Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

[zeegler]

Tried it out finally. The 100 watt head version. Played it through a matching cab. It sounded decent right away, with all the controls at 12 oclock (with the exception of volume of course). It's dark and thick sounding, and has it's own character for sure. The EQ controls give you a pretty good control over the sound, and the presence, and resonance controls allow you to fine tune it even more. The weird thing about it, is that the effects loop jacks are on the front. Odd. The dirty channel has a boost button, and a gain button. The boost button is just that. The gain button basically takes you from a vintage heavy rock type gain, to death metal type gain, and of course the gain knob is always there to fine tune it. I assume that both these features can be activated by the footswitch. The clean channel actually sounded pretty good too.

I liked it. The price is ludicrously low. The ultimate bargain in tube amps.

[Orchid]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

So did you try that one control whatever it's called, in the back?

[quadperson]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

Thanks for the review, I've been very interested in these amps. I think Orchard is talking about the A, A/B Texture control. I don't claim to know alot about tube amps, but I recall someone saying that a tube amp is either A or AB, it can't be both. Regardless, I am very anxious to try one of these amps out.

[Orchid]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

Ohhhh Orchard, hahah pwnd. Wtf is this Orchard Supply Hardware? hahaha.

[horns666]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

can it get brutal ..anywhere near the gain of a 5150..

I heard they are pretty bare boned and made well..low price due to import.

6L6 right..I like 6L6!

[zeegler]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

[ QUOTE ]
So did you try that one control whatever it's called, in the back?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, the TEXTURE control I think it is called. It sweeps from tube mode A to tube mode AB supposedly. A is warmer sounding, but sort of half-power. AB has more edge to it and is louder. The amp had so many ways to adjust the sound to your taste, very user-friendly.

[zeegler]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

[ QUOTE ]
can it get brutal ..anywhere near the gain of a 5150..

I heard they are pretty bare boned and made well..low price due to import.

6L6 right..I like 6L6!

[/ QUOTE ]

Put it this way Bill. I have never played a Bogner, but there are 3 amps I have played with that have more-than-enough gain, and this is one of them. It might not have quite as much as a 5150/6505, but it's close. I like a lot of gain, and with the gain button engaged, I had to have the gain backed off at 3 oclock rather than dimed.

The overall impression I got (at least at music store volumes) was one of meatiness. A thick slab of beef. Maybe a bit old and rotten, with some maggots crawling in it. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Seriously though, THICK and BEEFY describes it perfectly.

It also did look and feel to be very well put together. Nice grille, tolexing, good feel to the knobs. There's nothing like a nice feeling knob. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

It did not sound like a Recto at all. Nor did it sound like a Marshall.

Yes 6L6s.

[Robotechnology]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

I played the combo version of this and liked the 50 watt blue Traynor combo more in terms of dirty tones. The Valveking's clean tones were better though. And to me the VK only sounded its best with the texture control on full A/B.

[charvelguy]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

Looking at the manual, this is very well thought out amp with alot of features you couldn't get in a 'market' amp just 5-7 years ago unless you had a custom made job, bought boutique or spent alot of money on a higher end factory model.

I wanted to find out a little more about this 'texture' control as the way it was described in this thread made it sound like the amp was capable of switching between class A to class A/B by the tweak of a knob. It does respond much like that by just turning a knob. Separate gain control and volume control that can be activated together or independently..so you can boost the gain and the volume for solos...that is pretty sweet option that used to be only viable through pedals in a off-the-shelf head before.


From Peavey's manual:

"TEXTURE
This new, patent-pending feature available only from Peavey is used to fine-tune the power sensitivity, response and “break-up” of the power amp section of your ValveKing™ amplifier. Normal, full-power, Class A/B operation results when the TEXTURE control is set at its fully clockwise (wide open) position and should be used as a starting point when setting this control. As the TEXTURE control is rotated counterclockwise, the effect of one half of the 6L6GC power tubes is progressively subtracted from the circuit, while the gain of the driver tube is slowly increased. The driver's low-frequency
response is also altered along with the gain, resulting in more even-ordered harmonic distortion from your power amp, even at lower-than-stage-volume settings. Finally, with the TEXTURE knob in the fully counterclockwise position, the result is a real single-ended power amp section that operates and responds exactly like a true Class A power amp, driven by a real single-ended high-gain tube stage. This setting still allows the unused power tube(s) to draw idle current, thus retaining the efficiency of the standard Class A/B topology. In this mode, power output is also reduced by as much as 60% versus maximum rated power."

Pretty much like built in attenuation.
Additionally, it has the feature of tweaking the power amp section even further thru the resonance and presence controls.

Again from the manual:

" RESONANCE (ValveKing™ 212 and 100 Head only)
This patented feature, available only from Peavey, is used to fine-tune the low-frequency response and damping factor of the power amp section. At higher settings, the speakers are allowed to move more freely at low frequencies, resulting in more apparent low end with slightly less signal clarity at maximum settings."

The 1x12 has the resonance as a switch on the back and it looks as tho the ohmage isn't switchable but the head and 2x12 seem to be very much the same contruction just the panel layouts are different.

