What a great video !! It reminded me of the nightmare of coping with a Vox Cambridge (?) amp several years ago, which required about 9 hours of disassembly just to reach the circuit. Then your PCB circuit tracing at the midpoint of the video reminded me why I shun this style of construction like a leper who wants to hug. The trio you have assembled for the audio demos was splendid.....Ollie & Jack need to take some notes.....climaxing another fine video from my favorite amp guy. Thanks !!!
Thanks Doug. Good to see you, my friend. It's just a real shame they felt they couldn't sell a true hand wired version of this same amp without all the parts deletions and weird design choices, like IC reverb. Some things they got right, like the 12V per tube (36V total) DC supply for the preamp tubes. I think that's a stroke of genius that lowers hum considerably I'd imagine. But then they doom the design with all the other choices. Shame. This could have been an all-time classic amp if not for the cheapness.
This is one of the most used amps in Nashville by session players. I have an original American made first run Classic 30 and it has made it on a ton of records. I dig it.
I gigged a classic 50 to death, bought another one and gigged it to death, too. They were great sounding disposable amps. Then I got a ‘67 Super Reverb…
I owned a Classic 30 and later a Delta Blues 210. I found the distortion channel in each basically unusable. They had very “woofy” overtones with some overdrive, like the design was somehow defective. I’m not an amp snob, and I really wanted to like these amps. The clean channels were fine, and probably sounded alright turned up with some natural breakup. But something was off with those drive channels.
This is what makes a platform like TH-cam so strong. Videos and channels like this. I just woke up and now an hour later I have so much more knowledge than when I swung my feet out of bed. And watching/hearing you play is just pure entertainment. To you it's just random noodling. To us mere mortals it's what we're striving to achieve as our goal for the instrument. Fuckin' magic man.
I bought this from a guy on classifieds in Utah he had rehoused it before me. I installed the speaker jack in the rear and gigged with this amp a few times actually! This is crazy to see it on your channel lol
I gigged a Classic 30 for years with no issues in Maine, freezing cold van drives to still smokey bars and nothing but tube changes, i still have it and it works awesome I will never sell it haha literally my favorite all around amp ever haha! I'ts got a two button switch that does reverb and channel and the boost is not footswitchable. Fun amp for small change RIP Peavey USA.
@@johnsmith-bk4ps I think it came with sovtec tubes its got electroharmonix tubes in it now, I had mesa boogie tubes in my previous classic 30 ( I have had an original tweed and a USA black tweed which I still have), those tubes became microphonic after a few years of hard use too but they did last a while...I have been playing these since '96 for reference I got the black one in 2000, I am not a tech so maybe I didn't always need to change them, but I did. What brand of USA tube would you recommend I may need to switch em out again someday haha cheers 🤘🏻🎸🔨
@@GerhardGeficky-jg4ok 27 years and counting I think I paid 500 bucks for it so if it dies it was more than worth it, but ya that will suck nothing lasts forever GG cheers!
@@PolishHammer then you are lucky because I heard these Amos always break down. I own 3 Peavey Amps and like them . No music store will take any as a trade in Canada. ( I've already tried)
Excellent Brad, the Classic 30 was my first tube amp back on the 90s and I enjoyed watching you recap the amp. The sound check at the end was outstanding and loved it brother man.
Most of the time these amps are usually built to a manufacturing budget to maximize the profit-margin, so manufacturers like Peavey will try to find all sorts of ways to cut manufacturing costs where they can, Leo Fender did that a lot.
Those RC4558 ICs have the same pinout as some other Dual Op Amp ICs such as the JRC4558D, TLO72CP, LF353, all three of those ICs can be used as drop-in substitutes.
Yes, the 4558 is an upgrade for certain. It's a chip that doesn't get taken seriously often, and was used all over mackie consoles etc. Pedals, budget converters etc. I can say I've put them in fader buffer stages of old British mixers a few times, and man does it open them up. Makes them sound way more open and transparent. Cheap chip to. Also the 2068d is maybe even better. Super hi end guys tend to look down on them, and like stuff like THAT and LME49740 etc., but the jrc stuff is great sounding stuff.
@@Intrinsic.Recording The TLO72CP has the same pinouts as the RC4558 and JRC4558D, except that the TLO72CP uses two JFETS for the inputs on Pin 2, Pin 3, Pin 5 and Pin 6, instead of Bipolar Transistors, the benefit of that is a lower noise-floor than the RC4558 or JRC4558D, as well as much higher input impedances (about 10M for the TLO72CP).
James Brown was the godfather of soulful Amp designs. He managed to squeeze a lot of tone out of the budget that H Peavey gave him -- and those amps sound killer with the proper speakers and set up! Nice work!
Man, that old Classic 30 sounded great! As most folks know, the classic tweed series was a sleeper. Hope the owner is happy and it lasts a good long time.
I don’t know crap about what you did but could not stop watching until the end…love your videos like this …wish I had your skills…just amazing…nice picking at the end. Cheers!!!
Wow the demo at the end was incredible. One heck of a good bass player,drums, and the guitar player is awesome. I had a C 30. back in the day and I loved it until it broke, then got it fixed, broke again and trashed it after that I think.Enjoyed the video very much thanks man. oh yes I had to watch the demo twice.
I own a Classic 20 Amp with it's onboard 10' Speaker and two EL84. Had to recap that thing and bias it down, 'cause it really ran hot. It was a pain in the butt but this amp sounds awesome for a little 15 Watt combo. I also changed the baffle to a 7mm pine board, which was imho a big win. You want this cabinet to resonate more.
Great video Brad. Just back from a gig. This was a cool Sunday treat. Really enjoyed it. The way they have those boards reminds me of a Fender Bassbreaker I opened up recently. Except they built the chassis around the boards. When you take chassis out the case it looks like a square metal tube. Take care Brad.
What a killer video Guitologist, you’re definitely one hell of an amp tech !! What a killer Jam session Guitologist your musician ship blows me away !!!
Apart from the fact that you have one of the most serious, informative and acourate channels on YT, you sir are a great player! If the music in the end of the video is yours, I totally respect you as a composer too. Greetings from Greece!
