NAD - Peavey Bravo 112

WezV

its an ugly bugger but I am actually quite impressed with this.  


A search on the forum shows @icbm thinks its sounds like a solid state amp and @Flanging_Fred thinks the model is mainly let down by the speaker.  

This one is not stock.  It has had a celestion G12b-150 fitted and been re-valved with JJ's quite recently. I was given the original valves too, which apparently still worked fine when swapped over.  I dread to think what that work cost as the amp was for sale quite cheap.

First thing to do will be try it through the 2x12.   Then see if i can clean up the clean channel a bit

Flanging_Fred

Yep, definitely try it with an external cab.  I actually tried a speaker swap with mine and chucked in a classic lead 80. It didn't make a huge amount of difference to be honest. The biggest improvement I found was using an external cab. I really think that heavy little cab must be strangling the amp.

I think they're decent enough amps that can be picked up pretty cheap. It is very much an '80s Peavey type sound though so is going to divide opinion on whether you like the sound of it or not.

 I only got rid of mine when I got my Marshall JCM800 combo.

As far as I remember these were early designs by James Brown that went on to be developed into the Ultra, XXX and JSX lines. There's a quite informative interview with James Brown on the internet somewhere that discusses it.

ICBM

WezV said:

A search on the forum shows @icbm thinks its sounds like a solid state amp

To be honest I don't think they even sound as good as the equivalent Express 112 of the time!

Flanging_Fred

ICBM said:

WezV said:

A search on the forum shows @icbm thinks its sounds like a solid state amp

To be honest I don't think they even sound as good as the equivalent Express 112 of the time!

Interesting. My tastes often coincide with yours it seems @ICBM but I hated the Express 112!

 Life would be very dull if we all liked the same stuff though so it's all good.

Flanging_Fred

The line-level only fx loop on the Bravo IS pretty irritating though, I'll concede that.

ICBM

Flanging_Fred said:

Interesting. My tastes often coincide with yours it seems @ICBM but I hated the Express 112!

 Life would be very dull if we all liked the same stuff though so it's all good.

I never said I actually liked it .

I don't really like any of this series as much as either the older ones or the later Transtubes - this is the peak of that buzzy, over-compressed 80s distortion sound, and even the cleans are rather flat.

It's just that the Bravo doesn't even sound as good as the others, to me! It seems to be a deliberate exercise in getting the same sound from valves, and not quite getting it right.

The one I like the best from this whole era is the Studio Pro 110, and even then the older one without the turquoise stripe sounds better.

EricTheWeary

Our singer has one in his collection. He does make everything sound pretty much the same so it isn’t a fair judge of the Bravo but my impression is that it lacks a lot of low end, when he uses his Gretsch there’s a great twang that’s absent using this. 
It needed some kind of repair and it got stuck with the repairer for months on end,  I’m not even sure he ever got it back - so if you bought that from an amp repair shop in Birmingham...

WezV

ICBM said:

  - this is the peak of that buzzy, over-compressed 80s distortion sound, and even the cleans are rather flat.

Its not an unfair description.  

I was born in the early 80's and a teenager in the 90's.   this would have been made about the time I first picked up a guitar and I fully admit I may be enjoying it because  it reminds me of those early years playing guitars.

It certainly won't replace my champ build or my Selmer, but it does a lot of stuff  they don't, including the buzzy 80's thing