Peavey megabass head with 1820 cabinet

[Cory rich40]

I started playing bass at 14 years old in 1993. I started out on this rig. I remember the cabinet was heavy. Years later I purchased my first quality bass which was a fender American standard jazz V along with a new amp which happened to be a peavey 115 combo. That was back in 2002. The megabass rig actually belonged to my dad. He was actually the one who pushed for the 115 combo. Since then I think I’ve found my sound and it isn’t peavey. I mainly play in my dad’s group. We go over to his house or the church to practice once a week. Fender isn’t really in my sound these days either as far as bass guitars go. I use music man basses. Well not completely true since Leo designed the stingray as well. My amps are a fender super bassman 300, and bassman 800, and the new fender Adam Clayton combo amp. I also have an ampeg SVT vr. I used the peavey 115 combo from 2002-2018 and sold it in 2021 for cheap. It still works fine till this day. The mega bass rig was given to a church. The reason dad pushed for getting the 115 combo was because of needing the 15 inch speaker for the low B string. Maybe he was going on what the guy at the music store was telling him trying to sell a product. Maybe the 115 combo was lighter( not by much). In my opinion I feel like the peavey 115 combo was an inferior rig to the mega bass rig. To me it never sounded as good as the 210’s and 18 inch cabinet. Funny thing is that years later, dad says he hated both of those rigs because of how muddy they sounded. My complaint with the combo was in my opinion I was never loud enough.

 

[Steevo00]

I can believe the 1820 lacked high end clarity. Bass cabinets were only beginning to add high frequency drivers at that time, that I know of, and it was only the high end stuff like trace Elliott and SWR that had them. The Peavy 1516 was a very cool cab, that was not as loud but had a brighter top if I recall.
I played through a Peavy Megabass in the late 80s and the 90s. That was my whole gigging career actually, I got married and started a family and just didn’t have the time to be in a band anymore.(Interestingly enough, my keyboard player used to be a bass player and played his keys through an 1820 cab!)
I loved my Megabass head so much, I still have it. Couldn’t bear to part with it, even though it’s been sitting in a closet, and it even survived a move to a new house- twice!
That Megabass could literally handle any situation, including an outdoor gig facing a lake. That lake gig, people literally heard me miles away lol! At that time my low cab was a 4 Ohm front-ported JBL 118 cabinet that somebody had loaded with a black widow speaker. And my high frequency cab was a Peavy 410. I don’t remember if that cab was 4 or 8 ohms, most likely 4. Man did that rig scream! It was very, very deep. No problem with low B on the five string. It could reproduce the lowest frequencies that my EMG jazz pick ups could produce. Like most J’s , those pick ups did have a bit of a tight bottom. For a small gig I would just use the 410, and that actually sounded amazing!
After I got tired of carrying those two big cabs around, I switched to two Peavy Futura 15 inch cabs for my “subs”. Those were very small for 15 inch bass cabs for the day. (Barely bigger than the driver, and they had optional rack ears so they could be rack mounted, as rack-mount guitar rigs were becoming a thing.) And for my high frequency cab I got a Hartke 210. The two small 15 inch cabs were much louder and punchier than the 118. They were a little tighter at the lowest frequencies, but still did an adequate low B string. And the Hartke cab had me turning my treble waaay down!