Classic 30 preliminary

[FrankenFretter***]

I bought a ValveKing Royal 8 some time ago, and have never been happy with the sound. I finally decided to sell it and buy a different small combo for taking with me to guitar lessons. Two people tried it out, and didn't like it for the same reason I didn't, the kazoo-like overdrive. The last person to try it out suggested that it wasn't inherently the amph itself, but something wrong with the electronics, or tube(s). He said that the clips he'd heard of stock Royal 8s didn't sound the way mine does. I wish I'd realized that when I first bought it, so I could've sent it back for replacement. I just thought that it was the way the amph sounded. Now I'm going to try replacing the pre-amp tube, and if that doesn't do anything, I'll replace the power tube.

Sorry you got a lemon, Duff. I hope that whatever you end up with is more to your liking. Even though I don't own one, I'd also vote for the Jet City. I may pick up one of their Pico Valve heads when they're available. They look very promising.

[Duff]

I bought a Royal 8 for my fiance's grandson. I really liked it a lot and got lots of good tones out of it.

I have read that if you put a new speaker in it, I forget which one, an Eminence or Weber or something, but a good one, and a new set of good tubes like JJs it will sound incredible, relatively speaking. Supposedly a major improvement of the sound like a quantum leap. This would not cost much and you might be able to do it yourself except for biasing the tubes if needed, I'd check to see, in the manual, if it's self biasing.

Just played my Delta opened up pretty good on the drive channel, some Gary Moore stuff, and it roared indeed, but the Classic 30 still sounds great. I considered a Valve King 100 watt 212 which is awesome and Loud like I want but it is built not as well as the Classic 30 in my opinion but has a lot of different sounds and 6L6 tubes instead of EL84s.

[FrankenFretter***]

I bought a Royal 8 for my fiance's grandson. I really liked it a lot and got lots of good tones out of it.

I have read that if you put a new speaker in it, I forget which one, an Eminence or Weber or something, but a good one, and a new set of good tubes like JJs it will sound incredible, relatively speaking. Supposedly a major improvement of the sound like a quantum leap. This would not cost much and you might be able to do it yourself except for biasing the tubes if needed, I'd check to see, in the manual, if it's self biasing.

I did swap the speaker for a Weber Mod. No change. The power tube doesn't need biasing, btw.

[Duff]

FF, it could be a lot of different things that cause the amp to sound less good than other Royal 8's.

I would have thought that the Weber speaker would have made a definitely discernable change to the sound. I'm not sure which speakers they recommend for the Royal 8 but I remember reading about it. You might do a search like, Peavey Royal 8 replacement speaker. There are a couple that made a major difference in the sound.

Also, they said that the tube change was a major improvement but I don't remember which tubes they recommended.

After these two mods they said the amp sounded more than great, relatively speaking.

But, there could be other problems like cold solder joints or burnt out somethings resulting from cold solder joints. Cold solder joints should be covered under the mfg warranty for the full period of the warranty. A Peavey service center could check and resolder the joints if they are bad. This has been a common problem.

I don't think the overseas workers have been well trained in using the new lead free solder that takes quite a lot of soldering skill to use properly. As it is always said, the overseas employees in China, etc., are probably not making a commensurate wage compared to the American worker, you know, the slave labor type analogy. These underpaid workers probably aren't trained all that well and may not have the prerequsite skill ability and understanding to master the challenges of working with the new solder. Plus turn over of employees in these plants could be high, resulting in a lot of green, unseasoned employees working on this stuff.

Supposedly Peavey has its own plant in China and has decent quality control from what I have been told. Not being an expert I wouldn't know for sure. My American made Peavey came thru messed up, so where was that quality control? Of course, my Peavey could have been damaged in shipping because the box was actually "open", not even taped shut on one end, shipped UPS, but didn't show any visual bumps or damage of any kind, which is kind of hard to believe considering the box was actually open. So damage in transit can't be eliminated as a cause of the problem with mine.

Are you keeping the Royal 8?

I had my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe Special Tweed Edition resoldered under warranty shortly after buying it and learning about the HRD cold solder joint problem that commonly caused problems; preventative maintenance and didn't cost me anything.

[Duffy]

I got my new impecable Classic 30 today.

It sounds hot. All JJ power tubes and Ruby preamp tube in the first position followed by two more JJ's in the preamp section.

It sounds incredible and is LOUD. I like the features and it has real real good blues tones plus great rock tones.

I a/b'd it to my Delta Blues and the comparison was like night and day: dark and bright. The amps compliment each other in my opinion.

All said and done, the Classic 30 is, by me, an awesome amp; and made in the USA.

The tone is crisp and clear on clean and smooth on overdrive with fabulous tones to be found from chiming full spectrum tones to great overdrive with superb note definition and not muddy at all.

Played Epi Tribute to Les Paul LP thru it, a great Epiphone SG copy of a gibson 66 stock sounding super great, and the Xavier XV500 tribute LP with the three quarters maple cap on mahogany body and crunchy PAF GFS pups, it sounding super super great as well and it only cost a fraction of the other two guitars. The Xavier has proven to be a great stock guitar thru lots of amps and pedals. Amazing quality for the price and the pots are rolling off nice and smooth all the way thru the tone range, must be upgraded in the new version thru the work of that Jay dude at GFS.

I would recommend a Classic 30 to anyone looking for a great LOUD tube amp that has great character and totally usable features, effects loop, extension speaker jack out, and a strong boost circuit; plus needlesstosay, the cool vintage tweed vibe. This is an amp that a person can bond with without even trying, if you like the wavelength its on.

[Duffy]

As it turns out the replacement Classic 30 has two problems, small problems, but irritating.

The input jack has not worked right from the get go. You have to jack it up to get it to connect, pain in the butt. This I could easily fix.

Reverb tank howls when the boost button engaged, not nearly as bad as the first one though. Insulating tape on the reverb tank would probably eliminate this problem.

Also produces static when idling, not a smooth hum, intermittent but mostly static'y.

Great sounding amp.

But since I have tried two and both have not been exactly perfect, and I have the Delta Blues that I've had for over a year and it works great, sounds great, etc., I think I will try the newly designed Vox AC15 Custom, a new version of the Custom Classic with the Wharfdale speaker. The one I'm getting has the Celestion Greenback speaker and other design changes including a lay out more like an AC30, with two channels and a top boost. Also the tubes mount onto the chassis, not directly into the pcb board, which I like.

So I am exchanging the Classic 30 and will try the AC15C1.

I played an AC15 a while back and was highly impressed with it, so this should be an indication that I will like the amp when it comes in and I can really try it out. My local place only has the AC30.

Because of the inconvenience with the Peavey's I am getting a great deal on the new Vox.

I will post my observations when I get to try it out in a few days.

Hopefully it will come thru with everything working right and no unusual or annoying sounds other than the expected tube amp sound. Being fifteen watts maybe I can turn the volume dial up more at low volume and get some better tone. It also has a master volume which I like.

I hate to turn in the Classic thirty but I think it is the thing to do. Seems like the quality control down there in Mississippi missed some things that should have been obvious. The reverb problem has to be known about, and the jack must not even have been tested. Then again, testing is probably a really quick hit or miss thing.

[MAXIFUNK]

Duffy I briefly heard that amp on Saturday seems very cool and did sound good.
I did not hear it for very long but it did make want to give a good once over.

I think your going to really enjoy that amp congrats.