Peavey Classic 30 is a great combo amp. It's indestructible. Never knew how difficult it is to work on because I never had any issues, until I sold it. I had one from the the last "made in the USA" batch. Now they're all Chinese. Haven't had the need to use one of this since I went digital.
Great video!!! Watching it brought back shades of terror when I opened up my late 90s DB 210 to replace all the caps as some were leaking after 20 years plus of gigging. Nobody wanted to work on it. I will spare you the gory details, but, in short, when it was complete days later and ready to test, I set the amp out on the back patio, power switch on, and connected it to an extension cord. I then plugged it in from a distance. If it burnt to the ground well then so be it. But it worked! To my amazement and brought new life to an old amp. I replaced the blue marvels with greenbacks and still use the amp to this day. But to your point, I would have preferred the concrete shoes river crossing method. Rock on!
Peavey made some hand wired amps at one point, one was called a sensation and one was called a masterpiece, would be cheaper to find one of them than to convert a classic 30. Great video, I enjoy watching your work
I don't work on amps for a living, but have diagnosed quite a few with IC related issues, in which the IC sockets were actually bad from vibration. mostly dual or quad op-amps, where the ic would blow, lose output or worse yet, drive the final amp stage to full + or - rail voltage, melting voice coils, transistors, tubes and whatever else is in the circuit. my solution was to get rid of the sockets and directly solder the IC's in, the problem was often missed by other shops because it was fairly intermittent, where handling or heat cycling the would fix it temporarily, so I don't blame them for missing it. it's not just amps that are well known to have socket issues.
Got two of these in the basement now needing help - one newer tolex style that likely just needs a socket re-flowed but I've been dreading dealing with the ridiculous pcb taco to the point I just move on to the next project. The second is an older tweed one that's in pieces - that'll likely end up getting re-wired into something else. This video gave me some ideas though, and maybe the courage to get it over with. Thanks!
The odd screen resistor arrangement *could* make each half of the paralleled tube pairs break up at different drive levels so giving you a greater amount of that overdrive sound or give *some* overdrive at moderate volume levels.
I had considered that too, that they might be going for some kind of asymmetrical output thing also, but I don't think the tradeoff of tube life due to no screen protection is worth it. if they wanted something like that, they should have at least done something like a 470R for the entire screen supply, then give each tube a different screen value above that.
@@TheGuitologist Seems like you didn't follow the SCREEN label with its down arrow over to the corresponding SCREEN up arrow label, which shows a resistor before the screens.
I used to do a mod to these amps so that they were a part-for-part AC-30 clone, and after the mod they sounded fantastic but that strange PCB was a nightmare and I was concerned that the disassembly required to access the circuit would lead to reliability issues down the line. Glad to see it wasn't just me who thought so...!
I would really appreciate some help. I hae a Classic 30 II combo (chinese version). There´s a clean signal filtering through the gain channel, even whith the volume all the way down. It´s driving me crazy, cause you can really hear the clean signal along with the distorted tone. Thanks in advance.
Does that 83W dissipation on tubes mean the amp consumes 83W from the wall socket? What is general power usage of typical amp? I know it varies but like an average wiuld be useful to know
I am a tech at Clawsons music they sold these about 26 years ago I have worked on just a few I think the reason the ic capacitors hold up better is because the tubes are el84 the voltages are lower maybe 325 but on fender blues deluxe and pro jr they are notorious for leaking causing an audible ripple the fender amps they are lined up like 47 22 22 22 at 450 500 volts they all go bad I like jj electronics and f&t and a new one from tube depot MOD capacitors.
@@TheGuitologist I bought 6 x159's after watching your vid and gave 4 to friends as christmas presents. The days of leaky ol messy pens is long gone and writing with a fountain pen makes your penmanship improve (for most folks) immensely. Happy New year brother, here's to a good one 👍✌😎
I seem to remember doing some servicing work on an amp similar to one of these Peavey Classic 30s, if I remember rightly, the amp I serviced needed a new replacement power transformer, very similar to the power transformer in this amp.
I've seen a number of these after they've aged a bit. My memory is what you encountered. The first time getting it apart is a pain. Peavey like Fender seem to run the EL-84s too hot and it causes issues with the board. Like a Fender Blues Junior. Also the filaments might be in series.The Classic also has them running DC for hum reduction, but that might be the Classic 50 Which also sounds great! And the filaments are fused...A "low budget " amp where the value of the amp is maybe less than the repair cost. I fix them anyway. Good job chasing down the odd screen resistor configuration. When these were designed, EL-84s must have been cheap enough to not worry about short tube life.
Almost forgot to mention. 90% of opamp chips like that tend to have higher quality replacements now, but just like tubes you have to make sure the spec is close enough.
😂 James Brown of 5150/amp tweaker/ Iconic amp designed the classic 30 to be able to get a tube Amp that sound good for under $300 and that was the goal for this amp. The classic 30 has the same folded up boards as the 5150 peavey as he designed the amp for Eddie Van Halen to be affordable, which I guess it was achieved.
The engineer that designed the Peavey Classic series left Peavey and went to Kustom. The Kustom Defender series and the Kustom Coupe series amps were designed by the same person. Great sounding amps that are no longer made abd can be found very reasonable on the used maket
@@shredenvain7 That name sounds familiar but it's been too long for me to be certain. I love the sound of the Peavey Classic series as well as the Kustom Defender 112 & the Coupe amps. The way that the Classic series is built is a pain to work on but for the most part, they seem to hold up well even though the circuit boards are pieced together as they are
Yes it's James Brown ! He also designed the peavey Bravo and the Rockmaster tube pre amp ! Both awesome ! He owns his own company now called "Amp Tweaker" and he's got some killer pedals !
Yup! I had a Peavey Classic 30 combo about 25 years ago that I bought new. It sounded great...until it stopped working about 2 months later. I had it repaired under warranty. The tech who worked on it agreed with you on every point you made, especially those regarding the crazy flexy board layout which was the source of the problem I had. I picked it up, took it to a music store and traded in toward a Fender Blues deluxe. A much better amp that I wish I still had.
