Peavey KB300

Bidley

Just picked up an old and battered KB300 with Scorpion speaker off eBay.

It weighs an absolute ton, but for £25 I just had to. I play a lot of acoustic gigs with a singer, I'm thinking this would be handy for smaller gigs.

Anybody else have much experience with these? Apparently they're relatively decent with bass too.

ICBM

Yes. They'll handle more or less anything, even electronic drums. The version with the Black Widow speaker is better, but even heavier…

The only real flaw with them as a portable PA-in-a-box (aside from the weight) is the lack of EQ for the mic channel, but if you're not playing very loud and feedback isn't an issue then it doesn't really matter much since the sound is quite neutral anyway.

Bidley

Yes, I was hoping it would be the Black Widow, but the Scorpion is still decent.

Annoyingly mine is the older one without the XLR input on channel one. Here it is.

ICBM

Bidley said:

Yes, I was hoping it would be the Black Widow, but the Scorpion is still decent.

Annoyingly mine is the older one without the XLR input on channel one. Here it is.

That's actually better in one way since it does have EQ on the first channel. You just need a mic transformer/adaptor to use it properly with a mic - a plain XLR to 1/4" cable will work, but not as well.

Ex-Midnight Oil! That is actually quite cool.

Bidley

Ah so it's not actually a mic-level input? That's a pain in the cock. What do you mean a XLR-1/4" cable won't work as well?

Yeah I thought that too. It looks like it was used as a raft to get here from Oz, poor thing

ICBM

Bidley said:

Ah so it's not actually a mic-level input? That's a pain in the cock. What do you mean a XLR-1/4" cable won't work as well?

You'll get a very low signal level and more noise, since a simple cable just connects the low-impedance mic to the high-impedance input.

What you need is one of these - https://www.thomann.de/gb/shure_a85f.htm?glp=1&gclid=CMTQ77KW9dQCFQ4R0wodyMcFrg

The gain is quoted as 24dB - that's how much louder it is than just using a cable. Technically known as "a shed load" . And hence how much (relatively) quieter the noise will be.

The only thing to be careful of is to support the mic cable by wrapping or tying it firmly through the amp handle - the leverage on them is huge because they stick so far out of the socket, and if someone trips over the cable and it pulls on the transformer it will probably snap the 1/4" plug off in the socket, which is a massive pain in the backside...

Bidley

Oh I see, makes sense. I'll get one of those (even if it's costing me what I paid for the amp!). Although there are a couple around that have a cable on them, and don't look as snappy-offy. I guarantee I'll have that broken during a gig!

ICBM

Bidley said:

Oh I see, makes sense. I'll get one of those (even if it's costing me what I paid for the amp!). Although there are a couple around that have a cable on them, and don't look as snappy-offy. I guarantee I'll have that broken during a gig!

Yes, I think I've seen them with the transformer in-line in a cable too - a much better idea really. I have a couple of the Shure ones for emergency use with an old non-XLR backup PA head I have, but the idea of using them always makes me nervous.

Bidley

Well I've just given it a blast. Sounds great with bass! But the controls need to be bathed in Servisol. Third channel is pretty much unusable, probably due to the crap in the jack.

ICBM

Bidley said:

Well I've just given it a blast. Sounds great with bass! But the controls need to be bathed in Servisol. Third channel is pretty much unusable, probably due to the crap in the jack.

Most likely corrosion from lack of use. People always seem to use the channels in 'number order', so 1 gets the most use, 2 the second most, and 3 only if they ever connect three instruments…

At worst it will need the jack replacing, but cleaning it thoroughly might fix it. If you have an old brass jack plug you can make a simple cleaner by scuffing the surface heavily with some coarse sandpaper, then use that with some Servisol to polish the jack contacts and barrel. (Keep pulling it out and wiping off the green crud that comes out!) If it's worse than that then carefully filing the inside of the barrel with a round needle file will usually work, although once the nickel plating is gone it will need re-doing fairly often.

I had to fix my old Combo 300 bass amp that I've left at the practice studio last week - someone had broken off the tip of a cheap crap plug in the jack. That took some creativity… but I suppose if you can't kill the amp (and this one will probably withstand nuclear war), it's still possible to make it hard to use. Although luckily it has two input jacks so even that couldn't silence it!