before, and started in engineering as an embedded programmer, but I sucked at that! I noticed there was nobody in engineering handling bass gear exclusively, so I kind of snuck in and it became my job.

The industrial design was done by my good friend Matt Copley. He works for Kustom now. If you look at some of the Kustom amps, you may see some similarities in overall cosmetic design style. Hartley Peavey likes to put in his 2 cents on products from time to time--his contribution was the grey "horizon" background graphic on the faceplate.

The chassis design was done by Ronnie Goss. He designed the packaging for literally hundreds of Peavey products. He even worked on some Peavey basses like the Dynabass and the original Sarzo if I'm not mistaken. He retired around 2007, unfortunately. He is a TBer and hangs out in the bass guitar forum--he is an excellent luthier and a hell of a bass player.

We unveiled these at WNAMM 2006.

There are 4 generations of Tour heads that mark design updates.

Gen 1: 1st 100 each of 450/700 made. These can be identified by looking into the side grills towards the front. There will be mods glued to the rear of the preamp board. These mods were to reduce the noise of the octaver and muting circuits. These were the amps that required the "triac mod". A triac "crowbar" circuit was used as a redundant protection scheme. It caused the amps to go into protect mode. It was removed as a service update, and was immediately eliminated from the design.

Gen 2: I estimate there were a few hundred of these made The preamp mod and triac will not be there. These can be identified by looking at the faceplate. The octaver is called "Octaver".

Gen 3: The octaver is called "Kosmos B". That was a marketing decision that I didn't like. If you want to be sure you've found a Tour without the triac problem, look for this one.

Gen 4: Tour 700 only...450 was discontinued earlier due to release of the Headliner head. You can't tell these without really knowing what to look for. These were the last ones made. The original power transistors were discontinued. The replacement transistors were updated, newer technology parts.

Rare Tour heads: I added a line drive circuit to several artist heads. Some artists used power amplfiers with low input sensitivity, so I had to add a circuit that would drive them to full power. There will be an extra 1/4" jack on the left rear. If you happen to find one of these, it was an artist amp. Because of having to do this, I always make sure my bass amps can drive these types of power amps since then!

Here is a picture of me and the first Tour 700 proto in 2005. The first live test was in front of Peavey for a big after school program fundraiser event. Yes, I am a huge nerd! There were a lot of changes between then and production...notice, no mute button, not octave defeat button, etc...

View attachment 567899

 

[Riff Ranger]

A crop of a better shot of my rig and me in action last week, by Al from Ashland.

 

[bigtone23]

I love my 78 Century 200 so much. Got it in the $70 days of the early 21st Century. Did a small mod to the preamp/poweramp connection to extend the bandwidth a touch as well as some cap and resistor replacement to get it fresh again. I play it out a LOT, therefore it falls in my "carry a spare" mentality (though the fear of breaking down is not really an issue with these amps, especially if maintained). A cool 'spare' would be a JohnK Century preamp pedal, which has been on the radar for a couple years, but nearly impossible to find, and it seems he won't make another run.

One of my friends got the bug and has become a fairly recent convert to the world of the cool, older Peaveys. He's been grabbing up all kinds of really great local deals on the amps and instruments. He then cleans them up, makes sure they are usable/functional and sends most of them on to a new owner. He does cherry pick the coolest stuff for him (his super clean, early 70s Standard 240 head and 2x15" are drool worthy)! In a deal he made for a couple really, really nice 1974 Hiwatt 4x12" cabs (with Fanes), he got a 1977 Century 200. I saw his post on FB Marketplace for it and it was a fair price. He knew I had one so didn't hit me up about it, but I called dibs and he made me a bro deal on it.

Happy New Amp Day!!!

Deep cleaned it, touched up the silver with a Sharpie. Everything works great, everything but one knob is original! It's always amazing when a 46 year-old, hard working amp still performs at 80-90% spec on all original parts. It's a little looser, not quite the same headroom as my 78, but the EQ and Distortion circuit does sound the same. The hardware was a little cleaner than on my 78, so I did move the nicer corners, screws, etc... to the 78, since it's the #1 and not going anywhere. This head is not as easy to tote as a pedal, but it's not a big, heavy amp, either. 77 will live at the practice space to save a lot of toting.