Hey there, I had two issues and wonder if you can chime in on the unsolved one. Scratchy pots and 1minute of noise on startup perfect after ( after 11 years of owning Peavey Delta Blues). I had to go in to clean the pots, so I swapped caps as well, I saw how tricky its to work on it. I cleaned the pots. Result: no scratchy pots, but the warmup noise (some storm sounds for 30-1m) remained. I wonder having just worked on C30 which is very similar if you have any hints.
I took my 78 Silverface Deluxe Reverb chassis out and put it in a homemade case. Used it as a head for years in the clubs. Single 12 mated up with a 4x10 to let it roar. Great amp The backup was my Peavy Special 130
I don't have any experience with Peavey tube amps outside the 5150. But I have a collection of transtube & teal stripe products. Most of them have audible line noise on the reverb circuit that drives me crazy. However it disappears when playing etc.
You may be able to swap the opamp for a better one. Check your specific chip, and do some googling. Many newer and cleaner more accurate ones exist for almost all applications.
To be honest Brad, I took about a year or 2 away. I came back to see what you had going and THIS is what I remember you for. Straight amp repair/mods with no BS. Great video.
@30:15 when you went into output issue, is that really a major flaw or just something that you're not used to seeing in a circuit? I'm just a guitar player used to to dealing with five watt amps and am looking for something bigger, so I'm genuinely curious if this is a fatal flaw of the amp that needs to be fixed.
It's a highly unusual design which does not seem to make logical sense. Every amp tech I've showed it to has agreed. Most techs will correct this and treat it as a flaw.
Hey Brad awesome video as always! I have a question or two regarding one of the cabs I saw in this video. ( 4:28 ) I recently just picked up a Fender HM A 4x12 cab and for the life of me can't find much info about the model of the cab other then that it was made in the 80's and was made I believe at the Usa fender plant, do you know anything else about it? Like was there a matching head for it? Does the HM stand for heavy metal? Just wanting to know some more info on it if there is any. Thanks!
Have one of these waiting to go on my bench right now. Thanks for this! Great video, great chops on the music bit at the end. Like song clip #2. Got a fusion feel to it. Love it! Oh...and the dreaded IC caps...hate em! Everybody is using the still. Cheap stuff. I see guys saying they never have had any more issues with IC than other brands. NOT my experience at all. Thanks again man!
It’s a great sounding amp. It feeds back well. I dig that. I also dig your signature guitar. That thing looks cool and sounds good. Love that nasa shirt too lol.
good job there brad! i always enjoy the amp fixes, but its the road test i look forward to most, there`s something about the multi role finale performances, you could do a cream tribute covers album..on your own 🤔👍😇
Nice episode Brad, been thinking of getting the original version of this amp. Good playing too, thr basist seems very shy and the drummer looks... dunno, he remind me of someone 😊😊
Does this info apply to the Peavey classic 50 also? I gave an early one that sounds great through a 4 x 12 cabinet but kind of sucky through its own combo speakers.
Another great video brother! I wanted to mention, over the years I've had a number of Peavey amplifiers, and invariably they all have had solder issues, especially their XR600 PA mixers. Not sure why, but many of the solder points will, what I call "volcano", where there's a cracked ring around the component wire. A few minutes with an iron and it's a fix. I will concur that some of the boards are a mf'er to get to, but in general, the Peavey stuff is pretty rugged. Anyways...thanks for the vids...keep 'em coming!
Curious why the owner asked for a more saturated reverb when the wire was severed and inoperative? Also how Peavey designed the board omitting screen resistors. I'm definitely going to double check my newer boards and hopefully not find anything that weird. As always; Nice job Brad
I'd check the solder joints. The one randall i worked on had tons of cold solder joints (appear matte and not shiny smooth) and I touched them all with fresh solder. After that, replace any large/high-voltage can caps, and look for scorched resistors.
What about the 2013/2014 updated version, called the Classic 30ii. Have you had a chance to work on one of those? I have one from before they went to China, and it is a flat board, not 3 sided. Looks to be easier to work on.
I have a Classic 50 head and am finally getting it back after….25yrs in storage. Here’s to hoping its still good. I loved that amp through a old Lee Jackson 4x12 cab
Thanks for demo-ing the amp so that`we could here what it sounds like. It helps that the guitar playing was superb, and the tones from this amp are wonderful.
I love the sound of the Classic 30, and I'm design a scratch build with similar jangle. I noticed on the schematic that the master volume control is a 10k audio pot. Is this correct? I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. PS- Thanks for all the videos.
Hey Brad thanks as always for your videos it's good to see you on my feet again LOL when I was cited I was pretty handy used to work on my car as my motorcycles 30 years ago when I bought a house I did my electrical plumbing all that stuff I've always been handy and it would have been a real asset if I had access to your videos back in the day but it's still really interesting I'm still learning all the time doesn't matter whether I could see or not you kind of trick me though I'm sure that wasn't your intention at about 28 minutes when the I could tell you know there was a cut in your and it went to this music and I automatically reached out to find the skip ad button and couldn't find it so I found the the elapsed time and saw that it was still going and realized that will just just different music LOL hope everything is well with you bro thanks again for your videos sincerely Bob the blind bedroom
In the case of this to mitigate the heat from the resistors would putting a small computer fan be a good idea? I know noctua makes a small 5 volt fan but it might not be small enough. And it might need its own circuit to power up with the amp
Hah recognized this amp just from the intro. Have one of my own, modded extensively, hate to work on it, but it's a great amp indeed. Made mine to sound more akin to Mesa MKII, instead of the classic 80's hair metal sound it originally made.
I stood in the middle of the street naked & screamed "LONG LIVE THE GUITOLOGIST!" & when the cops arrived, I told them about your channel. They laughed at me. I tried to tell them it was because it was so cold outside. Hey I'm a grower, not a shower. They took me in and warmed me up and checked out your channel. You might have a couple more subs from the North East tonight. Gotta go and shower up for court in the morning. They don't like shrinkage around here it seems.
