Peavey Classic 30 v 2.0

[jrfreed]

I know alot of people love these amps and thought they might be interested in what I'm finding/doing lately with my Classic 30.

 

First off I have one of the original C30's with the square grille cloth and the sheffield speaker installed...so this is pre-blue marvel. This amp has given me 15+ years of faithful service as I played blues/r&b/funk and all its ever needed is a new tube here and there. Everytime I plug in, it sounds great and runs without trouble and has been a great amp for me.

 

A couple of years ago I've completely changed up my musical styles. I've thrown myself 100% into playing jazz...went out and bought a few hollowbodies and began playing at the local college with big-bands and combos. I LOVE playing jazz and its pushed my playing in ways I never thought possible for me.

 

BUT

 

My beloved Classic 30 sounds like ass with the hollowbodies. It breaks up too quickly and is too mid-focused.

 

So I've been on a mission. Combing the message boards and emailing manufacturers as to the best way to get my c30 sounding great and once again comfortable on the bandstand.

 

FIRST STEP: New tubes

I originially tubed this amp to get that "srv/clapton-bluesbreaker" sound. I got there using GT reds and Mesa EL84's and she broke up beautifully and sounded big and full (not a great jazz sound! HAHA). I contacted TheTubeStore and walked them thru the sound I was after and they recommended a set of JAN-Philips 5751's in the preamp and Russian made Sovtek EL84M's in the power section. The tubes showed up yesterday and I dropped them in just before practice last night. I noticed a huge difference right away playing my H-530!! The sound opened up quite a bit and they tamed the gain considerably. I set the amp vol at 5 and rolled off the guitar volume to 7 to comp chords and then full out for heads and solos. The new preamp tubes gave the amp a very vintage sound and feel adding a bit of compression (to my ears) to the tone. I didnt get much of a chance to push the amp into higher gain settings last night...but stayed about 5 mins after and tried out the drive channel with some blues lines. The EL84M's sounded pretty good but could notice I lost a pretty good chunk of the "fire" this amp had with the other tube set. I had to push the PRE a whole lot harder to get some crunch and drive...but what can I say, I'm going for a round fat jazz tone.

 

NEXT STEP: New speaker

I cant tell you how many times I've flopped back and forth between Weber, Celestion Greenbacks, Tone Tubby and Jensen as to WHAT i'm going to buy and drop in there. After reading everything under the sun...a few emails back and forth with Weber...I've decided on...a Weber Chicago ceramic. 80 watts, massive voice coil and magnet should give a big warm sound thats lacking a bit with the Sheffield (flabby bottom/huge mid/smooth but thin highs) . I really really really wanted to go with an Alnico magnet speaker, but the tech at weber said I'd get more clean headroom with a ceramic speaker. Its my understanding that you dont really get the benefit of alnico unless you push the drive anyways...so I guess its Ceramic for me! Its been on order for about a week now and should ship shortly. Tone report as soon as it arrives.

 

Stay tuned!

[smurph1]

I know alot of people love these amps and thought they might be interested in what I'm finding/doing lately with my Classic 30.

 

First off I have one of the original C30's with the square grille cloth and the sheffield speaker installed...so this is pre-blue marvel. This amp has given me 15+ years of faithful service as I played blues/r&b/funk and all its ever needed is a new tube here and there. Everytime I plug in, it sounds great and runs without trouble and has been a great amp for me.

 

A couple of years ago I've completely changed up my musical styles. I've thrown myself 100% into playing jazz...went out and bought a few hollowbodies and began playing at the local college with big-bands and combos. I LOVE playing jazz and its pushed my playing in ways I never thought possible for me.

 

BUT

 

My beloved Classic 30 sounds like ass with the hollowbodies. It breaks up too quickly and is too mid-focused.

 

So I've been on a mission. Combing the message boards and emailing manufacturers as to the best way to get my c30 sounding great and once again comfortable on the bandstand.

