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Peavey T-MAX head

#81
neato.

sorry to derail the thread. the max pre is one of my favourite pieces of gear and ive put a decent amount of research but not a lot of listening time into power amps to pair with it. my only power tubes live inside my SVT, V4, & PF50T. been wanting to make sure i make the right choice as much as possible before i find one.

it sounds nice and clear through my class D Carvin since they live in the same rack anyway. but i have been wanting to justify having both the T Max & Max pre and putting the Max pre through another ss power section, even if its a different type and sound, isn't really much to defend in that regard.
 
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#82
cheechi said:
neato.

sorry to derail the thread. the max pre is one of my favourite pieces of gear and ive put a decent amount of research but not a lot of listening time into power amps to pair with it. my only power tubes live inside my SVT, V4, & PF50T. been wanting to make sure i make the right choice as much as possible before i find one.

it sounds nice and clear through my class D Carvin since they live in the same rack anyway. but i have been wanting to justify having both the T Max & Max pre and putting the Max pre through another ss power section, even if its a different type and sound, isn't really much to defend in that regard.
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I have the T-max as well. I've found that different power amps whether solid state or tube will give you different level of headroom characteristics. I can get a level overdrive with a SVT-300 or the 120/120 that I wont get with a Stewart World 1.2 or SVP 1600.

Really depends on what your doing and the T-max provides that flexibility. If you dont need additional power or portability, I see no reason to get rid of the T-max head.
 
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#83
cheechi said:
neato.

sorry to derail the thread. the max pre is one of my favourite pieces of gear and ive put a decent amount of research but not a lot of listening time into power amps to pair with it. my only power tubes live inside my SVT, V4, & PF50T. been wanting to make sure i make the right choice as much as possible before i find one.

it sounds nice and clear through my class D Carvin since they live in the same rack anyway. but i have been wanting to justify having both the T Max & Max pre and putting the Max pre through another ss power section, even if its a different type and sound, isn't really much to defend in that regard.
Click to expand...

I have the T-max as well. I've found that different power amps whether solid state or tube will give you different level of headroom characteristics. I can get a level overdrive with a SVT-300 or the 120/120 that I wont get with a Stewart World 1.2 or SVP 1600.

Really depends on what your doing and the T-max provides that flexibility. If you dont need additional power or portability, I see no reason to get rid of the T-max head.
 
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#85
cheechi said:
Nope never will get rid of either. It's special to me cause I had to repair it when it was shipped to me. But I do want that 'something different' that I can justify to the wife similar to having both the V4 and SVT.
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I would recommend the Peavey Alpha bass head as a good amp to try out. It's mated to a 6L6 power plant that is loosely based on the 120 and 120/120 power amps. They are a great bargain and can be obtained for not a whole lot of money. However, once they're gone and forgotten, you can expect prices to soar. The Peavey Alpha bass preamp is the same frontend and sounds fantastic. The Megabass is a great amp that can run up to four 8 ohm cabs in the low and full range configuration.

Here are some amp and preamp splits from Peavey:

Peavey T-max has a pre called the T-max (obviously)
Peavey Alpha has a pre called the Alpha
Peavey Mega Bass has a pre called the Pro bass 1000

The T.B. Raxx didn't have a bass head counterpart. The T.G. Raxx is essentially the same pre with a different cap filter for guitar. The Peavey bassist didn't have a bass head counterpart as well. There were a few other obscure solid state and valve preamps running in the wild that were one size fits all solutions.
 
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#86
cheechi said:
assuming bass sounds good through 6L6 power, i have wanted one of those for some time. now i want it more.
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My 1960's, no master volume, Traynor YBA-3 came loaded with 6l6's, which is the standard tube used for them now. Sounded way beyond good, even at full volume (through a 300w Cerwin Vega speaker). Playing electric guitar through it I also didn't miss not having reverb, as I didn't have a stand alone verb at the time. Fabulous tone. I'm only on the fence on the 120/120 because I have two tube amps already but I think a stand alone full tube power amp would be awesome to have kicking around for any instrument or vocals.
 
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#87
Well, I finally forced myself to list my complete T-Max rig on Kijiji. Once the power tranny gives up the ghost in my 500 I'll physically disconnect power to the power side and use it for a studio preamp. I'll probably just use it in house anyway. I have a hankering to buy a Traynor BM400 at this point. I'd use that for playing out.
 
