| Author | Message | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 2421 Registered: 11-2004 |
My son dragged my old Peavey out from the garage as he is rehearsing with a band, it has developed a buzz which does not decrease or increase regardless of where the pre and post gain controls are positioned. I think it is earth problem, maybe smoothing caps on PS unit in power amp, I have done the usual checks(power cord, guitar lead etc) Plugging a jack into the 'power amp' out eliminates the buzz so as previously mentioned, power amp/transformer ? Any thoughts from you guys out there? | ||
| peoplechipper
Senior Member Username: peoplechipper Post Number: 628 Registered: 2-2009 |
Look for bloated caps, that is likely the problem... | ||
| jazzyvee
Senior Member Username: jazzyvee Post Number: 4635 Registered: 6-2002 |
Are you interested in buying him a brand new Peavey Classic 8x10TX 600w 4 Ohm speaker cab? I have one boxed unused NOS that I'm happy to sell. | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 2422 Registered: 11-2004 |
Thanks for the offer jazzy but this is my old combo I used years ago which my son uses occasionally. I am planning to pull the amp section out this weekend so I will be looking at the caps,,thanks peoplechipper | ||
| gtrguy
Senior Member Username: gtrguy Post Number: 918 Registered: 9-2004 |
Some of those old Peaveys make good practice amps! Does the buzz happen with or without an instrument plugged in? You might also check how tight the speaker is mounted, but that would usually get louder as you turn it up. | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 2423 Registered: 11-2004 |
there all the time gtrguy. | ||
| pace
Senior Member Username: pace Post Number: 1132 Registered: 4-2004 |
Check the filter caps and diodes in the power supply, Terry. | ||
| keith_h
Senior Member Username: keith_h Post Number: 2267 Registered: 2-2005 |
I would also give the solder joints a go over as they can cause problems over time. Just remember those big filter caps can hold quite a charge so be careful once you open it up. Keith | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 2424 Registered: 11-2004 |
Yeah keith h, I once was looking at an old Ampeg for a friend of mine, I forgot to put a meter on the caps and next thing I know I am over at the other side of the garage ! Modern amps now have a leaksafe feature which discharges them to ground when they switch off but I always ground them with my multimeter...just in case !!! | ||
| cozmik_cowboy
Senior Member Username: cozmik_cowboy Post Number: 1934 Registered: 10-2006 |
"My son dragged my old Peavey out...." I think I see the problem  Peter (Who is not, it must be said, a fan of Hartley's work) | ||
| ed_zeppelin
Member Username: ed_zeppelin Post Number: 77 Registered: 2-2010 |
I know you were just kidding, and I mean no disrespect for your opinion but I feel very strongly that Peavey gets a bum rap. Throughout the 90's, in addition to repair I did RTM (Return To Manufacturer) at the world's largest retailer of used musical equipment at the time, Daddy's Junky Music in Salem, NH. Nobody wanted to spend any money, if they don't have to. Customers didn't want to pay for repairs if there was the remotest chance to claim warrantee. Manufacturers didn't want to pay for repairs or replacements if they could help it (naturally) and people did incredibly stupid stuff to their equipment and wanted to blame anybody they could. And some companies just make garbage, plain and simple. Every Monday morning, we could count on there being a mountain of equipment that came in from Daddy's twenty two stores (at their peak) from all over New England, in every state of disrepair, and every piece needed to be evaluated. RTM was the last step. If it was just plain broke and still under warrantee, back it went. I could list the worst companies in making shoddy products or in balking at fixing or replacing them (but I won't). The Foghorn wants me to wear a sign that says; "DONT GET ME STARTED!" and the topic of companies that knowingly rip people off is one such topic. Peavey was the best, in both regards. They NEVER - ever - questioned a warrantee claim or asked for a copy of the receipt. As Thelma at Peavey said nearly every time I called; "if it says 'Peavey' on it, it's our responsibility." Frankly, they were the LL Bean of music gear. If it was broke, it was fixed or replaced, period. No questions asked. One that stands out in my memory was a CS 800 power amp that was hit by lightning. It was charred, beat to hell and at least five years out of warrantee. We couldn't fix it, so Peavey OVERNIGHTED A NEW ONE to the customer. Before I'd even sent the paperwork! Another factor I admire about Peavey is that despite the vast variety of products they made, we hardly ever saw them come in for repair. They're tanks. At their peak, Peavey had seven factories in the US and employed over a thousand people. They're down to just one, the original plant in Meridian, MS. At Daddy's service center, I papered the walls of my workbench with articles and headlines from World Weekly News ("Batboy found in Cave!" "Clinton is an Alien!") etc. so everybody