Good job mate! Did ya replace those microphonic tubes? Crazy how an op-amp chip can blow up so often; maybe from back emf from the reverb? Possibly back-to-back 1N914/1N4148 diodes between ground & the reverb i/p pin on the op-amp may help, depending on the voltage on that pin. Diodes won't switch on till there's 0.6V across them. Hey, you're a one man band then huh? Fricken awesome Mr. Music you can do it all can't ya! Music demo was spot-on & thanks for the video! 😃👍!
I LOVE the original tweed Peavey Classic 30 112 combo. One of the best guitar amps I've ever heard, and like Peavey it's super reliable even if it falls out of a truck, or down a flight of stairs.
How is the weather there? It's 3 degrees and 5 inches of snow here in Chicago but wow Nashville is 14 degrees and snow still coming down! The kids must love it! I don't have to go back to work until Thursday, yay! Drunks are not excluded from designing amps! Thankfully you have a great schematic to work with. Sober and worthwhile repair job I must say. It works great Brad! I see you cloned yourself. I found a machine that can do half of my work so I bought two of them. LOL
Hey Brad, great video!, After reviving several of these C30 Peavey amps, I think that the customer wanted to be able to switch the output transformer from 16 ohm to 8 ohm. The wire is there. We all just need some one like you to verify the wiring.
Have done a few amp repairs,but had motorboating on a Black Star mini bass amp,the only way I could eleviate that was turn the gain up,to get rid of the putt,putt,how do transients get in the line,is it a ground issue,or a design flaw,peculier to say the least Thanks amp guru
Luckily, my local music store is an authorized Peavey dealer, so i was able to get the parts to fix my bass amp. An inductor went bad on me, and while replacing it, the shims that go between the chassis and the transistors were blown out, so it blew the fuses on that part of the board the second i powered it up. So the store owner gave me a box of shims, a tube of thermal paste, and said you seem to know what you're doing, so get this back together, then we'll test it. Been fine ever since.
Its got 3 12ax7a tubes, so right away you can figure the reverb is solid state, but I mean that shouldnt preclude anyone from altering the wet/dry mix.
I have a 2006 model. I changed the reverb tank from the 4EB2C1B to a 4EB3C1B tank and it made all the difference in the world; more of the classic Fender-ish reverb. The other stinker about these amps is that there is no standby switch. I see the newer models now include that. Finally, on mine plugging in to the external speaker jack does not disable the internal speaker; both speakers are active.
The "Beauty" of the Classic Thirty is the mass production CB design. The simplicity relates to cost of production. It's laughable and Genius at the same time. Somebody has hand wired this circuit on you tube. But they went over the top in mods with the original design. I believe if somebody went to the effort to actually create a hand wired simple chassis and build of this absolutely killer ( FOUR) EL 84 Peavey amp. It would be the Ultimate amp kit build for anybody to have. The tones of the Classic Thirty are legendary. It blows away A Vox AC 30. For a fraction of the cost. IMHO. For that matter a lot of really expensive Boutique amps for thousands of dollars. Hartley Peavey is American legend. The longest American ( SINGLE CEO) owned and operated amplifier in US HISTORY.
I have seen power reistors mounted like that pull traces off the board. I would stand them off supported by high-temperature silicone. Cool video. Excellent guitar. Your drummer is pretty good too ;-)
What a great video !! It reminded me of the nightmare of coping with a Vox Cambridge (?) amp several years ago, which required about 9 hours of disassembly just to reach the circuit. Then your PCB circuit tracing at the midpoint of the video reminded me why I shun this style of construction like a leper who wants to hug. The trio you have assembled for the audio demos was splendid.....Ollie & Jack need to take some notes.....climaxing another fine video from my favorite amp guy. Thanks !!!
Thanks Doug. Good to see you, my friend. It's just a real shame they felt they couldn't sell a true hand wired version of this same amp without all the parts deletions and weird design choices, like IC reverb. Some things they got right, like the 12V per tube (36V total) DC supply for the preamp tubes. I think that's a stroke of genius that lowers hum considerably I'd imagine. But then they doom the design with all the other choices. Shame. This could have been an all-time classic amp if not for the cheapness.
Gotta love when UD shows up. It's officially a party!
Thanks, T. Where's the beer ?@@thatampguy
Uncle Doug, I am actually very impressed with this particular amp design - i prefer it over ALL other amp designs since 1951
I guess we all have our likes and dislikes, PK. Thanks for sharing :)
This is one of the most used amps in Nashville by session players. I have an original American made first run Classic 30 and it has made it on a ton of records. I dig it.
I absolutely love the Peavey Classic series.
I gigged a classic 50 to death, bought another one and gigged it to death, too. They were great sounding disposable amps. Then I got a ‘67 Super Reverb…
This is also one of the classic amps of Shaoxing China, the heavy metal bands there use it almost exclusively.
I owned a Classic 30 and later a Delta Blues 210. I found the distortion channel in each basically unusable. They had very “woofy” overtones with some overdrive, like the design was somehow defective. I’m not an amp snob, and I really wanted to like these amps. The clean channels were fine, and probably sounded alright turned up with some natural breakup. But something was off with those drive channels.
@@iantomsic4686 Planned obsolescence
This is what makes a platform like TH-cam so strong. Videos and channels like this. I just woke up and now an hour later I have so much more knowledge than when I swung my feet out of bed. And watching/hearing you play is just pure entertainment. To you it's just random noodling. To us mere mortals it's what we're striving to achieve as our goal for the instrument. Fuckin' magic man.
I bought this from a guy on classifieds in Utah he had rehoused it before me. I installed the speaker jack in the rear and gigged with this amp a few times actually! This is crazy to see it on your channel lol
Thanks for sending it! I’ll get with you tomorrow about shipping it back.
I gigged a Classic 30 for years with no issues in Maine, freezing cold van drives to still smokey bars and nothing but tube changes, i still have it and it works awesome I will never sell it haha literally my favorite all around amp ever haha! I'ts got a two button switch that does reverb and channel and the boost is not footswitchable. Fun amp for small change RIP Peavey USA.
