Guitar Gear Forum

Browsing CL today, saw a 40 watt xxx combo listed by the local used shop for $200. Took the BE-OD I got from the same shop a few weeks ago back and took this home for $100 out the door

Seems a bit obscure - very- little info, user reports, or clips on the web.

Pots are a lil scratchy and needs a foot switch but I took it to practice tonight and had a great time with it. Definitely does the brootz in spades on the ultra channel. Channel one has two modes, rhythm and crunch. Did not try crunch at all but “rhythm” is a very serviceable clean tone. I was wondering if I would run out of headroom at only 40 watts, but that wasn’t a problem at all. Seems like the cleans can get even louder than the high gain channel tbh. Very impressed, and hard not to be at the price point lol. Excellent option in the arsenal for. Portable on the go rig. Imma find a sticker of John mayers face to put on the mud flap girl

Wow, fantastic deal!

Killer deal man!!! Looks very clean too.

@ John Mayer face sticker hahaha

I’m a fan of the XXX amps. A former band mate had the 120 watt head and his brother had the 40 watt combo. Both were awesome. If you like the Peavey high gain voice that isn’t their normal 5150, these are hard to beat. Active EQ lends a lot of tone sculpting capability too.

Fuck yea

Congrats, that's a killer deal! Time to

Thanks guys!! Been playing around with it more since getting off work.

I’m pleased to discover that my 2 button hosa FS -does- work with this amp. I’m thinking the TRS cable at the shop they were having me demo every footswitch with was faulty, because I tried a hosa one there as well that wasn’t working. So that’s cool I don’t have to buy one. Just annoyed I didn’t have it with me at practice last night, I was changing channels with my toe


Also tested it out running into my 2x12 Madison with T75s. Ugh it sounded so much better I am wondering if it’s more the open back nature of combo or if I’m just not a fan of the Sheffield. It’s probably a bit of both but I’m leaning to it mostly being the latter. I know I was recently talking to Billy, Eric, and Raf about sheffields and y’all had positive things to say but I’m feeling that Mayve I don’t like the freq. response as much. I definitely need to start down some speaker fuckin around because there’s 12 in this house, half I don’t love, and way too many are T75s

Still sounds good with the Sheffield, just the side by side was like damn lol. There’s always the option of. Head conversion, but in reality thinking about how this amp is practical for me, a grab and go combo that delivers solid cleans and nice brutals (and also seems to take pedals great, I was really enjoying crunch sounds with my sd-1 last night) is ideal.

Definitely one of the best bang for the bucks I’ve ever scored and there’s been many

How high gain can channel 1 get?

I am guessing that also has a lot to do with 112 vs 212. I can never get a 112 to sound "right" to me. Too squishy and small sounding. But yeah, change the speaker, see if that helps. Buy some plywood, paint it black, and replace the back panel with a solid plywood panel. Easy and cheap.

Yeah my guess is also the closed back 2x12 that's making the most difference. 1x12 open back combos are not ideal for high gain at band levels.
The Mesa Mark combos do ok with the EVM speakers, but other than that, it's a bit a a struggle. And even the Marks sound better with closed back cabs.

If you want to keep the rig portable, maybe making a removable back panel for it like Raf suggested would help. I'd try that before changing the speaker since you can do it for $10 and it would help even if you do end up changing the speaker.

As far as speakers go, I'd get either a CL80 or a Redback for it. The CL80 works well with small cabs and just about any amp. The Redback would give it a bigger tone.

I like that Dead tapestry in the back.

JSutter wrote:How high gain can channel 1 get?

I dunno, still haven't explored crunch mode at all on that channel

A difference between this and the head is that channel 1 is a passive EQ. Only the ultra channel has an active EQ on this combo

NinjaRaf wrote:I am guessing that also has a lot to do with 112 vs 212. I can never get a 112 to sound "right" to me. Too squishy and small sounding. But yeah, change the speaker, see if that helps. Buy some plywood, paint it black, and replace the back panel with a solid plywood panel. Easy and cheap.

GuitarBilly wrote:Yeah my guess is also the closed back 2x12 that's making the most difference. 1x12 open back combos are not ideal for high gain at band levels.
The Mesa Mark combos do ok with the EVM speakers, but other than that, it's a bit a a struggle. And even the Marks sound better with closed back cabs.

If you want to keep the rig portable, maybe making a removable back panel for it like Raf suggested would help. I'd try that before changing the speaker since you can do it for $10 and it would help even if you do end up changing the speaker.

As far as speakers go, I'd get either a CL80 or a Redback for it. The CL80 works well with small cabs and just about any amp. The Redback would give it a bigger tone.

Good call on a back panel mod, I was actually wondering about that. Should be easy enough to do even for someone extremely un-handy like myself

BroSlinger wrote:I like that Dead tapestry in the back.

NFA

This is less hot than your past couple years of epic scores so I’m conflicted.

It’s also a tube amp for the cost of a cheap pedal so I can’t give you too much of a hard time. Congrats I think!

Dave wrote:This is less hot than your past couple years of epic scores so I’m conflicted.

It’s also a tube amp for the cost of a cheap pedal so I can’t give you too much of a hard time. Congrats I think!

Can't say I was in the market but pretty hard to pass this one up. Peaverty or not it actually sounds pretty soli too

Home Depot will even cut the plywood for you. Just give them measurements. Then just line up the current panel on top and mark where the screw holes are. Drill them. Done.