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Peavey Bass Amps

PEAVEY BASS AMPS

  • Worth getting, well made, durable & reliable

    Votes: 306 80.7%

  • Forget it, go with another brand

    Votes: 73 19.3%
  • Total voters
    379
#161
I play a Peavey Thunderbass head one of two ways, small gigs I put it on the 15 Peavey cab.. large gigs, it goes on the 810...yep, 8-10 inch speakers.
The head has incredible tone variations and I can bi-amp for larger gigs to and use the 15 inch cab as a subwoofer.

I never have to be loud because sonically, I'm in the frequency range where I'm felt more than heard. Right where a good little bassist should be!

Like my motto says...I've moved more funiture with my bass amp than Allied Vans lines has with their fleet of trucks!

:bassist:
 
#162
I've got to say that for what you pay, Peavey is great stuff.

I use a Deltabass head and 115 BW cab that I leave at church. It gets used a couple of times a week and has been totally reliable, quiet, and competent.

Our church auditorium currently seats about 280 and it totally fills the space. Granted, we're not playing at rock concert levels, but it's up against a drummer and other amplified guitarists. One of our guitarists uses an old Peavey Artist tube combo and I've got to say that things sounds really good.

There are enough tonal options (anything else I use my Sansamp bass driver) and the facilities on the amp are great (tuner out, DI out with pre/post EQ, contour control, effects send / receive on the front. Everything you need for live work is there.

I also use a Peavey TKO 115 at home as a practice amp and it sounds great for what I need.

The stuff has been reliable, and if not exciting, at least it's well worth what I paid. You can't say that for everything you buy these days.
 
#163
Personally I think the cheaper Peavey amps suck big time. Use 1/2 volume and 1/2 gain, and the only thing you here is this: ' PPPrrrrrrrtttt' and ' WOOOOMMMMMMM'. And that's it. Muddy-sounding speakers too.

But.... !!!!! The Peavey T-Max I own is great. It appeared to be the predecessor of the NitroBass, with even more power. It delivers at 2 ohms 550W RMS, talking about headroom... built in a DDT compressor, which compresses the sound slightly, to protect the speakers. It has a tube preamp AND a solid state one, and it really gives a great sound. Together with the EQ (where you can boost (or cut) 15dB and the low and high shelving, you won't need an active bass anymore. Lots of jack in and outputs at the back (preamp out, power amp in, FX loop, DI out... etc..). Fantastic in just once word.
 
#164
That's one thing Peavey are pros at - putting holes in their amps.

Tuner outs, DI outs, FX sends and returns, footswitches, Active crossovers, pre/poweramp sockets, extension cabs and so on... all in a $400 150watt practice amp...

I must say the Preamp and DI on my Combo115 are fantastic, through a decent PA system it absolutely sings, I couldn't ask for more from a 20ft XLR cable stolen from a local hire-shop...
 
#166
I haven't used the new stuff, but I have an old 1X15 combo, I forget the name but it has 3 controls for the Mid section of the EQ: bandwidth, freq and "mode" (level). It isn't terribly loud, and the stock speaker was just OK, but with the Hartke 15 in it now it's one of the best sounding, most versatile bass amps I've heard, and it hasn't had a problem in its 15+ (or so) years. As for tube amps... I stumbled upon a Peavey Classic 400, power section has EIGHT 6550/KT88's, 2 channels, lots of tone control options. It seems though that as it gets hot the tone changes, the clean channel doesn't stay clean, maybe it's the stock tubes but if I let it warm up before I start playing the sound is just monstrous. Some people don't like the sound of this head, I think it depends on the cabs you use too, it's pretty cool with my funky Cerwin Vega folded 18/front loaded 12 cab though heavier than a bus.
 
#167
I've been playing through Peavey bass amps for 25 yrs.

My first was a TNT 100 1-15 from the 70's --- piece of crap.
But what do you expect for a 45 watt 1-15 combo amp?

Next, a Combo 300 bought new in 81 --- a step up.
Not bad, 210 watts, 1-15 BW, but a little muddy (no tweeter).

Next a used Mark IV head paired with a 1820 cabinet --- Now your talking.
Same poer amp as the combo 300, 2 channels, and the cabinet could really talk..... 18 in BW in a ported cab, 2 10's in a sealed cabinet...(ummmm, sound like something Ampeg).
I tried bi-amping with the Combo 300 a few time while I had both rigs..... 500 watts an 18, 15 and 2 10's ......pretty impressive for the 80's

Finally a Combo 210 tx ---used for the last 5 yrs.
 
#168
Dan Loader said:
That's one thing Peavey are pros at - putting holes in their amps.

Tuner outs, DI outs, FX sends and returns, footswitches, Active crossovers, pre/poweramp sockets, extension cabs and so on... all in a $400 150watt practice amp...
Click to expand...

Very true!
I own a TNT115 and its the same thing...
My TNT115 is heavy, not very portable, not too many decent tones, loud, and....