Should have run american tubes so no tube changes
@@johnsmith-bk4ps I think it came with sovtec tubes its got electroharmonix tubes in it now, I had mesa boogie tubes in my previous classic 30 ( I have had an original tweed and a USA black tweed which I still have), those tubes became microphonic after a few years of hard use too but they did last a while...I have been playing these since '96 for reference I got the black one in 2000, I am not a tech so maybe I didn't always need to change them, but I did. What brand of USA tube would you recommend I may need to switch em out again someday haha cheers 🤘🏻🎸🔨
Until it fails
@@GerhardGeficky-jg4ok 27 years and counting I think I paid 500 bucks for it so if it dies it was more than worth it, but ya that will suck nothing lasts forever GG cheers!
@@PolishHammer then you are lucky because I heard these Amos always break down. I own 3 Peavey Amps and like them . No music store will take any as a trade in Canada. ( I've already tried)
Excellent Brad, the Classic 30 was my first tube amp back on the 90s and I enjoyed watching you recap the amp. The sound check at the end was outstanding and loved it brother man.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Most of the time these amps are usually built to a manufacturing budget to maximize the profit-margin, so manufacturers like Peavey will try to find all sorts of ways to cut manufacturing costs where they can, Leo Fender did that a lot.
Those RC4558 ICs have the same pinout as some other Dual Op Amp ICs such as the JRC4558D, TLO72CP, LF353, all three of those ICs can be used as drop-in substitutes.
Yes, the 4558 is an upgrade for certain. It's a chip that doesn't get taken seriously often, and was used all over mackie consoles etc. Pedals, budget converters etc.
I can say I've put them in fader buffer stages of old British mixers a few times, and man does it open them up. Makes them sound way more open and transparent. Cheap chip to. Also the 2068d is maybe even better. Super hi end guys tend to look down on them, and like stuff like THAT and LME49740 etc., but the jrc stuff is great sounding stuff.
@@Intrinsic.Recording The TLO72CP has the same pinouts as the RC4558 and JRC4558D, except that the TLO72CP uses two JFETS for the inputs on Pin 2, Pin 3, Pin 5 and Pin 6, instead of Bipolar Transistors, the benefit of that is a lower noise-floor than the RC4558 or JRC4558D, as well as much higher input impedances (about 10M for the TLO72CP).
I love this design, I've made so much money repairing these amps that I would love to kiss the designer.🙂
@@MrReStories the Designer was James Brown ( white guy)
James Brown was the godfather of soulful Amp designs. He managed to squeeze a lot of tone out of the budget that H Peavey gave him -- and those amps sound killer with the proper speakers and set up! Nice work!
@@Peterbrendanalbert the ol' Celestion v type that people are unloading for no reason, other than it being oem, is amazing in this amp!
That was a lot of crap to go through and a interesting video. Nice job Brad
Man, that old Classic 30 sounded great! As most folks know, the classic tweed series was a sleeper. Hope the owner is happy and it lasts a good long time.
Brad, so nice to see this type of content again. This and the Eico vid were very informative and entertaining.
Fender Bass Breakers are built that way, too. Because, you know, fuck amp techs.
Brad, your one-man-banding makes us all look bad as usual, aside from all your electronic sorcery. Legend.
I don’t know crap about what you did but could not stop watching until the end…love your videos like this …wish I had your skills…just amazing…nice picking at the end. Cheers!!!
I used to play through the Classic 2x12 50 watt from the 70’s.. I wish I still had that amp.. loved that thing.. great video!
Wow the demo at the end was incredible. One heck of a good bass player,drums, and the guitar player is awesome. I had a C 30. back in the day and I loved it until it broke, then got it fixed, broke again and trashed it after that I think.Enjoyed the video very much thanks man. oh yes I had to watch the demo twice.
I own a Classic 20 Amp with it's onboard 10' Speaker and two EL84. Had to recap that thing and bias it down, 'cause it really ran hot. It was a pain in the butt but this amp sounds awesome for a little 15 Watt combo.
I also changed the baffle to a 7mm pine board, which was imho a big win. You want this cabinet to resonate more.
Great video Brad. Just back from a gig. This was a cool Sunday treat. Really enjoyed it. The way they have those boards reminds me of a Fender Bassbreaker I opened up recently. Except they built the chassis around the boards. When you take chassis out the case it looks like a square metal tube. Take care Brad.
What a killer video Guitologist, you’re definitely one hell of an amp tech !! What a killer Jam session Guitologist your musician ship blows me away !!!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching, Ricky!
Haven't watched one of these amp repair videos in awhile. I really enjoyed the jams at the end.
I just canabalized an old Peavey mixer and have tons of those chips & I bet the reverb tank is the same too.
Thanks Brad!
Hell yeah, I really enjoy the amp repair/mod videos
Apart from the fact that you have one of the most serious, informative and acourate channels on YT, you sir are a great player! If the music in the end of the video is yours, I totally respect you as a composer too. Greetings from Greece!
Peavey Classic 30 is a great combo amp. It's indestructible. Never knew how difficult it is to work on because I never had any issues, until I sold it. I had one from the the last "made in the USA" batch. Now they're all Chinese. Haven't had the need to use one of this since I went digital.
Obviously they are not indestructible hence the repair video lol. Seems like a nice amp besides the serviceability issues!
I used to have one of those grey carpet-covered Fender 4-12 cabs! Great cabinet
Great video!!! Watching it brought back shades of terror when I opened up my late 90s DB 210 to replace all the caps as some were leaking after 20 years plus of gigging. Nobody wanted to work on it. I will spare you the gory details, but, in short, when it was complete days later and ready to test, I set the amp out on the back patio, power switch on, and connected it to an extension cord. I then plugged it in from a distance. If it burnt to the ground well then so be it. But it worked! To my amazement and brought new life to an old amp. I replaced the blue marvels with greenbacks and still use the amp to this day. But to your point, I would have preferred the concrete shoes river crossing method. Rock on!
Heck- I just was looking for the clips where your playing! Nice guitar work!