Plus, it just looks cool to have two of these stacked. 77 is on top, 78 below (which still has the black knob decals).

 

[Count Bassie]

I love my 78 Century 200 so much. Got it in the $70 days of the early 21st Century. Did a small mod to the preamp/poweramp connection to extend the bandwidth a touch as well as some cap and resistor replacement to get it fresh again. I play it out a LOT, therefore it falls in my "carry a spare" mentality (though the fear of breaking down is not really an issue with these amps, especially if maintained). A cool 'spare' would be a JohnK Century preamp pedal, which has been on the radar for a couple years, but nearly impossible to find, and it seems he won't make another run.

One of my friends got the bug and has become a fairly recent convert to the world of the cool, older Peaveys. He's been grabbing up all kinds of really great local deals on the amps and instruments. He then cleans them up, makes sure they are usable/functional and sends most of them on to a new owner. He does cherry pick the coolest stuff for him (his super clean, early 70s Standard 240 head and 2x15" are drool worthy)! In a deal he made for a couple really, really nice 1974 Hiwatt 4x12" cabs (with Fanes), he got a 1977 Century 200. I saw his post on FB Marketplace for it and it was a fair price. He knew I had one so didn't hit me up about it, but I called dibs and he made me a bro deal on it.

Happy New Amp Day!!!

Deep cleaned it, touched up the silver with a Sharpie. Everything works great, everything but one knob is original! It's always amazing when a 46 year-old, hard working amp still performs at 80-90% spec on all original parts. It's a little looser, not quite the same headroom as my 78, but the EQ and Distortion circuit does sound the same. The hardware was a little cleaner than on my 78, so I did move the nicer corners, screws, etc... to the 78, since it's the #1 and not going anywhere. This head is not as easy to tote as a pedal, but it's not a big, heavy amp, either. 77 will live at the practice space to save a lot of toting.

Plus, it just looks cool to have two of these stacked. 77 is on top, 78 below (which still has the black knob decals).

That's cool. Yeah the stacked pair is caché.

 

[BassBeginer64]

Tower of Peavey Tube Bass Amps, few more days of tweaking tubes then 1 or 2 heads go home to tick off the wife. Alpha now has a trimmer pot, big difference in sound, and the VB-3 new power tubes came in, ordered some 5751 tubes to try in the V-1slots, the overdrives in all 3 heads goes overboard at 6 on the dials

 

[bigtone23]

That's cool. Yeah the stacked pair is caché.

For sure! A loud 100w amp. Ran one into my TnR Kustom 2x12" (Scorpion and Hydrive speakers) the other into the classic Peavey cab with a 15" Scorpion Plus. Both are 4 ohm, so I get the full 100w from each head. That's a really fun setup!

 

[bigtone23]

Watts and speaker area and efficiency and frequency band width all interact and makes it difficult to predict what system will be adequate for what purpose.

My recently acquired Peavey Standard 260h series is so much louder than it should be. Even at a rated 85w into a Bag End S15 it is really loud.

Perceived volume has so many variables that I've given up trying to generalize regarding setups except for this that I've tried or heard. For example, a GK 400RB into two Bag End S15 cans sounds great, as does a 800RB.
The GK 800RB into 3 Bag End S15 cabs also sounds great but the third cab doesn't seem to add a ton of volume.

These combinations are tried and true, and I'm far from the only one using them.

As for the rest, I'd do my best to try things out at rehearsal or gig volume and see how things go.

Part of a small rig being loud has to do with accepting a certain amount of overdrive or distortion as the volume goes up. I think people use super high power setups to chase a loud, clean tone.

My above post is complimentary to this. It's not just the watts, but speaker efficiency, HPF, dampening, etc...

My 1990 Peavey 1x15" cab with a 4 ohm Scorpion Plus is quite a nice cab. It's tuned well for the driver, has a nice, big sound and is decently efficient. It's just a little cumbersome to move around, so it tends to stay at home. It's a perfect compliment to the Century 200. The trick to the C200 is to run the bass control no higher than about 2 o'clock, mids all the way up, and treble around 9 o'clock. This way, the amp doesn't work hard reproducing power sucking lows, and the 1x15" cab has enough inherent low end to make up for the amp.

