Peavey xxx upgrades

[Scottfnritchie]

I have been looking at Mercury magnetics for transformers. I hear they are good. I just don't know if I should just get the output tranny or power tranny or both or the choke. And I put on this would be greatly appreciated.

I also would like some suggestions for component companies to upgrade caps and resistors from the stock ones. I've heard doing this will make the amp sound better.

[Justin Thomas]

How long have you had the amp? What are you using it for? What, exactly, is wrong with the trannies in the amp now? I bet a 6-pack anyone else here will ask the same question. Seriously, I'm not trying to be flippant, but there are much more effective (and cheaper) alternatives to spending about $400 on new trannies (speakers?). Cap and resistor VALUES (NOT brands!) might make a difference, with which others may be more assistance. Bottom line: don't do it! Until you can tell us EXACTLY what you want to accomplish, leave the amp alone, sell it, and get one that you like as is.

FWIW, I find Peaveys like to be louder than a heavy rock drummer to sound good.

Justin

[tedmich]

boutique trannies have a minimal effect on old amps that were designed to be made relatively cheaply, in my experience. If you want to change the sound, feel free to explore some of the hundreds of mods available online, many to tame some of the fizz from the ultra series PV amps that tends to come out when you are NOT playing them louder than a heavy rock drummer, as mentioned above. Using good quality parts will help this effort but unless you have a bad hum or obviously bad PS caps, replacing them won't change the amps sound too much. That said these amps are old and were usually "ridden hard and put away wet" to borrow a metaphor, so they may need part replacement as part of a regular PM. I have all the mouser catalog numbers to replace the entire PS cap array with the biggest modern caps that fit, it costs pretty close to the old values but at 3X the filtering it makes the amp sound a bit "stiffer" with a little more bass and less noise. Its $50 and a lot of desoldering/soldering and it doesn't make it sound like a Diezel.

What is "better" to you? More gain? Less fizz?, Less gain, more fizz? If you want LESS gain, trade it in for a Valve King of Windsor. Just want to chug along with more gain? Get a 5150.

The hot ticket for high gain bedroom users of the massive PV Ultra amps (XXX and Ultra+) is putting an effect that attenuates in the FX loop, a Nanoverb being a decent choice on the XXX as it has no reverb, and using this to squish the signal down. This allows you to play with full on gain without eviction; its even possible to peg everything (EXCEPT the tone stack, set to FULL CUT) and slowly bring the active (-15db) tone controls up to reach a bedroom volume of full gain mayhem.

Changing the tubes can change the way it sounds a ton too!