Why did Peavey use tubes?

[Axtman]

Why did Peavey, who made a name for themselves with all transistor amps, decide to use output tubes in some of their amps (Mace, Deuce, Artist, Classic, MX, etc.)?

[Helmholtz]

Players like the sound and glow of tubes. (And "tubes" provide great marketing advertising.)

I've yet to hear a full SS guitar amp that sounds like a good tube amp.

Arguably a tube power stage contributes more to tube sound than the preamp section.

[TomCarlos]

And one can ask, why did Music Man build hybrid amps? :-)

[Helmholtz]

And one can ask, why did Music Man build hybrid amps? :-)

...and why not the other way round, i.e. tube preamp and SS power amp.
Would save way more weight, power and cost.

Apart from that PV made lots of full tube amps.

[glebert]

With all things Peavey, the answer is probably "because Hartley wanted it that way." While some of the decisions seem odd, or even wrong-headed, Peavey has been a remarkably successful company. Not many other music companies have lasted so long under the same ownership.

I think for the hybrid amps you mentioned they were derived from an all tube amp (the Classic, not VT or VTX), but for some they added effects like phasor which you can't really do with tube.

I have an old Peavey all tube head that Peavey lore says may have been built by Hartley himself. Unfortunately it has problems that will cost more to address than it is worth.

[The Dude]

...and why not the other way round, i.e. tube preamp and SS power amp.
Would save way more weight, power and cost......

^^^^^That. IMO, that's a better idea. Most of the desired sound in popular Peavey tube amps like the 5150, 6550, etc. comes from the preamp section. I'd much rather have a tube preamp and SS power amp if we're talking hybrid. As you say, it also makes the amp much lighter without the heavier iron, but that's just one man's opinion.

[loudthud]

Looking back to 1970 and before, making a solid state amp that would survive the day to day punishment that a guitar or bass amp must survive was very difficult. There were only a few power transistors that were up to it and driver transistors were few and far between. One possible exception was the split secondary driver transformer type power amp of the Vox-Thomas amps and the Sunn Concert amps. Then around 1972 or 1973 there was the Sunn Coliseum and the Peavey 300W at 2 Ohms power amps. These were pretty durable and usually still work when you find them today. Actually, Peavey had a power amp that was 200W at 2 Ohms slightly before this time, but it wasn't very popular. Acoustic Control Corp and Ampeg also had fairly reliable solid state amps around this time. These were mostly Bass amps. But before this, if you wanted a good sounding reliable guitar amp, tubes were the only game in town.

The biggest problem was that designs tended to borrow circuits designed for light duty Hi-Fi use and didn't cope well with what an output stage has to deal with when used with a heavily over-driven guitar. Tube amps were comparatively bullet proof. Opamps that could be used in preamps didn't sound very good either. Example: Musicman amps. Peavey's discrete preamps sounded better. Eventually Texas Instruments came out with the low cost TL0 series opamps and Peavey was early to use them. This allowed more preamp features at lower cost and complexity. Through most of the mid to late 70's Peavey's solid state preamp with tube power amp was their top of the line with groups like Lynyrd Skynyrd.

One other thing: Peavey bought a huge number of 6L6GCs when the last of USA production was shut down.

[Gingertube]

^^^^^That. IMO, that's a better idea. Most of the desired sound in popular Peavey tube amps like the 5150, 6550, etc. comes from the preamp section. I'd much rather have a tube preamp and SS power amp if we're talking hybrid. As you say, it also makes the amp much lighter without the heavier iron, but that's just one man's opinion.

But then that would be an AMPEG (later VST Bass Amps) which ran tube preamps and MODFET Power Outputs.

Cheers,
Ian

[teemuk]

Peavey likely made tube amps for the very same reason why Fender or Marshall made transistorized amps: there was a segment in the market for products that would make money, which they hadn't yet catered to.

And wasn't the first Peavey tube amp basically a vintage Fender circuit clone with inexpensive components? Does this sound like a pattern.. Marshall, anyone?
And wasn't that amp exactly the one with the awful triad triode that they quickly had to replace with transistors because of its microphonics?

Yes, up to mid 1970's transistor amp makers seriously struggled in making reliable high power products. The power transistors of those days were pretty subpar (low voltage and power handling etc.) and thermal handling for bias or VI protections against things like short circuited loads were just taking their baby steps. AFAIK, these were challenges for Peavey but NOT a reason for making tube products. In fact, Peavey was pioneering some of that stuff and Jack Sondermeyer, their chief design engineer, knew a lot of that stuff due to his background at RCA. (They say he was the person who wrote their transistor manuals).

On the other hand, AFAIK, the hybrid products of those days were created exactly because tubes of those days were awfully inconsistent in QC and with a good chance unreliable, microphonic, etc. as is.

[glebert]

If folks want the info straight from Hartley read this. Relevant stuff starts at page 8.

HPW-Chapter-1.pdf