Not Peavey, but hear me out...
My '68 Charcoal Sparkle Kustom 2x12" is a favorite cab of mine. I kind of see Kustom like I see Peavey, affordable amps that have a cool following. My cab was originally loaded with squareback CTS speakers. I got the cab for a song because only one speaker was working (and very weakly/tired at that). Got the cab home, took it apart, saw that it had been in a flood (water damage was nearly half way up the cab) and a now mummified mouse had previously made a home in the cab. After a very thorough toxic cleanup, replacement of rusted screws and bolts, and a silicone sealing of the edges and seams, I reloaded the cab with two regular issue 8 Ohm Scorpions and installed a Speakon jack. Not only did the cab lose about 10-12 pounds from the pair of CTS, but it sounded great! Lucky.
Usually, bass cabs are very particular with speaker choice and require some tuning for each speaker. Well, I also really like those Hartke Hydrive speakers, they sound cool and have 4 and 8 ohm taps on the driver. One popped up for a song, so I snagged it and put it in the top position of the cab. Well, it sounded even better! Compared to the Scorpion, it had an extended top end, tighter lows, was more sensitive, was tight with the cone movement and the cab lost some more weight from the Scorpion (which are already a reasonable 7 pounds). Lucky again. I'm beginning to think these Kustom cabs might just be one of the most forgiving cab design for speakers..?

Either way, it's a 4 ohm cab so it pulls the 100W out of the Century 200, very sensitive and has incredible bandwidth--very strong low end. It's also the same width as the C200 head, so it looks great. It can handle 300 watts, so I can put a 'modern' head through it, and it sounds really, really good. My GK NEO 2x12" does have a little more low end extension and a touch more volume, but it's a modern design, so it should. What's so wild is that this Kustom 2x12" cab with a Hydrive and Scorpion weighs about 35 pounds, has side handles and the original casters. It's really light and easy to tote. It is able to really bring out the necessary EQ curve and sensitivity to make a low power amp sound loud.

 

[Count Bassie]

My above post is complimentary to this. It's not just the watts, but speaker efficiency, HPF, dampening, etc...

My 1990 Peavey 1x15" cab with a 4 ohm Scorpion Plus is quite a nice cab. It's tuned well for the driver, has a nice, big sound and is decently efficient. It's just a little cumbersome to move around, so it tends to stay at home. It's a perfect compliment to the Century 200. The trick to the C200 is to run the bass control no higher than about 2 o'clock, mids all the way up, and treble around 9 o'clock. This way, the amp doesn't work hard reproducing power sucking lows, and the 1x15" cab has enough inherent low end to make up for the amp.

Not Peavey, but hear me out...
My '68 Charcoal Sparkle Kustom 2x12" is a favorite cab of mine. I kind of see Kustom like I see Peavey, affordable amps that have a cool following. My cab was originally loaded with squareback CTS speakers. I got the cab for a song because only one speaker was working (and very weakly/tired at that). Got the cab home, took it apart, saw that it had been in a flood (water damage was nearly half way up the cab) and a now mummified mouse had previously made a home in the cab. After a very thorough toxic cleanup, replacement of rusted screws and bolts, and a silicone sealing of the edges and seams, I reloaded the cab with two regular issue 8 Ohm Scorpions and installed a Speakon jack. Not only did the cab lose about 10-12 pounds from the pair of CTS, but it sounded great! Lucky.
Usually, bass cabs are very particular with speaker choice and require some tuning for each speaker. Well, I also really like those Hartke Hydrive speakers, they sound cool and have 4 and 8 ohm taps on the driver. One popped up for a song, so I snagged it and put it in the top position of the cab. Well, it sounded even better! Compared to the Scorpion, it had an extended top end, tighter lows, was more sensitive, was tight with the cone movement and the cab lost some more weight from the Scorpion (which are already a reasonable 7 pounds). Lucky again. I'm beginning to think these Kustom cabs might just be one of the most forgiving cab design for speakers..?