But I have heard much from the higher quality preamps/newer stuff...

glenn
 
#171
same with me...i thought it was great (tnt130) at the time and in comparison to my previous gear it was...but that was 20 years ago and standards have risen a lot since then...my ebs drome is really light years ahead even though they are about the same size ...thankfully the ebs is easy to carry.
 
#174
freshmeat1989 said:
Has anyone tried the Max series of heads. I'm seriously considering getting one.
Click to expand...

Anyone else feel free to comment, but because of the identical specifications, I assumed that the MAX series of heads are identical to the old tour series except for cosmetics and name change:

Max 160 = old Deltabass
Max 450 = old Nitrobass
Max 700 = Old Firebass

So, if you tried the old ones, you've tried the new ones.

Cheers,
 
#176
matt bass said:
I play through a Peavey Firebass and 4x10 cab, competing with a guitarist with a 200w Marshall Power amp and i am always being told to turn down.
Click to expand...


I played a gig last week in a 22,000 sq ft department store that has been converted into a rental party room. Our sound guy told me to turn down because my Peavey Firebass and 4X10 cab was washing out the PA. I have always been happy with the tone and volume out of this rig. After reading this thread I went and looked at how it's set. Everything on zero. I guess the tone comes from the bass. I have a SWR Redhead that I use for small gigs and as a practice amp and believe it or not, I like the Peavey better.
 
#178
Hey All,

I gigged with a TNT130 for WAAAYYY longer than I should have (actually, I still own it). Yes, the sound is flat and not that exciting. But it was fine, and the thing was totally reliable. I brought it to gigs that it had no business being at and it held its own. I can't even count the number of times a bassist who showed up with some vintage tube amp had to borrow my Peavey to make it through the set. On top of everything else, I loaned it to a friend, it hung out in a dank storage locker for a few months, and still fired up when I got it back.

As lots of other people have pointed out, the tone isn't all that big a deal in a lot of performance settings where you go through a PA anyway.

The thing that finally made me switch was the weight. After starting to have back problems, I switched to a head/cab setup that was much light and mroe hi-fi. But I've gotta say, with all the mids and none of the lows, the Peavey 130 gives the same perceptible loudness as my Eden WT-400 through a 15" in a rock setting. OTOH, the Eden sounds better and kicks out serious low end if you let it.

I still think about going back, though, if I get into another rock band. Just get a killer-loud Peavey head and be done with it.

--JES
 
#179
Dan Loader said:
Just out of interest, has anyone here used (or own) anything from the Peavey PRO range?
They're a *lot* more expensive than the standard kit and I've not really heard much about them, other than that Stu Hamm and the bassist from Nickelback both use them.
Click to expand...


I use the Peavey Pro 500. This is one sweet amp. It's usually run at 4 ohms through either a SWR Goliath Jr. 3, and SOB, or a 4 ohm Aguilar GS212. It's a very loud 350 watts at 4 ohms. Before this amp, I was using a Peavey Max preamp with a Carvin DCM2000 or DCM1500...I loved this setup but I feel the Pro is a much better amp. It has a tight sound, it sounds like it has a built in compressor. I love the parametric eq, I'm able to dial in the tone I have been looking for. I have compared the tone to the Sunn/Fender 1200....but IMO it sounds tighter. Recently I used it with (2) 4 ohm cabs and got the maximum power from the amp, 500 watts...definetly very loud! I didn't even go through the pa for this gig. For basses, I use a Fender P/J or a (just aquired!) Fender Highway 1 jazz. You can't go wrong with this amp, yes it's more expensive then other Peavey amps, but it's well worth it. I think I'm still the only person on TB with this amp.
 
#180
I used to sell Peaveys back in my guitar store days, and I have owned just about every bass combo and cabinet they made before the mid 90's. I still have an old TKO 115 in my home office that I use as a practice amp. Though they are notoriously heavy I have always found them generally reliable and fairly good sounding amps. The main reason I dont use them live any more is that I am so tired of the sound, because where I live there was not much else available for a long time. So, that is what I and everyone else used, and it got real old. I remember being so excited when one of the shops started carying SWR, because I could try something different.

The only real problem I have with them is that every 90's Peavey solid state amp, the ones with the black and teal faceplates, I've owned (both guitar and bass) has suffered from what we used to call Peavy-itis at the store. Some of you may have experienced this. At some point the amp would all of a sudden lose all output when you turned it on. You could remedy this by playing a note and cranking the volume and the amp will suddenly blair on, which I'm sure is probably not good for the speaker. My TKO does this actually. I've been told by tech guys that it was a dirt problem, which requires service. This has occured on just about every solid state Peavey I've had. I did not have this problem though with their tube guitar amps(eg. 5150 and Classic series), or the older 70's and 80's black faced Peaveys I have used.

Hopefully the newer designs don't suffer from this Peavey-itis. So if you are looking at getting a Peavey, I would probably steer away from the black and teal amps made in the 90's. The old black faced stuff is near bullet proof though, and they cut through just about anything. :bassist:
 

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