NOSSAD

ICBM

New Old Solid State Amp Day

Yet another one! I seem to be collecting these things… this one with special thanks to Alnico, the most recent of the several Fretboard members who have owned this compact, but remarkably heavy and astonishingly loud little monster:

http://i1293.photobucket.com/albums/b582/IntegratedCircuitBigMuff/Peavey Special_zpsychgukbu.jpg

1981 Peavey Special - basically a Bandit but with almost double the power - 120W . This one has been fitted with a non-original but contemporary Peavey Black Widow speaker, which is responsible for a lot of the volume and weight - they're extremely efficient, and the magnet alone is more than eight inches in diameter and over an inch thick! It weighs 61lbs, which is maybe not *that* heavy for an amp, but feels it for a little transistor combo. From memory it's a pound heavier than my old Mesa DC-5 - and also probably beats it for sheer volume, even though that was a loud amp.

This one is so loud it made my teeth hurt when I tried to find how much headroom it had on the clean channel . More than I can ever realistically need, I think. And luckily since volume is not everything, it also sounds excellent - it's quite tricky to dial in for anything other than a bold clean tone, but it can be done, and can sound quite deep and open as well. Most importantly it doesn't fart out at the low-end when it's pushed harder with full-range chords with lots of effects, which was the downfall of my last Peavey (Studio 110).

Overdriven is also surprisingly good - it will never sound like a valve amp really, but I like solid-state distortion too so that isn't a problem. It has surprisingly little gain really by modern standards, but that's not a bad thing - it can get a bit scratchy, but never reaches that fizzy over-gained solid-state sound so beloved of amp designers in the 80s.

Very unusually for a Peavey of this age, it has a minor fault - which puzzled Alnico when he had it - the channel switching doesn't work quite right and the dirty channel 'Post' operates on the clean channel as well (I think the switching transistor which turns it off has probably died, and should be an easy fix) - but that actually has a slight benefit, which is that you can now overdrive the clean channel as well, at less than jet-engine volume! And which has a nice bright edge to it, a bit different from the proper dirty channel - although it's a bit tricky to balance the two. So I may either not fix it, or make it optional… the ground switch on the front panel doesn't do anything on a UK model.

Now to go and frighten some unsuspecting sound engineer... )

FelineGuitars

I loved the Peavey amps from this era back in the mid 80s with the saturation control in the drive circuit.

I had a Backstage Plus that was my second amp but was a cracking little beast and sounded better than the updated versions that had a supersat control (preamp gain).

Wazmeister

I just had to look mate... The title of this thread intrigued me so much...

ICBM

FelineGuitars said:

I had a Backstage Plus that was my second amp but was a cracking little beast and sounded better than the updated versions that had a supersat control (preamp gain).

I've had a couple of those too - excellent little amps. I may be able to get back one of them from the chap I sold it to, and I am tempted…

I prefer this series to the more modern ones with smaller knobs that followed too. Although the dirty sound is more primitive in some ways, it has more character and a more natural responsiveness - the Supersat versions are a bit too fizzy and go from clean to very dirty too quickly.

I also know someone with the ultimate one of this range - the Renown - and who would sell it… it's a bit silly to want that as well, but I could have the whole lot of them for less than the price of any half-decent valve amp.

ThePrettyDamned

It sounds like a pharmaceutical cure for depression...

But yes, these are damn cool amps. I've actually heard an old fender twin that I thought sounded relatively like one - a slightly hard, punchy clean rather than the springy deep thing most Fender's have.

timmysoft

Is that my old one!? Cracking amp, really comes to life with single coils at volume.

ICBM

Yes, it's your one . Alnico bought it from Moltisanti so I'm the fourth Fretboarder to have owned it now...

It does sound fantastic when it's cranked up - the speaker does seem to need a bit of a 'push'. The Black Widow was really designed as a bass/PA speaker (like the EVM-12 as well) so it's quite dark sounding at low volume.

timmysoft

It was just too loud and heavy for my third floor flat! Stupidly my ultra is nearly as heavy and a bit more bulky! I need to shed a few lbs!

ICBM

It even feels heavy to me ). It's more than half the weight of my Trem-o-verb and possibly less than half the size...

It is also unbelievably loud for such a small thing - the only amp I'm sure has a higher volume to volume ratio is a Boogie Mark series 100-watter, and even that's close. The 1980s Fender Showman solid-state combo (200W!) is probably louder, but it's also quite a lot bigger.

One thing that's really interesting - and adds to the weight - is that it has an output transformer. (Auto type.) This is pretty unusual for a solid-state amp and is so it delivers the full power into 8 ohms as well as 4. What's most odd is that it's not necessary at all normally - at least with this speaker which is a 4-ohm, it's possible the original was an 8 - in which case it seems like wilfully adding cost to what was not an expensive amp, and which most users would never appreciate...

Dave_Mc

Nice

ThePrettyDamned

@timmysoft what's the ultra like?

timmysoft

ThePrettyDamned;564659" said:

@timmysoft what's the ultra like?

It's great!
Bold cleans with huge headroom, the crunch channel is classic high gain peavey and the ultra channel is very modern and has more gain than any amp I've ever owned! The resonance switch is incredible, really helps to dial in the amp at volume. The stock speaker is ok but I'm so planning on putting a British t75 into it as that's my favourite speaker. Master volume and switchable gain boosts make it very easy to get some superb big amp tones at very low volumes.