They all have two channel switching with independant vol, passive 3 band eq. The jacks of an effects send and return are also on the front panel.



Peavey is not far away from adding a knob or treadle to the footswitch for variable gain and variable volume. Now if he only made that and the effects loop footswtchable as well for under a grand MSRP.

The gain/lead channel is setup 10db hotter than the clean/normal channel or "low gain". The volume boost/gain feature is only active in the gain/lead channel BUT, the channels are independantly controlled by seperate volumes so at least you can control the level of the two to being equal or other combinations you want.

Pretty nice features in an amp that lists at 750.00 for the 2x12 and 650.00 for the head.
(no I don't work for Peavey, sell Peavey or am I paid to represent Peavey-I pretty much never liked Peavey much until more recently)

[mm2002]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

Interesting info. Most places are selling them under $500.00, and it sounds like a hell of an amp for that money.

[mm2002]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

Hah! Charvel guy just hit 5150 posts! Ironic to be talking amps huh!

[FusionFarmer]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

They are having alot of problems with both the heads and the combos, mostly quite a bit of hum and not enough footswitches that are compatible. First run of an imported new amp. might want to give em a year or so get em sraightened out. They do sound pretty damn good tho.

[Twisteramps]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

+1 to what fusionfarmer said... I'd hold off on a bit, although it does seem like a great deal. Let them work the kinks out and it could be a good amp - I could see these taking a bite out of many solid state amps, like the B52, but with Peavey's longer track record.

They probably would *not* want to add a treadle for a volume control through the footswitch - this is just begging for noise and problems. Most footswitches are amazingly simple - basically a switch that grounds out a relay. The LEDs are powered by the relays, and it's a low voltage. Bascially your footswitch completes a circuit - there aren't really any signals going to it. That's why amps with footswitchable boosts leave em in the amp - shorter, more direct wires.

Changing from Class A/B to A (single ended) is going to change the tone a LOT - not just attenuate the sound, if by attenuating we mean dropping the volume. There are a lot of ways to cut volume and change tone, I always think of attenuation trying to preserve the same tone. For better or for worse, this is going to yield a different sound, more different imho than using a hotplate or such.

Oh, and it pisses me off that peavey has a patent on the resonance control - Those are on a ton of amps, and I saw it first on a Duncan Convertible from '83 or so. It's like Mesa patenting the 'dual rectifier' concept - which he stole from hi/fi amps built a long time ago. Heck, the A - A/B thing might be lurking then too, since when tubes were the only way to cheaply amplify radios/stereos/etc, they did a LOT of cool stuff. Tons of the things that we think are great innovations in tube amps were done years ago, and never patented or time has ran out on them.

Pete

[gkelly]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

To have that much discusion they must be worth checkingout

[charvelguy]

Re: Peavey Valveking - for those who want to know.

I was wondering if they would have alot of issues with this initially. As I was typing that.. I had thoughts on the Rhino Blackstar when they came out and all the problems they had with those amps and wondered if Peavey would have similar bugs. I dismissed it as it's Peavey.. quite a bit more reputable than Rhino...doesn't mean they won't have production issues tho. I was trying to find warranty info in the manual but I guess I didn't look in the right spot or it wasn't stated.
My thoughts were of treadle operated gain. Volume would be nice too but I was envisioning something more along the lines of the O'Brien amp setup only for a mass marketed amp. (not to mention much more inexpensive)
By attentuation...I do mean by dropping the output volume.
How Peavey is approaching this is not like putting a typical load attenautor inline bwtn head and speaker outboard (altho, there are many differing designs of attenuators, some 'better' than others)

Switching between a class A and A/B will change tone alot as Pete says. I do not consider that necessarily a bad thing unless you are trying to get your class A/B sound at a much lower volume.. I think its making the amp more flexible while still giving similar gain at lower volumes for practice or whatever circumstance requires such a need.
Class A is usually considered a more 'pure' tone.
Seems like they try to compensate somewhat for the changes occuring in tone from going Class A/B to A by also changing how the preamp section reacts to the change being made in the output section by the 'texture' control. The texture control sounds something similar to.. if I'm recalling it correctly.. what was called the Govenor control that used to be on Sundown amps which was out in the late 70's early 80's.
It sounds like it basically alters the plate voltage to the output section to the point of dropping half of the output section into a 'standby' mode while increasing the hotness of the preamp to increase gain. Maybe it has a built in version of a Soldano hot mod for all I know but it strikes me as a more technical version of someone pulling two tubes out of a hundred watter's output section and auto rebiasing to compensate while increasing the voltage or kicking in another part to a portion of the preamp section.
Just speculating/guessing. Heck.. mosvalve's circuit used to pat pending.. for what? tube emulation? I think they have a right to protect the spcifics of the circuit design, especially if it differs significantly from otehrs in as much as Fender a headstock shape or Gibson a pickup design. Foreign competition being what it is.. it's heading off nd giving footing to potential problems down the road. It is also giving root to other designs and their offshoots down the road too it seems. Peavey is likely playing for a bigger and more more diversified slab of the music market.

I wasn't thinking of going out and buying one..altho, the price would make it tempting but, it will be interesting to see what Peavey puts out over the next couple years.