 

FIRST STEP: New tubes

I originially tubed this amp to get that "srv/clapton-bluesbreaker" sound. I got there using GT reds and Mesa EL84's and she broke up beautifully and sounded big and full (not a great jazz sound! HAHA). I contacted TheTubeStore and walked them thru the sound I was after and they recommended a set of JAN-Philips 5751's in the preamp and Russian made Sovtek EL84M's in the power section. The tubes showed up yesterday and I dropped them in just before practice last night. I noticed a huge difference right away playing my H-530!! The sound opened up quite a bit and they tamed the gain considerably. I set the amp vol at 5 and rolled off the guitar volume to 7 to comp chords and then full out for heads and solos. The new preamp tubes gave the amp a very vintage sound and feel adding a bit of compression (to my ears) to the tone. I didnt get much of a chance to push the amp into higher gain settings last night...but stayed about 5 mins after and tried out the drive channel with some blues lines. The EL84M's sounded pretty good but could notice I lost a pretty good chunk of the "fire" this amp had with the other tube set. I had to push the PRE a whole lot harder to get some crunch and drive...but what can I say, I'm going for a round fat jazz tone.

 

NEXT STEP: New speaker

I cant tell you how many times I've flopped back and forth between Weber, Celestion Greenbacks, Tone Tubby and Jensen as to WHAT i'm going to buy and drop in there. After reading everything under the sun...a few emails back and forth with Weber...I've decided on...a Weber Chicago ceramic. 80 watts, massive voice coil and magnet should give a big warm sound thats lacking a bit with the Sheffield (flabby bottom/huge mid/smooth but thin highs) . I really really really wanted to go with an Alnico magnet speaker, but the tech at weber said I'd get more clean headroom with a ceramic speaker. Its my understanding that you dont really get the benefit of alnico unless you push the drive anyways...so I guess its Ceramic for me! Its been on order for about a week now and should ship shortly. Tone report as soon as it arrives.

 

Stay tuned!

Cool !! Nice Story!! Keep us posted..I just bought a Classic 30 to replace a much missed (but too heavy) Classic 50 I had years back..I love it !! My guitar style is rock and blues and the tube overdrive just sings with my old 140..Glad you are enjoying the journey..That's what it's all about..

[Doug]

I have two Peavey Classic 30's at my disposal. They have different tubes and each has a distinctly different sound when I play my 535 through them. The tweed version breaks up a little bit more and has a bit of a crunchy tone. The other one - with black tolex - has a warmer tone and handles clean a bit better. I am also using an additional speaker, a fender Blues Deluxe on that one. Gives me a little added bottom end for sure. My 535 has the DVIP set up, which gives me a little more versatility.

 

Here's a bad photo of our practice set-up.

 

[MuDBoNe]

Just a little note for you. I have messed with amps for a long time, building them, modifying them etc. The biggest surprise I've had in a while is the Eminance Red Fang speaker. Its an Alnico and I am total sold on the sound of these guys. I currently own and use a 4x10 Marshall with G10 35's. I have a Weber 12" California and a Weber 12" Chicago. A JBL E-120 and another 4x10 loaded with mid '60's Jensens. These Red Fangs blow all those away for tone and clarity IMHO :-)

[jmc7581]

Yes, very interesting post! Keep us up to date on what happens with your speaker adventure.

 

I have two Peavey Classic 30's at my disposal. They have different tubes and each has a distinctly different sound when I play my 535 through them. The tweed version breaks up a little bit more and has a bit of a crunchy tone. The other one - with black tolex - has a warmer tone and handles clean a bit better. I am also using an additional speaker, a fender Blues Deluxe on that one. Gives me a little added bottom end for sure. My 535 has the DVIP set up, which gives me a little more versatility.

Doug - Can you tell us more about your 2 amps, and what tubes you've got in 'em?

[Doug]

Yes, very interesting post! Keep us up to date on what happens with your speaker adventure.

 

 

Doug - Can you tell us more about your 2 amps, and what tubes you've got in 'em?

 

I'll find out what tubes are in them this weekend. A good friend bought one used and really liked it and found one for me. I don't have a lot of experience with swapping out tubes and such. I had been playing through a Marshall Valvestate 100 combo.

 

Doug

[jrfreed]

I know alot of people love these amps and thought they might be interested in what I'm finding/doing lately with my Classic 30.

 

First off I have one of the original C30's with the square grille cloth and the sheffield speaker installed...so this is pre-blue marvel. This amp has given me 15+ years of faithful service as I played blues/r&b/funk and all its ever needed is a new tube here and there. Everytime I plug in, it sounds great and runs without trouble and has been a great amp for me.

