Welcome to Solid State Guitar Amp Forum | DIY Guitar Amplifiers. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 07:48:33 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Recent Posts

 

PEAVY STUDIO PRO 112 - transtube series - opinion ??

Started by giosmrbig, August 18, 2009, 09:05:10 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

giosmrbig

hi guys !!

can you tell me something about this amp ?? PEAVY STUDIO PRO 112 (transtube series)

what do you think about it ?

is it a good one or not ? i don't  undenstand if its and HYBRID or not..

thanks for the reply...

JP


phatt

Hi ,,
Transtube means nothing it is just an advertising gimick to fool the novice,,
*It is all SState*. Hybrid usually means tubes and SState combined.
Sadly anything with the words *tube* or *Valve* mingled into the front panel blab will SELL.

Take the famous TS9,,, Tube Screamer pedal ,,, hum notice the use of the *tube* word?
To it's credit it did at least wipe off a lot of treble which went some way closer to an overdriven tube sound,,, but not a tube anywhere inside.

Bandits/studios / pros they are all very similar (ie transtube teck) and some folks love them to death but IMHO there are far better amps out there.
Don't buy one if you are chasing a mellow sound.
Cheers Phil.

giosmrbig


Enzo

In fairness, to many of us, the transtube versions of the Peavey amps sound a lot better than the op amp versions.   They don't claim any tubes in there.  The circuits are based upon darlington pairs of transistors for the most part, and they are wired in a fashion to emulate a tube circuit.   No, they don;t sound like tubes.  But they don;t sound like op amps either.

va3ux

Despite phatt's criticism, the Studio Pro and it's siblings (Bandit, etc) are considered to be decent sounding amps for this class of amplifier. Surprisingly, some fairly picky jazz guitar players have commented that the Bandit and Studio Pro offered pretty good bang for the buck compared to their high-buck jazz oriented rigs.  Not as good as....but still passable.  And that says something for amp that can be bought for $150 - $200.  These are considered to be good, rugged, reliable amps.  Whether you can get the tone from it that you want - only you can decide.  Heck, people sell Fender Twin Reverbs because the amp didn't produce they particular sound they wanted.  So the fact that the Peavey Transtube's are all solid state doesn't mean diddly.

The Tech 21 Trademark 60 amp (all solid state) is another one that gets good reviews.

J M Fahey

Hi va3ux.
I don`t think our friend phatt criticized the transtube *sound* itself, quite on the contrary, but rather the over-use of the word tube/valve as if that were the "cure all", especially among Marketing department heads.
In fact, Peaveys, transtube or not, sound very good and are very usable.
The same happens with Crate amps, with a "cheap amp" stigma they don't deserve at all, specially considering they're the same as highly rated Ampeg !!!!
Many of their amps, specially bass ones, share the same guts but different skin and label (and, should I add, price).
Peavey pedal-steel amps are the industry-standard others follow.
I'm sure that for Jazz in particular, a classical Bandit (any vintage) can be a good match to a Polytone or a Yamaha or even a Roland amp.

phatt

Thanks JM,,,
You have a much better way with words. :tu:
I just tend to blab it out but hey we would all bore each other to death if we all felt the same way and there would be nothing left to talk about. :'(
Yes,, giosmrbig  did ask if it was hybrid and I was just warning of the overuse of slick terms.

But alas :'( I have to admit I'm not very impressed with transtube era Peavy's.
I agree some Peavy gear is brilliant,, some of those older bass rigs where quite stunning. Considering the age of the ones I'm thinking of ,, heck a graphic EQ and BiAmp option was ahead of it's time. :tu:

Hey va3ux, Yep ok by me,,, each to there own  :tu:
I have a mate who purchased two bandits some years back and he regrets not doing more research before purchasing. This particular player is a fulltime working guitarist so I do tend to listern to the feedback from these guys over bedroom guitar players (like me :-[)
I've tweaked one of his bandits with so-so results,,ie, still not perfect but it did improve it.
He now also uses my PhAbb semi passive Tone box which helps it a lot.

My general thoughts on all the modern stuff (Valves too)
*They try to do to much in one Amplifier package*

Extreme in the case of the Trademark 60 where the bright button is just plain stupid on channel one.
Yep my other good mate owns one of them :),,
He Thought he liked it but now he hates it.
Trademark 60 is a pain to work on (surface mount double sided board)
But I did find my way through it in the end and I was able to bypass the whole 2 Ch preamp section therby allowing *External* access to the main tone Reverb section and power amp chip.

He now uses my dedicated tone box and Reamp setup and the Trademark 60 is just the final tonal adjustment before the speaker.
The original speaker was also replaced with something a lot less harsh.

Bare in mind these guys are not into heavy metal thrash power chord stuff.
So if that is your bag then a lot of my opinions no just make that *options* are based on the classic rock sounds.

OK I'm an old fart but I think you will find that a lot of the newer sounds are drawn from the basic rock sound anyway.
ie, get the good old crunch rock sound *First* THEN just re EQ it all and bingo you may find a brilliant Metal thrash.

In my somewhat limited experience I've found it much easier to work with speakers that are not so harsh and concentrate on the circuit and EQ,, sure you need more power to get to the same SPL but hey SState power is cheap anyway.

SPL;
Not so important with SS but the old valve amps relyed on power tube distortion a lot and the mistake that was often made by owners of 40 watt tube amps was to purchase 100watt plus gear thinking that would get a louder sound. (cut through so to speak)
often A bitter dissapointment as the big tube amps (although louder) did not sweeten as easy because they stayed clean untill they where stupidly loud.

They would be far better served by just purchasing another 40 watt tube amp,,, thereby moving more AIR and attaining a bigger sound but with the same sweetness of the smaller amps.

If you only play small time gigs or at home then a bandit is gonna sound ok but if you intend to go on the road then do some serious homework before you part with your money as the poor old bandit is going to sound rather bland when it's up against serious pro gear. Simulating the bandit shows up the weakness in the tone stack setup ,,, you are lucky to get 10 Db cut in the mid range and with the dist engaged there is just not enough control.   scratchy fizzy distortion.  As my Bandit friend found out the moment I plugged my tone box in front of his Amp,,, WOW Real bass, real mid cut control. It made the bandit's tone controls sound like they where not working at all.  Arrh I better shut up now because I'm just going to sound like I'm bragging.  0:)All this is just MHO and someone may find some use of it.
Cheers all, Phil.





va3ux

10-4 on all Phatt.  I know whatcha mean.

I have a couple of different versions of the Bandit that I fart around with.  Not much money tied up in them and I can get a decent sound with an archtop or a humbucker equipped tele ( I'm at the opposite end of the scale from a thrasher/metal head).  But I do know I could get a much better sound from a Deluxe Reverb or Polytone or an Evans - the Bandit ain't the be-all/end-all by any means.