liked to stop by to read my walls when they visited Daddy's HQ. I got to know Hartley well, because he loved to drive his RV all over America, meeting people and visiting stores that sold his products. He's an old fashioned Southern gentleman. The real deal. His word is his bond. He doesn't sell crap. If something breaks, fix it. Period. I'm as proud of my old KB300 "Swiss army knife" amp (and all the other Peavey gear I own) as I am of my Alembic. That's all gone now. Peavey has closed six plants and is fighting desperately to maintain their manufacturing base in America, as shown in an episode of "Undercover Boss" http://musicincmag.com/News/2015/150220/150220_Peavey.html Daddy's was assassinated by GE Capital in 2011, without warning: http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/937576-196/daddys-junky-music-abruptly-closes-its-12.html But for a long while there, Peavey made high quality - affordable - musical products in America, stubbornly maintaining an ethical *standard second to none. It's fitting to note it here on Alembic's site. They've done the same thing, the same way, for the same reason: excellence. *Hartley said he was heavily influenced by "A Passion For Excellence." It's definitely worth reading. http://www.amazon.com/Passion-Excellence-The-Leadership-Difference/dp/0446386391 | ||
| cozmik_cowboy
Senior Member Username: cozmik_cowboy Post Number: 1936 Registered: 10-2006 |
Not really kidding, no. A quote from Hartley: "Ah make gee-er fer th' picker werkin' down et Sadie's Bahr 'n' Greil". (OK, I don't do that as well as Twain.) Based on my experience, I always translated that to "I buy great designs & then make them with the cheapest parts and labor I can find (without off-shoring)". Case in point: said CS800 was a BGW 750 made with lower-grade parts. The lower-grade parts translated into lower-grade sound. And I had a lot of Peavy (like every piece I ever worked with) break on me, and it was never fixed for free. Peter (Who's really not a fan of Hartley's work) | ||
| fmm
Senior Member Username: fmm Post Number: 444 Registered: 6-2002 |
Most of these comments are based in my experience as an audio engineer in the 70s & 80s. Things may be different know with your newfangled digital gewgaws. I've owned several CS-800s and have found them bulletproof. I had a road case fall over and break off both volume knobs. That amp is still in use. The flexibility of the plug in crossovers makes these amps very useful. They may not have been the cleanest amps in the world, but since THD on a speaker system is 10% _at best_ they were fine for sound reinforcement (OK, they had IM distortion as well). A CS-800 also makes a kick-ass bass amp. I used to gig with a Furman PQ-3 as a preamp, and a CS-800 bi-amped into a 1 x 15 (EV-L) and a pair of Mitchell 800s (Bose 800 clones). But I digress. As much as I like the CS-800, the BGW 750B was a much sexier amp because it had 2 LED VU meters. I have a 750C holding down my rack in the basement studio. I worked for one of the first DJ services in eastern Iowa in the 70s. We used 750Bs and 750Cs, and initially all of our source material was on vinyl albums. We flipped a coin to see who had to carry in the albums, and who had to carry the amps. Either way, we lost. We did several disco installations in converted movie theaters using BGW. A competitor used Crown DC-300s, but we found those had a tendency to occasionally flip out and send DC through speakers (bye bye JBL L-100s!). BGWs usually don't do that. All of that being said, I'm never again lifting any of these behemoth amps again. Either they are in my basement rack, and my descendants can deal with them, or they are in "The Rack Case Of Last Resort" in the garage, and if I need them, I will have a youth move them. I now use GK or Carving massless amps (bar and big band gigs), or my F-2B and a Behringer power amp (8 pounds) if I want to show off. If I can't lift it comfortably with 1 hand, I won't buy it. | ||
| terryc
Senior Member Username: terryc Post Number: 2426 Registered: 11-2004 |
Well cozmik, maybe you had a some bad gear but that bass amp which I retired to my son went all over the UK, was dropped from vans, fell off a stage, had a few pots replaced when they were snapped off(I made a guard in the end!)and it still works(albeit the buzz). The speaker went AWOL and it has a new basket so I cannot complain at all as it is 22 years old so I got my money's worth out of it. Most of the bands I was in used Peavey PA which equally got physically abused! Okay it isn't ultra high end or maybe even mid end equipment but they certainly shifted loads of it regardless of what capacitors, resistors, transistors etc they put inside them. | ||
| cozmik_cowboy
Senior Member Username: cozmik_cowboy Post Number: 1937 Registered: 10-2006 |
Yeah, there were a lot of bar bands in the '70s & '80s that wouldn't have been working without Peavy's quality:price ratio, and props to Hartley for that - but it's not professional-level gear, and never was. My preferences, based on my experience and considering both sound quality & reliability: 1. Yamaha 2. BGW 3. Crown 4. QSC 5. Crest 6. Traynor 7. Peavy Peter |