 

A couple of years ago I've completely changed up my musical styles. I've thrown myself 100% into playing jazz...went out and bought a few hollowbodies and began playing at the local college with big-bands and combos. I LOVE playing jazz and its pushed my playing in ways I never thought possible for me.

 

BUT

 

My beloved Classic 30 sounds like ass with the hollowbodies. It breaks up too quickly and is too mid-focused.

 

So I've been on a mission. Combing the message boards and emailing manufacturers as to the best way to get my c30 sounding great and once again comfortable on the bandstand.

 

FIRST STEP: New tubes

I originially tubed this amp to get that "srv/clapton-bluesbreaker" sound. I got there using GT reds and Mesa EL84's and she broke up beautifully and sounded big and full (not a great jazz sound! HAHA). I contacted TheTubeStore and walked them thru the sound I was after and they recommended a set of JAN-Philips 5751's in the preamp and Russian made Sovtek EL84M's in the power section. The tubes showed up yesterday and I dropped them in just before practice last night. I noticed a huge difference right away playing my H-530!! The sound opened up quite a bit and they tamed the gain considerably. I set the amp vol at 5 and rolled off the guitar volume to 7 to comp chords and then full out for heads and solos. The new preamp tubes gave the amp a very vintage sound and feel adding a bit of compression (to my ears) to the tone. I didnt get much of a chance to push the amp into higher gain settings last night...but stayed about 5 mins after and tried out the drive channel with some blues lines. The EL84M's sounded pretty good but could notice I lost a pretty good chunk of the "fire" this amp had with the other tube set. I had to push the PRE a whole lot harder to get some crunch and drive...but what can I say, I'm going for a round fat jazz tone.

 

NEXT STEP: New speaker

I cant tell you how many times I've flopped back and forth between Weber, Celestion Greenbacks, Tone Tubby and Jensen as to WHAT i'm going to buy and drop in there. After reading everything under the sun...a few emails back and forth with Weber...I've decided on...a Weber Chicago ceramic. 80 watts, massive voice coil and magnet should give a big warm sound thats lacking a bit with the Sheffield (flabby bottom/huge mid/smooth but thin highs) . I really really really wanted to go with an Alnico magnet speaker, but the tech at weber said I'd get more clean headroom with a ceramic speaker. Its my understanding that you dont really get the benefit of alnico unless you push the drive anyways...so I guess its Ceramic for me! Its been on order for about a week now and should ship shortly. Tone report as soon as it arrives.

 

Stay tuned!

 

***CONTINUED***

 

Sorry for the delay as I've been on vacation for the last few weeks!

 

So I returned to the office on Thursday and on my desk is sitting the Weber Chicago ceramic, no dope, and a 4" beam blocker I had ordered about 3 weeks ago. As soon as I got home, I plucked the tubes out...grabbed the phillips screwdriver and pulled out the chassis and stock Sheffield speaker. Easy breezy to drop in the beam blocker and new speaker and took about 15 minutes to get the amp back together. The only little thing that hung me up was the speaker wire leads...yellow and blue wires?!? WTF?? Just had to search Google for a few minues and found that yellow is + and I was good to go.

 

SOUND REPORT:

The first guitar I grabbed was my Eastman. Before swapping tubes and speaker this combination was dark...flabby bottom and little definition. I was amazed at the difference!! Great vintage tone that had a nicely defined bottom range, good clarity, clean highs that were not ice-picky or brittle. The beam blocker seemed to add some depth to the sound as the amp became less directional...it bloomed out of the amp. Next, I grabbed my 530 and was even more suprised!!

The sound difference was huge...Weber describes this speaker as uncolored and it nails the sound completely. It allows the natural sound of the guitar to shine thru is very responsive to pick attack and playing dynamics. Between the 5751 tubes and more efficient speaker, I've gained a considerable amount of added headroom....I used to start breaking up at 3.5-4 and now can push the volume to 5-5.5 before getting breakup.

 

So now my c30 is setup for jazz and I couldnt be happier. The tubes and speaker swap accomplished exactly what I was after...a more vintage, natural, uncolored sound that allows my hollowbodies to shine.

 

Please realize...this is not a Carr-Killer....it wont smoke a Fuchs or Swart....but I honestly and objectively have to say that for ~$220 and a few emails, I was able to tweak a fine little combo amp and made it sound MUCH better than it did before for jazz combo use.