Peavey made some hand wired amps at one point, one was called a sensation and one was called a masterpiece, would be cheaper to find one of them than to convert a classic 30. Great video, I enjoy watching your work
Thank you so much for your patience !!! I appreciate your resistance . Much respect from France ! Thank you ❤️🎶🙏🌈
I don't work on amps for a living, but have diagnosed quite a few with IC related issues, in which the IC sockets were actually bad from vibration. mostly dual or quad op-amps, where the ic would blow, lose output or worse yet, drive the final amp stage to full + or - rail voltage, melting voice coils, transistors, tubes and whatever else is in the circuit.
my solution was to get rid of the sockets and directly solder the IC's in, the problem was often missed by other shops because it was fairly intermittent, where handling or heat cycling the would fix it temporarily, so I don't blame them for missing it. it's not just amps that are well known to have socket issues.
Wonder if socket cleaning might have solved it in your case.
Got two of these in the basement now needing help - one newer tolex style that likely just needs a socket re-flowed but I've been dreading dealing with the ridiculous pcb taco to the point I just move on to the next project. The second is an older tweed one that's in pieces - that'll likely end up getting re-wired into something else. This video gave me some ideas though, and maybe the courage to get it over with. Thanks!
😂 Is not as bad as the internet warriors would have you believe 😅
Those folded 3-sided pcbs are a goddamned nightmare.
I honestly prefer them VASTLY to that crappy grey ribbon cable of perpetual intermittance. At least you know you broke one, and where.
Brilliant, start to finish.Like you say, the amp sounds amazing.
Great video, thanks for the walk through of your diagnostic process.
The odd screen resistor arrangement *could* make each half of the paralleled tube pairs break up at different drive levels so giving you a greater amount of that overdrive sound or give *some* overdrive at moderate volume levels.
I had considered that too, that they might be going for some kind of asymmetrical output thing also, but I don't think the tradeoff of tube life due to no screen protection is worth it. if they wanted something like that, they should have at least done something like a 470R for the entire screen supply, then give each tube a different screen value above that.
@@TheGuitologist Seems like you didn't follow the SCREEN label with its down arrow over to the corresponding SCREEN up arrow label, which shows a resistor before the screens.
Had a classic 30 for 20 plus years, no issues. My son's favorite amp.
I used to do a mod to these amps so that they were a part-for-part AC-30 clone, and after the mod they sounded fantastic but that strange PCB was a nightmare and I was concerned that the disassembly required to access the circuit would lead to reliability issues down the line. Glad to see it wasn't just me who thought so...!
This channel is rocking. Good job Brad.
I appreciate that!
I would really appreciate some help. I hae a Classic 30 II combo (chinese version). There´s a clean signal filtering through the gain channel, even whith the volume all the way down. It´s driving me crazy, cause you can really hear the clean signal along with the distorted tone. Thanks in advance.
Does that 83W dissipation on tubes mean the amp consumes 83W from the wall socket? What is general power usage of typical amp? I know it varies but like an average wiuld be useful to know
I am a tech at Clawsons music they sold these about 26 years ago I have worked on just a few I think the reason the ic capacitors hold up better is because the tubes are el84 the voltages are lower maybe 325 but on fender blues deluxe and pro jr they are notorious for leaking causing an audible ripple the fender amps they are lined up like 47 22 22 22 at 450 500 volts they all go bad I like jj electronics and f&t and a new one from tube depot MOD capacitors.
Great job with the heat gun Brad. I'm impressed.......... I learned something
Love the use of a real ink pen ... Brad is a truly stylish and considered Gentleman ! 👍👍
Only the best will do.
@@TheGuitologist I bought 6 x159's after watching your vid and gave 4 to friends as christmas presents. The days of leaky ol messy pens is long gone and writing with a fountain pen makes your penmanship improve (for most folks) immensely. Happy New year brother, here's to a good one 👍✌😎
I seem to remember doing some servicing work on an amp similar to one of these Peavey Classic 30s, if I remember rightly, the amp I serviced needed a new replacement power transformer, very similar to the power transformer in this amp.
Yeah, I'd call this transformer 'puny'.
@@TheGuitologist I'd have to agree with you on that, compare the size of that transformer to say the power transformer from a 50W Marshall amp.
@@TheGuitologist You could also compare the stock power transformer to a Vox AC30 power transformer.
I've seen a number of these after they've aged a bit. My memory is what you encountered. The first time getting it apart is a pain. Peavey like Fender seem to run the EL-84s too hot and it causes issues with the board. Like a Fender Blues Junior. Also the filaments might be in series.The Classic also has them running DC for hum reduction, but that might be the Classic 50 Which also sounds great! And the filaments are fused...A "low budget " amp where the value of the amp is maybe less than the repair cost. I fix them anyway. Good job chasing down the odd screen resistor configuration. When these were designed, EL-84s must have been cheap enough to not worry about short tube life.
70% bias is good!
Almost forgot to mention. 90% of opamp chips like that tend to have higher quality replacements now, but just like tubes you have to make sure the spec is close enough.
😂 James Brown of 5150/amp tweaker/ Iconic amp designed the classic 30 to be able to get a tube Amp that sound good for under $300 and that was the goal for this amp. The classic 30 has the same folded up boards as the 5150 peavey as he designed the amp for Eddie Van Halen to be affordable, which I guess it was achieved.
Dingding!
The engineer that designed the Peavey Classic series left Peavey and went to Kustom. The Kustom Defender series and the Kustom Coupe series amps were designed by the same person. Great sounding amps that are no longer made abd can be found very reasonable on the used maket
It was James Brown right? The same guy that designed the Peavey ultra/XXX ,and 5150.
@@shredenvain7 That name sounds familiar but it's been too long for me to be certain.
I love the sound of the Peavey Classic series as well as the Kustom Defender 112 & the Coupe amps. The way that the Classic series is built is a pain to work on but for the most part, they seem to hold up well even though the circuit boards are pieced together as they are
Yes it's James Brown ! He also designed the peavey Bravo and the Rockmaster tube pre amp ! Both awesome ! He owns his own company now called "Amp Tweaker" and he's got some killer pedals !
