• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Peavey Classic 30 With Bass Speaker?

Essen

Essen

Supporting Member
Mar 12, 2008
720
42
Norway
soundcloud.com
#1
Ok, so today at band practice, I played my jaguar through this old peavey classic 30 guitar amp, and I was nothing short of amazed by the warm, tubey, vintage sound.

I am currently looking for a new amp, but I've been dissapointed by the shortage of full, or more than one-tube bass combos under 1k $.

So, should I, and can I replace the speaker with a 12' bass speaker, and will 30 watts from this amp be louder than the 100 from my fender rumble?

And if not, is there any combo out there, for under 1k, that has more than like one tube? Or atleast sounds like it has?

Thank you.
 
#5
Go look at bass combo's. See if you can find just one, with an open back. You can't, because no one makes one. They don't make them because they don't work. You'll destroy the speaker, but before you do, you'll sound like ass. Bass is very unique, in many ways. Bass amps are designed to reproduce low frequencies, clearly. Guitar amps are a poor choice for bass.
 
#6
I used to use a Peavey Classic 30 (for guitar) and I also played bass through it a few times.

Now, at low volumes it was pretty cool, would never dare to even start to open up the amp tho!

There aren't many all tube bass combo's about (in comparison to what the guitarists have). There are the Ampeg B-15s of course, Ashdown make some and I know TE used to make some (I've seen a V-4 combo). But as you know, they are all pretty expensive.

Why does it have to be a combo?

One thing you could do, is get a tube guitar amp head (don't know if it's still around but you used to get an amp head version of the Peavey Classic amp) and run it into a small bass cab (impedances allowing)?
 
#8
RickenBoogie said:
Go look at bass combo's. See if you can find just one, with an open back. You can't, because no one makes one. They don't make them because they don't work. You'll destroy the speaker, but before you do, you'll sound like ass. Bass is very unique, in many ways. Bass amps are designed to reproduce low frequencies, clearly. Guitar amps are a poor choice for bass.
Click to expand...

I'd have to agree but I wonder what Leo was thinking when he designed the 4X10 Fender Bassman amp? )-(
 
#9
I have a '67 Ampeg G-15 that I use for living room playing all the time. The sound is nothing short of wonderful... but I wouldn't dream of turning it pass 3 or 4.. that's all it's good for with a bass. Find a good/old tube head or even a converted PA or organ amp, and play it through a real bass cab. No worries. Can be done on the cheap, if you can do the DIY..
 
#10
I found a 15-year old Carvin T100 tube power amp in mint condition on my local Craigslist for $100 (a dollar a watt!). It sounds great powering my Eden bass cabs. I'm lucky to be in one of the bigger metro areas with a lot of CL postings though. Good luck on your quest.
 
#12
Yep, it wasn't until the B-15 came out in 1960 that anyone made a bass combo (or bass amp in general) worth a crap. And Fender couldn't design a good bass cab to save their lives.
 
#13
As an ironic twist...Friday night I played a '64 Bassman head through a Peavey Classic 112E (closed back) cab for a low volume practice. It was simply wonderful! It had all of the 'old school' warmth...and sounded better than the period Bassman cabs that I had used in the past.

Go figure...

Kim
 
#14
Enclosed cabinets are desirable for bass, to keep the back wave from cancelling the front wave, at frequencies where the entire system is omnidirectional. Therefore, bass drivers are designed to work in enclosures, and in particular, to depend on the pressure in the box to control the motion of the cone. Without that pressure, low frequencies can drive the cone to the mechanical limit, which shreds the driver.

With that said, 30 W might be survivable with a high performance driver. You can find out by modeling it using WinISD Pro, entering an arbitrarily high box volume, and looking at the max-power graph. But it's not certain to sound any better than the guitar speaker that's in there, and is not an inexpensive experiment.
 
#15
You can of course, use the amp out of a classic 30 to run a few bass cabs...A guitarist friend of mine has the 30 and runs it with an extension cab...so it tells me that as long as you go no lower than a 4 ohm load...

...just disconnect the combo speaker and use two bass-designed cabs.
 
#18
No proof that foreign made are bad, and in fact, there are still some old stock Vintage 30's out there.
A friend who is a tech at our local Peavy authorized service center has high praise for any US made Peavey amps but has seen some bad workmanship in the SS units; purely speculative that the tube units will suffer too.

Also, don't screw it up; it's a good amp!
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back