In Praise of the Peavey Classic 100
Chickenhead
headroom-sucking bar and a long outdoor wedding gig. Just for the memories,
I pulled the Peavey Classic 100 Head out of the basement and put it in the
van to use on the gigs. Did both gigs with the Classic 100 and a couple of
Redstone cabs (RS10v and RS12). That Classic 100 is old beat-up box I
bought for $200 some years ago, though I did re-tube it at some point with a
Eurotubes "Blues" setup.
Man, that head is IN-FREAKIN'-CREDIBLE! What a sound! Plenty of clean
power for the jazz stuff, with just a little vintage sounding tube fatness
and compression. The clean sound held up beautifully at high volume. Even
after hitting the headroom wall, the chords still came through clearly but
with a little more compression, midrange and hair. The nice thing was that
the midrange narrowing left a nice well-balanced midrange tone and not the
harsh barking midrange that some amps get after hitting the headroom wall.
I later switched to a pop plank with an unwound 3rd and flipped to the lead
channel. I then ran the lead "post" volume up high and used the lead
channel's "pre" gain for volume control. The blues sound was AMAZING. It
felt like SRV meets Eric Johnson, but without the SRV slice-your-head-off
brightness or EJ's overprocessed buzzsaw. I was getting that smooth
sustaining lead tone but still plenty of clarity, definition and bloom. It
was like a "tone-gasm."
Did require a bit of fiddling with the presence and treble knobs, as they
seem to interact in a strange way that's a little different than most other
amps' presence and treble knobs. I prefer them somewhat rolled back on my
PV C100 -- Maybe around 9 o'clock.
Just wish I could figure out a way to transport the monster around without
injury. Son'umbeetch is gawdawful heavy. I guess that's to be expected
with 8 EL84 power tubes plus several preamp tubes. By the way, I normally
find EL84 amps to be a bit gritty and lacking in low-end, but somehow they
managed to avoid that.
If you're a tube freak and think your back/knees/shoulders/etc. can handle
it, I highly recommend snagging one of these puppies up if you see one for
sale used. It's probably the most versatile gigging head I've run across.
They're also dirt cheap used. Get one before they get discovered!
If you buy one, make sure your medical insurance is in place: It's
painfully heavy. I did manage to figure out that it's easier to transport
if you just grab it at two lengthwise corners and hold it close to your
center of gravity while carrying it. The handle on top is a medieval
torture device designed to sprain wrists and dislocate spinal discs. It's
also likely to fail at some point.
-Chickenhead
Mondoslug
Yeah I've had two Classic 50s and a 30...they're very decent.
Jeez...the 100 is a beast, like what 8 EL84s? never actually played
through one - it scared me looking at it.
pmfan57
I have a Peavey classic 50 head that I think gets a great sound. It's
pretty heavy so I can only imagine how heavy the 100 must be.
Dave
> Jeez...the 100 is a beast, like what 8 EL84s?
Probably 4 EL34s or 6L6s.
Mondoslug
You'd think...it's a Peavey though. It had 8 EL84s.
Mondoslug
Actually Mr. Knowitall that I ain't...maybe at some point they went to
4 5881/6L6s but the ones I've seen were 8 EL84s.
Chickenhead
I have a Classic 30, and while the C30 is a good amp, it doesn't have the
depth, low-end, headroom or smoothness of my Classic 100. The C30 to me
sounds a little grittier and thinner. My C30 doesn't seem to have enough
headroom for a good jazz tone on a gig with a drummer using sticks, though
it is a pretty decent little blues and R&B machine. My C30 is a combo, so
that might have something to do with it. I replaced the C30 speaker with a
Weber, which helped. I haven't tried the C30's head section through a
different cab, or if I have I don't remember the result. The C30 seems to
be my go-to amp for R&B and pop gigs, especially when I want something I can
carry and set-up fast.
Even though it's EL84 based, the C100 seems to almost have a 6L6 character.
Maybe somewhere between EL84 and 6L6. Maybe the secret to getting a better
sound out of EL84's is to use a whole lot of them.
Aside from the weight, my other issue with the C100 is that the knob labels
are pretty much impossible to read on a gig. The labels are white paint on
chrome and face forward. They might be at least barely readable if they
were at eye level, but when the head is sitting down by my knees it's a lost
cause. I'm thinking of slapping some masking tape on the shelf under the
knobs to label them in a readable way.
The C100 is truly a beast, but what a beast!
Joe Finn
message news:i5m90i$lmb$1...@news.albasani.net...
