Best Of The Best

John,

If the PLX had some ass and the MX amps (which were great amps) had not had a habit of burning speakers (burned up 6 15" JBLs and 8 18" Bagends) I would probably be a big fan of them today.

While many of my Peavey amps may be so "80"s they are still all working!

But no offense taken if they work for you!

SND,

You may be looking at one of two things power caps or bridge recifier, The PV 8.5 seemed to develop those problems after 20 years of hard use!

Don't get me wrong..I agree with Spark and Thunder.

I would take a Peavey of yesterday over the Peavey of today.

I just hate the fact that a company that was so solid back when, has fallen victim to the Made in China syndrome of today. Peavey was a must have especially for bands in the 80's and 90's.

Another amp that ran hard for the buck was Samson. I enjoyed those amps also in early 1998 - 2002.

I have a pair of @yesterday@ Peavey PV-1.3Ks. These monster "boat Anchors" have proven themselves over the years and the power and clarity from these is crystal clear compared to my crown plx series amps. Granted at the time these came out the 1.3ks were Peaveys strongest amp in the PV line and the PLX are crowns entry level line, but considering the PLX series is a current model and the 1.3k is nearly 15 years old, you would think current tech would triumph.

I still use the PVs as my main amps and the crowns have been designated as backup, not that I have ever needed it.

First, an agreement, then a correctoin.

The agreement - Fred, you are right on the money. When brands cater to the masses they are commodified, and must meet the broad spectrum wishes, which can be heavily price motivated. While we've been giving Peavey a black eye, they don't deserve it alone. Crown and QSC have moved production of several series to China too. Why? The "mass market" series must meet price considerations. Customer buying QSC PL3 or a Dynacord Power H obviously have put performance and reliability before price, or they would not be spending that kind of dough. Same with folks buying high performance sports cars. They want the performance and are not as concerned with price. In this case, moving production to China would actually COST them sales with their intended market.

Now the Correction - Class H amplifiers can be found with Torroid power supplies. Being a Class H does not guarantee that the amplifier is lighter, but rather that it has switching power rails and loses less power to heat dissipation than an A/B. A, A/B, D and H topologies refer more to the output stage on the amplifier rather than the power source for the amplifier. The weight savings you are referring to comes from utilizing a SMPS (Switch Mode Power Supply).

Just wanted to put that out there.

Ben

Fred Stewart said:

Part of the issues of quality degradation and "outsourcing" are a reflection of the customer. People want more but they don't want to pay any more for it.

The boat anchor amps of yesteryear were very expensive in their day. They were designed and constructed to last, pretty much forever. If something went wrong, you simply replaced a circuit board or soldered in a new capacitor. Newer designs have lightened the load and reduced the cost of construction considerably. You don't have heavy power transformers with H class, for example. Even though there's cheap labor down there in Mexico winding them, transformers add to the cost.

Yet, customers still want more for less. Making 'em in China or Indonesia drops the cost somewhat. Using inferior components helps to save a nickel. The drawback to this practice, we're assigning what was once a durable good to consumable status. If it breaks it simply isn't cost-effective to repair.

Click to expand...

When I used amps I had all Hafler amps.
2 P500
1 P230
1 P225

Built all of these from kits. They were all very heavy and rock solid, I think the P500s could drive a load as low as 1 ohm. Doubt they are even available anymore.

Ben is correct on the Torroid power being used in some Class H amps, most of the CS series from Peavey have them, which of course means they aren't light weight amps, it also means that unlike the light weight offerings they don't run out of power when it is needed the most.

Again I am shocked that peavey would move the production of their upper line offering of amps to China. (I knew that their lower end (PV) gear had been, just like QSC, Crown and so many others.

Sparkie tell the story about the Chef that thought you caused an earthquake