Peavey Studio Pro 40

[newey]

A few months' ago, I picked up a lightly-used Peavey Studio Pro 40 combo amp, 1 X 12", 40 watts SS. It has the classic Peavey Pre and post gain knobs and a Saturation control. With reverb as well.

I paid $50 plus S&H off Ebay, it was advertised as all working, but when I got it, it was DOA. The pilot lamp lit on power-up but no sound.

After some PMs back and forth with sumgai, he had diagnosed the problem- a bad pot coupled with a faulty switched jack on the FX loop in jack. After some emails, with the seller, rather than have me ship it back, he refunded half the price.

I intended to pull it apart and dive into the fix myself, but it would have been backed up behind all the other projects that weren't getting done . . .

So, off to the local tech it went, and $40 later, I got it back all shined up and working flawlessly.

This thing has some serious power for a little 12" combo amp; I haven't pushed the post and pre gains beyond about 4 yet, for fear of disturbing the neighborhood.

It has a lot more "modern" sound than my Fender SS, one can dial in varying amounts of grit by playing with the pre and post controls and the saturation. Doesn't have the Fender clean, but that's why 2 amps are nice.

I can recommend these if you see one around at a decent price. I've got $65 into mine, not counting the shipping. The local guitar shop has 2 used ones for north of a hundred.

These old SS Peaveys are reputed to be built pretty stoutly, so I'm hoping, after the fix, to get several years worth of use out of it.

[jcgss77]

Nice find! The beauty of cheap amps is you don't feel afraid to start cookin' with the soldering iron! Now if only my Crate I bought would work like yours does...

[lpf3]

Back when I was gigging regularly I used to play thru an old peavey 2x12 amp that belonged to our bass player. That was a great amp. It was already old when it was loaned to me & I took it up and down the road for 3 years- I never babied it & it never failed me.

I've heard that Peaveys are commonly more powerful than the wattage rating on the nameplate- the one I used was big on loud - and had great tone. Not, "great tone for solid state", just great tone. I imagine you'll get years of good use out of yours- nice score.

Enjoy......


-lpf3

[cynical1]

I played through Peaveys for years...400's mostly through a 4x12 BW cabinet...always bought them used and never had any issues with them...and I only sold them when economics dictated... They were always built like Sherman tanks and never gave me any issues or grief at a gig or rehearsals. The worst I ever had to do was clean the pots occasionally...and a cord on one of them when a light rig fell on it and ripped the cord out...

Tubes have their reputation, but my reality was that when you're working in a 3 piece, making $300.00-$500.00 for a 3-4 weekend...when you could get a gig...then split it 3 ways, who can afford keeping them in shape...and God help you if some drunk decides to use it to break his fall...

I can't speak to the new generation of Peaveys, but the older stuff was just bombproof.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[Yew]

Im always suprised by my old Marshall MG10, Get a nice guitar through it, and it sounds sweeeeet..

[davidwilly]

I just bought an old peavey studio pro 40 from 1985 I believe. The power cord has a short so I considering replacing it. Has anybody ever done that, and if so is it a pain in the butt? I tried to find something online about it..hoping maybe somebody in youtube doing it, but so far no luck. Before I hire it done wanted to see if it's something I can do myself etc.

[b4nj0]

Hi and welcome to the Nutzhouse.

I think you should have started a new thread for this.

Well, if you need to ask about something like this then it's tricky if not risky offering any advice. First off, unplug it from the wall outlet. The fact is though, this is a solid state amp which is nowhere near as lethal as a valve amp. I suspect that the lead goes through the chassis via a captive gripping grommet? From there it will go to soldered connections on the PCB. It really wont be too risky provided you can solder properly, there may even be screw terminals which would make it easier. Make a sketch of the lead connections to ensure that they go back onto the correct terminals. Normally, the chassis drops out after releasing some screws, often it's the grab handle attachment screws. Occasionally you may need to remove the control knobs and release the nuts securing the pot shafts to the control panel, but not on this amp I believe.

The thing is, if the mains lead is indeed shorted, I wonder how you know because the amp obviously doesn't work? and if it is definitely shorted then the amp may well have gone south too.

There will be some relatively large capacitors near to the point where the mains lead connects to the amp circuit. These will not be storing anything like such lethal static HT voltages as a valve amp would, but they should still be "crow-barred" (shorted) before working on the amp. If you don't know what I mean or how to do this (with your left hand behind your back) then rock on down to your nearest amp tech and get it done by someone else.

Please forgive me for assuming that you know nothing about this, it's not meant to be haughty or rude, I have to do it because electricity bites.

Whatever, be carefull.


e&oe

[davidwilly]

The amp does work. You can wiggle the cord and get it to work but at times it then shorts out..stops working so I believe the cord itself is shorted.

[b4nj0]

Nope, it sounds as though the cord is open. That is to say at least one of the conductors in the cable is fractured, probably next to the grommet in the chassis or the plug, and you can make contact across the fracture by waggling it about. If it was shorted then some parts of your amp would be subjected to voltages that they never anticipated and a fuse (or elcb / rcd) would blow.

e&oe