I had a tweed Peavey Classic 4x10 that I used for many years in a variety of
situations. It featured a hybrid design with a solid state preamp and four
6L6 tubes for the output stage. It sounded good but needed the tubes changed
every so often. It was a very heavy, rugged cabinet that survived several
years of hard use on the road without the benefit of a road case. I just
gave it away earlier this year. It had been sitting in my garage for years
and was in need of new tubes and some further attention repair-wise. That
thing was a real war horse. .....joe
--
Visit me on the web www.JoeFinn.net
Or say hello via Facebook:
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>
Mondoslug
>
> - Show quoted text -
Manly man
Dave
Yikes! Well, that being the case, claiming it to be a "100" is mighty
generous on their part..if not wishful thinking. ;)
icarusi
news:c98057d8-1934-4a40...@a36g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
>>Jeez...the 100 is a beast, like what 8 EL84s? never actually played
through one - it scared me looking at it.<<
I have an old Sound City 120 with 6 EL34s and Partridge transformers. I
bought it off a bass player. I had to run it through a power soak before I
could hear any distortion full up.
icarusi
--
remove the 00 to reply
http://icarusi.wordpress.com/
Chickenhead
8 ohms). The back sez' 400 watts next to the power cord.
On the other hand 115v times 6 amps = 690 watts.
But I'm not sure how it breaks down once transformers and tubes are
involved. Certainly some of that wattage is going to end up as heat and not
speaker movement. I'm sort of an electrical retard (oops, I mean
"challenged"), so I suspect someone with more than my very rudimentary
electrical skills could probably explain why I'm totally confused on this
one.
I guess since the C30 has four EL84's, if wattage can be determined by the
tube, then the C100 with its eight EL84 power tubes should really only be a
C60 if Peavey was consistent. On the other hand, the C50 also has four
EL84's, so what's the diff between the C30 and C50 heads?
Whatever the real wattage is, the C100 has lots of headroom and sounds
freakin' sweet. What I particularly like about the amp is how it sounds
once you start hitting that headroom wall. It handles it gracefully. Some
amps, like the ubiquitous Fender HRD, sound great until you hit the headroom
wall, and then the sound gets awful. The C100 seems to have a really nice
long smooth slope from clean to hairy-testicle, with the points in between
sounding sweet and well-balanced.
"Dave" <n...@spam.com> wrote in message
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Frisbieinstein
If you think that's heavy, try being a vintage bass player. The
Acoustic 360 weighs in at 150 lbs.
The modern trend is away from these punishing monsters, but I think
the sound is not there. Size matters. Not that I blame them: I
wouldn't move that thing around for $50 a night either.
Dave
right circuit (a hi-fi circuit), a quartet can produce 30W at low distortion
(under 1%), which is more than I'd thought. So 8 of them could probably do
100W of "guitar power", that is 5-10% distortion, at limited bandwidth.
Chickenhead
so previous to hauling it out of the basement.
It's kind of like diet cola: Diet cola tastes fine as long as you don't
drink the real stuff. I was fine with transistors until I hauled that
monster out of the basement. Then I was reminded how truly sweet real tube
power is. It's going to be tough to go back to using the little transistor
amps again, no matter how light they are.
"Frisbieinstein" <patmp...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:674b9b3d-4264-4156...@l38g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
pmfan57
<kuNOrtSPAMshapTHANK...@YOUhoVERYtmail.MUCHcom> wrote:
> I'd been playing through transistors and Class D stuff for the 6-9 months or
> so previous to hauling it out of the basement.
>
> It's kind of like diet cola: Diet cola tastes fine as long as you don't
> drink the real stuff. I was fine with transistors until I hauled that
> monster out of the basement. Then I was reminded how truly sweet real tube
> power is. It's going to be tough to go back to using the little transistor
> amps again, no matter how light they are.
>
>
> news:674b9b3d-4264-4156...@l38g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > The modern trend is away from these punishing monsters, but I think
> > the sound is not there. Size matters. Not that I blame them: I
> > wouldn't move that thing around for $50 a night either.
They just don't sound as good. At least for guitar. I'm not sure it
is a big deal for stereo equipment, but some people insist it is.
icarusi
> I'm not that familiar w/ EL84s, but some quick research suggests that in
> the right circuit (a hi-fi circuit), a quartet can produce 30W at low
> distortion (under 1%), which is more than I'd thought. So 8 of them could
> probably do 100W of "guitar power", that is 5-10% distortion, at limited
> bandwidth.
The old Vox AC30 with 4 EL84 was 30w class A/B so I assume the Peavey with 8
EL84 would be 60w. AFAIK some of the old Mullard EL84s could be run at much
higher voltages to get 50w from 4 but I doubt that Peavey has got those.
Chickenhead
"Frisbieinstein" <patmp...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:674b9b3d-4264-4156...@l38g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
Dave
All these output tubes have a range of what they can deliver. Look at the
Fenders...models of different wattages share output tubes. Power supply (and
output xfrmr) makes the difference.
I made the same assumption as you...4 EL84s deliver 30W, so 8 must do 60.
But the Peavey Classic 50 also uses 4 EL84s, and does 50W at the same specs
as the 30. Maybe the AC50 also does 50W w/ 4 EL34s.
dr.ne...@gmail.com
Mine has Mullard EL84s and JJ12ax7s. It is a real sleeper. The amp has both great clean and overdriven channels. It is a real sleeper amp. The tone is great. Ive owned a classic 30 and the c100 has its own character in my opinion which is probably due to the power section configuration as some of you have discussed. Mine does have 8 el-84s and as far as how loud it is, and in respect to peavey's claim of 100 watts, I also own a few 100 watt amps and the C100 seems to keep up all the way to full tilt.