[Doug]

Just checked the tubes in both Classic 30's and it looks like all are Sovtek tubes made in Russia. On the tweed amp the smaller tubes have red fender logos on them - are those vacuum tubes? - but they are made by Sovtek. The tweed amp has had a speaker upgrade and has a mojo speaker, while the black one has the standard (I guess) Peavey speaker - with that one I use the Fender Deluxe speaker remotely.

 

I guess it is obvious I don't know the first thing about amp electronics or tubes.

[jrfreed]

Yep...Sovtek is pretty much standard in c30's from what I've read. They may be labeled Groove tubes or Fender, from what I understand, there are only about 3-4 actual manufactureres of tubes.

[JeffB]

Random. Forewarned. FWIW. YMMV. IMHO.

After reading a few posts and threads here about the Peavey classic 30 I thought I should probably give one a fair go through my own gear.

I know I dont like the Blue Marvel speaker so I just bought the classic 30 head home.

I have a few cabs to try it out on. An 80's marshall 412 with g12h's, a framus 212 with V30s, a fender 212 with Jensens and a couple of 112 open backs with g12m and a 75w celestion.

The only amps I have to compare it to are an 81 Fender Concert and a Mesa LSC. The only guitars are a strat, a H150 w/seths and a PRS SAS with Dimarzio 36th anni in the neck and an AT-1 in the bridge.

I am familiar with the Classic 30. They are some of the items that make up my work environment. What I had never done with one (that I can remember) was run it through a separate speaker cab.

 

(Rant mode: on) The Classic head I grabbed has original crap tubes. I hate the fact that Peavey seem to source the cheapest and crappest tubes they can get. Its embarrassing.(rant mode: off)

 

So far Ive only explored the clean and lower gain side of the amp. Gotta say that once this little head is freed from its little combo enclosure and not so good speaker(opinion only) it really starts to shine. I particularly liked it with the 212 Framus cab. But my ears are pretty accustom to the sound of that cab now so it might be a skewed reference point.

The Classic 30 wasn't totally out classed by either of the other amps in the clean and light crunch settings I was using through any of the cabs. At one stage I did find myself trying to get the sound I was getting from the Peavey out of the Mesa.

The peavey probably doesn't have the depth of tone/sound that the other two have. That 3D quality(what ever that means to you). But it wasn't terrible. It was alright. It probably knocked the Fender out tbh simply because of the useful extra gain stage/channel and sounded warmer at lower volumes. The fender sounds sterile, harsh and bitey at lower volumes.

One thought I had while going through my usual 5 blues licks, 2 funky chord vamps and couple of power chord progression that I find myself repeating.....repetitively while testing gear, was, Ive tried lots of amps through these cabs, Bad Cats, Confords, most Mesa's, quite a few Marshalls, Ulbricks, a Soldano, a Koch and a few Fenders, other Peavey's and stuff Ive probably forgotten. Some of these amps were very nice and some I just didn't and couldn't like. The little peavey classic didn't draw any negative response from me. It sounded good. It had suitable shimmer, nice grind in the right frequencies for me and had a nice creamy lead sound with the neck pos on the H150. Kind of what I want from any amp really. I didn't make it into the higher gain side of the little peavey because my family came home from soccer training and ended my play time. Their idea and my idea of a good volume seldom match up.(never)

Its probably one of the cheapest amps Ive tried in a long while like this. Maybe my expectations of the classic 30 weren't as high as they were for some of the other more expensive amps and so I was evaluating it using a different measuring stick, but I just dont dislike it as much as I did some of the others at 2X and 3X the $$$. I really like it so far. A cheap good sounding amp. (As a head. For me)

The thing I like about the way Ive tested all these amps is that they are all run though the same cabs using the same guitars by the same player in the same good sized room and its a room Im very familiar with after 16 yrs. There's not to many variables other than the amp's themselves.

 

Thanks

[JeffB]

Is it ok that Im obsessing over this simple little amp and enjoying it more than I did some amps at 2-3x its value?

 

I haven't really even made it off the clean ch. It takes any stomp Ive put in front of it really well.

I ran it with an 81 fender concert through a 212 cab each with a cheap Boss ME50 as the splitter.

Crap cakes what a good combination. Made me wonder if there was an amp out there that had that sound in it already. I would buy it.

But just alone through some of the cabs I have the Classic 30 is a cool/fun little amp.