"If i wasn't doing it on purpose it would of been easy" aint that the truth
Yup! I had a Peavey Classic 30 combo about 25 years ago that I bought new. It sounded great...until it stopped working about 2 months later. I had it repaired under warranty. The tech who worked on it agreed with you on every point you made, especially those regarding the crazy flexy board layout which was the source of the problem I had. I picked it up, took it to a music store and traded in toward a Fender Blues deluxe. A much better amp that I wish I still had.
Hey there, I had two issues and wonder if you can chime in on the unsolved one. Scratchy pots and 1minute of noise on startup perfect after ( after 11 years of owning Peavey Delta Blues). I had to go in to clean the pots, so I swapped caps as well, I saw how tricky its to work on it. I cleaned the pots. Result: no scratchy pots, but the warmup noise (some storm sounds for 30-1m) remained. I wonder having just worked on C30 which is very similar if you have any hints.
Often noise problems like that can be a bad preamp tube. Make sure the reverb is turned down too to eliminate the reverb circuit as the culprit.
I took my 78 Silverface Deluxe Reverb chassis out and put it in a homemade case. Used it as a head for years in the clubs. Single 12 mated up with a 4x10 to let it roar. Great amp The backup was my Peavy Special 130
I don't have any experience with Peavey tube amps outside the 5150. But I have a collection of transtube & teal stripe products. Most of them have audible line noise on the reverb circuit that drives me crazy. However it disappears when playing etc.
You may be able to swap the opamp for a better one. Check your specific chip, and do some googling. Many newer and cleaner more accurate ones exist for almost all applications.
@@nobodynoone2500 I will definitely look into that. Thanks for the heads up. :)
To be honest Brad, I took about a year or 2 away. I came back to see what you had going and THIS is what I remember you for. Straight amp repair/mods with no BS. Great video.
@30:15 when you went into output issue, is that really a major flaw or just something that you're not used to seeing in a circuit? I'm just a guitar player used to to dealing with five watt amps and am looking for something bigger, so I'm genuinely curious if this is a fatal flaw of the amp that needs to be fixed.
It's a highly unusual design which does not seem to make logical sense. Every amp tech I've showed it to has agreed. Most techs will correct this and treat it as a flaw.
In 20 years this will be coinsidered easily repairable compared to most of the crap tube amps being made now.
Still better than a mesa lol.
Hey Brad awesome video as always! I have a question or two regarding one of the cabs I saw in this video. ( 4:28 ) I recently just picked up a Fender HM A 4x12 cab and for the life of me can't find much info about the model of the cab other then that it was made in the 80's and was made I believe at the Usa fender plant, do you know anything else about it? Like was there a matching head for it? Does the HM stand for heavy metal? Just wanting to know some more info on it if there is any. Thanks!
Have one of these waiting to go on my bench right now. Thanks for this! Great video, great chops on the music bit at the end. Like song clip #2. Got a fusion feel to it. Love it! Oh...and the dreaded IC caps...hate em! Everybody is using the still. Cheap stuff. I see guys saying they never have had any more issues with IC than other brands. NOT my experience at all. Thanks again man!
It’s a great sounding amp. It feeds back well. I dig that. I also dig your signature guitar. That thing looks cool and sounds good. Love that nasa shirt too lol.
Weeks later many thousands of Peavey Classic 30Amps arrived at his shop with the same problem , nice playing great fix
good job there brad! i always enjoy the amp fixes, but
its the road test i look forward to most, there`s something
about the multi role finale performances, you could do a
cream tribute covers album..on your own 🤔👍😇
You have a knack for cool 60s style jam rock Brad.
Nice episode Brad, been thinking of getting the original version of this amp.
Good playing too, thr basist seems very shy and the drummer looks... dunno, he remind me of someone 😊😊
Does this info apply to the Peavey classic 50 also? I gave an early one that sounds great through a 4 x 12 cabinet but kind of sucky through its own combo speakers.
Yeah, the Classic 50 might be even worse than this. They're a dog's breakfast too.
Another great video brother! I wanted to mention, over the years I've had a number of Peavey amplifiers, and invariably they all have had solder issues, especially their XR600 PA mixers. Not sure why, but many of the solder points will, what I call "volcano", where there's a cracked ring around the component wire. A few minutes with an iron and it's a fix. I will concur that some of the boards are a mf'er to get to, but in general, the Peavey stuff is pretty rugged.
Anyways...thanks for the vids...keep 'em coming!
Curious why the owner asked for a more saturated reverb when the wire was severed and inoperative? Also how Peavey designed the board omitting screen resistors. I'm definitely going to double check my newer boards and hopefully not find anything that weird. As always; Nice job Brad
I need help with my Randall Rg-80. Terribly fizzy and bright. The presence seems to function incorrectly too with lots of noise
I'd check the solder joints. The one randall i worked on had tons of cold solder joints (appear matte and not shiny smooth) and I touched them all with fresh solder.
After that, replace any large/high-voltage can caps, and look for scorched resistors.
What about the 2013/2014 updated version, called the Classic 30ii. Have you had a chance to work on one of those? I have one from before they went to China, and it is a flat board, not 3 sided. Looks to be easier to work on.
I have a Classic 50 head and am finally getting it back after….25yrs in storage. Here’s to hoping its still good. I loved that amp through a old Lee Jackson 4x12 cab
the testing noodling sounded great.. and the finger picking was impressive
Thanks for demo-ing the amp so that`we could here what it sounds like. It helps that the guitar playing was superb, and the tones from this amp are wonderful.
I love the sound of the Classic 30, and I'm design a scratch build with similar jangle. I noticed on the schematic that the master volume control is a 10k audio pot.
Is this correct? I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.
PS- Thanks for all the videos.
dude! your jams at the end are killer man!! such cool stuff, you're an amazing guitar player dude..!
They really are great sounding amps.
Fascinating. What would happen if the reverb IC was put in the wrong way round?
Seeing that adhesive come off was oddly satisfying.