Either way, it's a 4 ohm cab so it pulls the 100W out of the Century 200, very sensitive and has incredible bandwidth--very strong low end. It's also the same width as the C200 head, so it looks great. It can handle 300 watts, so I can put a 'modern' head through it, and it sounds really, really good. My GK NEO 2x12" does have a little more low end extension and a touch more volume, but it's a modern design, so it should. What's so wild is that this Kustom 2x12" cab with a Hydrive and Scorpion weighs about 35 pounds, has side handles and the original casters. It's really light and easy to tote. It is able to really bring out the necessary EQ curve and sensitivity to make a low power amp sound loud.

Nice!

 

[Marko 1]

Enjoying getting to know my newish-to-me Peavey Headliner 1000 better. Again, Class D, ten pounds.

Seems so far it works fine flat. Can't beat that!

Next gig is a Toys-for-Tots benefit at a venue that supports our band very well, and I plan on taking this very rig.

 

[Lucca]

Hi Bass Friends! I'm hoping someone can give me some valuable guidance. I have a U.S. made Peavey Microbass Combo (the 20 watt one, 50 watts rms I believe) which I think is from the late 80s or early 90s. It's the one with the silver strip. I love that little thing, and I'm wondering what larger U.S. made heads or combos also from the silver strip era might have been manufactured. I'd absolutely love to have this exact tone in a larger package. By the way, does anyone know what the brand/type of speaker they used in these? I know it's an 8", but that's about it.
Thanks so much!
Lucca

 

[Count Bassie]

Hi Bass Friends! I'm hoping someone can give me some valuable guidance. I have a U.S. made Peavey Microbass Combo (the 20 watt one, 50 watts rms I believe) which I think is from the late 80s or early 90s. It's the one with the silver strip. I love that little thing, and I'm wondering what larger U.S. made heads or combos also from the silver strip era might have been manufactured. I'd absolutely love to have this exact tone in a larger package. By the way, does anyone know what the brand/type of speaker they used in these? I know it's an 8", but that's about it.
Thanks so much!
Lucca

Hey Lucca, I had the TNT115S combo, silver stripe, which had a Sheffield 15.
I don't know how to compare it with your Micro bass, but boy that thing sounded great! A very able gig machine, loud as heck with a bullhorn.
Are you signing on with us here? Just give a nod and post us a pic of your R2D2 and you'll get yourself a number for the most baddest unsung amp group on Talkbass!
Are ya pumped??!!

Also there's an encyclopedia worth of Peavey info here, so ask away...

 

[Lucca]

Hi Count Bassie, it's very nice to meet you and thank you for inviting me to sign up to this great Peavey Amp Club! Yes, I look forward to earning my number. I will take a picture of the little Microbass and I can also add a picture of my recent sold Peavey 400B amp sitting atop a GenzBenz cabinet with a Peavey Black Widow 15" speaker lurking inside!

 

[Count Bassie]

Hi Count Bassie, it's very nice to meet you and thank you for inviting me to sign up to this great Peavey Amp Club! Yes, I look forward to earning my number. I will take a picture of the little Microbass and I can also add a picture of my recent sold Peavey 400B amp sitting atop a GenzBenz cabinet with a Peavey Black Widow 15" speaker lurking inside!

We await with 'bated breath!

 

[bassguitarist85]

Hi Bass Friends! I'm hoping someone can give me some valuable guidance. I have a U.S. made Peavey Microbass Combo (the 20 watt one, 50 watts rms I believe) which I think is from the late 80s or early 90s. It's the one with the silver strip. I love that little thing, and I'm wondering what larger U.S. made heads or combos also from the silver strip era might have been manufactured. I'd absolutely love to have this exact tone in a larger package. By the way, does anyone know what the brand/type of speaker they used in these? I know it's an 8", but that's about it.
Thanks so much!
Lucca

The Microbass is my very first amp in my life. It's from the early 2000s. Its 20W RMS, the 50W RMS is the Basic 112. I too like the tone stack. All generations have the blue marvel speaker. If you want in a bigger format nothing against using a DI box on the speaker extension jack to a larger power amp and speakers.