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#88
Bass Butcher said:
My 1960's, no master volume, Traynor YBA-3 came loaded with 6l6's, which is the standard tube used for them now. Sounded way beyond good, even at full volume (through a 300w Cerwin Vega speaker). Playing electric guitar through it I also didn't miss not having reverb, as I didn't have a stand alone verb at the time. Fabulous tone. I'm only on the fence on the 120/120 because I have two tube amps already but I think a stand alone full tube power amp would be awesome to have kicking around for any instrument or vocals.
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The 120/120 is/was a great piece of tube technology. Very few amps let you control the DI level going out to the board. Although this function is on the power amp, I think all pre's should have that option on the DI.

I've been trying to convince my guitar players to use a Helix or some other guitar preamp and running them through each channel. They would have more than enough power and might even lessen the clutter on stage.
 
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#91
oZZma said:
Anyone has an audio clip of this head? :)
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Not a whole lot of sound clips in the wild that I know. This video on the Max Pre does a pretty good demo of what the head sounds like. The front-end is bright but not brittle, and it's punchy to boot. The other vids aren't that good.


 
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#92
cheechi said:
depending on the cab, the 60/60 would still probably be more than enough power for a stereo guitar rig.

Thanks for the lesson guys. I haven't encountered any 6L6 based at this point and thought the lack of discussion here of bass amps with them was significant. Not to say I dismissed them completely just made a bad assumption.
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No worries. Just goes to show that there is a lot of good stuff out there that Peavey made. It's more about what you're likely to come across versus what you actually want. Like I'd love to have a Peavey B quad 5 going into two Peavey Super Festivals (or VTA-400's) feeding four 1820's. This is why I'm not quick to accept class D with open arms because you ain't gonna find that kind of rig or sound anywhere.
 
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#93
On my Peavey amps I always goose the Pre almost to max and then adjust the post to volume, I really like giving the power section all I can to get it to distort. Short of tubes, I think it's the best kind of power section distortion you can get. I'm sure there are other brands with similar (or even the same?) SS power section that might give similar results. Every time I hear it, it reminds me of all the bands I saw when I was younger. I don't think class D can cop that sound, at least not without someone specifically designing it that way and I doubt that's likely.

I have one of johnk's F800 pedals because I also really like that Festival sound. Into the front of an otherwise annoyingly clean Mark VIII the best way to describe it is 'very big fuzz' but just calling that sound fuzz is a bit of a disservice. Maybe not Super Festival 800 big, but big. And instead of the 1820's I'd have a wall of 15" Black Widows. Still after all these years they are basically the only 15's I like.
 
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#94
cheechi said:
On my Peavey amps I always goose the Pre almost to max and then adjust the post to volume, I really like giving the power section all I can to get it to distort. Short of tubes, I think it's the best kind of power section distortion you can get. I'm sure there are other brands with similar (or even the same?) SS power section that might give similar results. Every time I hear it, it reminds me of all the bands I saw when I was younger. I don't think class D can cop that sound, at least not without someone specifically designing it that way and I doubt that's likely.

I have one of johnk's F800 pedals because I also really like that Festival sound. Into the front of an otherwise annoyingly clean Mark VIII the best way to describe it is 'very big fuzz' but just calling that sound fuzz is a bit of a disservice. Maybe not Super Festival 800 big, but big. And instead of the 1820's I'd have a wall of 15" Black Widows. Still after all these years they are basically the only 15's I like.
Click to expand...

The only other amps I know from that era that have that characteristic would be GK amps. Especially the 400RB and 800RB amps. I have a GK1200SEB that can approximate the same grind with gain and volume control. Some of the Acoustic rigs had effects built into them but, outside of those effects I found them to be warm and wooly in tone.
 
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#95
I got to use a Mk IV 400 BH with the 1820 in the early 1990's. That amp and cab match was the greatest thing since sliced bread, lol My favorite EQ section of any bass amp I have used to this day. I had a Korg stereo bass effects processor at the time and really wanted to try two of those rigs with it. If you like the BW 15", you'd love the BW 18". Same animal, just more of it. An 1820 would actually be a great match for a T-Max head.
 
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