Hey Brad thanks as always for your videos it's good to see you on my feet again LOL when I was cited I was pretty handy used to work on my car as my motorcycles 30 years ago when I bought a house I did my electrical plumbing all that stuff I've always been handy and it would have been a real asset if I had access to your videos back in the day but it's still really interesting I'm still learning all the time doesn't matter whether I could see or not you kind of trick me though I'm sure that wasn't your intention at about 28 minutes when the I could tell you know there was a cut in your and it went to this music and I automatically reached out to find the skip ad button and couldn't find it so I found the the elapsed time and saw that it was still going and realized that will just just different music LOL hope everything is well with you bro thanks again for your videos sincerely Bob the blind bedroom
Hello Bob! Good to see you. Hope all is well. Happy New Year, my friend!
I have a Classic 30 combo. 2023 model. The first one burned up in 3 days. It was replaced, this one is perfect as most of them are.
are you actually using the epi cabinet with the lady luck speaker. the vids good.ty
In the case of this to mitigate the heat from the resistors would putting a small computer fan be a good idea? I know noctua makes a small 5 volt fan but it might not be small enough. And it might need its own circuit to power up with the amp
@@williambock1821 I figured. I don’t know how much heat they normally conduct
Ok so dumb question but why did you need to add the screen resistors by v6/v7? What’s wrong with not having them there?
It's not good for the tubes to have no screen resistor.
Hah recognized this amp just from the intro. Have one of my own, modded extensively, hate to work on it, but it's a great amp indeed. Made mine to sound more akin to Mesa MKII, instead of the classic 80's hair metal sound it originally made.
Getting better at drums Brad! not bad! hell yeah.
I stood in the middle of the street naked & screamed "LONG LIVE THE GUITOLOGIST!" & when the cops arrived, I told them about your channel. They laughed at me. I tried to tell them it was because it was so cold outside. Hey I'm a grower, not a shower. They took me in and warmed me up and checked out your channel. You might have a couple more subs from the North East tonight. Gotta go and shower up for court in the morning. They don't like shrinkage around here it seems.
Have you jumped into any Bass Pro aquariums lately?
Nope but I did fart upwind from a pack of wolves before. :) @@rogermoore126
That Amp does have a sweet tone. 👍
Good job mate! Did ya replace those microphonic tubes? Crazy how an op-amp chip can blow up so often; maybe from back emf from the reverb? Possibly back-to-back 1N914/1N4148 diodes between ground & the reverb i/p pin on the op-amp may help, depending on the voltage on that pin. Diodes won't switch on till there's 0.6V across them.
Hey, you're a one man band then huh? Fricken awesome Mr. Music you can do it all can't ya! Music demo was spot-on & thanks for the video! 😃👍!
I LOVE the original tweed Peavey Classic 30 112 combo. One of the best guitar amps I've ever heard, and like Peavey it's super reliable even if it falls out of a truck, or down a flight of stairs.
How is the weather there? It's 3 degrees and 5 inches of snow here in Chicago but wow Nashville is 14 degrees and snow
still coming down! The kids must love it! I don't have to go back to work until Thursday, yay! Drunks are not excluded from designing amps! Thankfully you have a great schematic to work with. Sober and worthwhile repair job I must say. It works
great Brad! I see you cloned yourself. I found a machine that can do half of my work so I bought two of them. LOL
Probably a bit closer to Nashville's status. We have a snow on the ground but not more coming down last I checked.
Hey Brad, great video!,
After reviving several of these C30 Peavey amps, I think that the customer wanted to be able to switch the output transformer from 16 ohm to 8 ohm. The wire is there. We all just need some one like you to verify the wiring.
I didn't see any extra wires coming from the transformer. Not sure what you're talking about there.
Have done a few amp repairs,but had motorboating on a Black Star mini bass amp,the only way I could eleviate that was turn the gain up,to get rid of the putt,putt,how do transients get in the line,is it a ground issue,or a design flaw,peculier to say the least Thanks amp guru
Luckily, my local music store is an authorized Peavey dealer, so i was able to get the parts to fix my bass amp. An inductor went bad on me, and while replacing it, the shims that go between the chassis and the transistors were blown out, so it blew the fuses on that part of the board the second i powered it up. So the store owner gave me a box of shims, a tube of thermal paste, and said you seem to know what you're doing, so get this back together, then we'll test it. Been fine ever since.
Sounds like a good shop. Count yourself lucky to have a good local place. They are getting rare.
Its got 3 12ax7a tubes, so right away you can figure the reverb is solid state, but I mean that shouldnt preclude anyone from altering the wet/dry mix.
I have a 2006 model. I changed the reverb tank from the 4EB2C1B to a 4EB3C1B tank and it made all the difference in the world; more of the classic Fender-ish reverb. The other stinker about these amps is that there is no standby switch. I see the newer models now include that. Finally, on mine plugging in to the external speaker jack does not disable the internal speaker; both speakers are active.
I'd love to own an amp you built. Do you have any low watt homemade tube amps for sale?
Hey Brad! Huge fan! I saw that scarred and yourself are having a build off with guitars. I haven't seen yours yet!
It's on the way. next coupla days it should be up.
@@TheGuitologist sweet! Looking forward to it!
I believe james brown designed this amp, same guy that designed the 5150. I’m pretty sure they address chassis design when he was on tone talk
The "Beauty" of the Classic Thirty
is the mass production CB design.
The simplicity relates to cost of production. It's laughable and
Genius at the same time.
Somebody has hand wired this circuit
on you tube. But they went over the top
in mods with the original design.
I believe if somebody went to the effort
to actually create a hand wired
simple chassis and build of this
absolutely killer ( FOUR) EL 84
Peavey amp. It would be the
Ultimate amp kit build
for anybody to have.
The tones of the Classic Thirty
are legendary. It blows away
A Vox AC 30. For a fraction of the cost.
IMHO. For that matter a lot of really
expensive Boutique amps for thousands of dollars.
Hartley Peavey is American legend.
The longest American ( SINGLE CEO) owned and operated amplifier in
US HISTORY.
Agreed on all counts.
Hi, how many inch of this amp pcbs? Please measure it for me?
I have seen power reistors mounted like that pull traces off the board. I would stand them off supported by high-temperature silicone. Cool video. Excellent guitar. Your drummer is pretty good too ;-)