So i bought a Tweed Peavey Classic 30....

Congrats man! Ii never modded mine, but thats a sweet amp. The overdrive channel is SOOO nice! (cleans are excellent as well)
:BEER

 

I only installed a tube rattle device on mine and it never failed me.Good little amp with nice tone! Our harp player owns it now.

 

Add a 1x12 extension cabinet and maybe a re-tube and that is about all they ever need. Love mine and play it daily.

 

I have a Classic 30 too. Bang for buck they're incredible. I've been looking for a new amp for a while and I haven't found anything much better for twice the price, so I'm leaning in two directions at the moment:

1. Spend THREE times as much (SRRI, Orange Rockerverb 50 combo or H&K Duotone combo).

2. Squeeze what I can out of the C30.

My investigations (by no means exhaustive!) on the second direction have led me to the following:

Tubes

There's a range of possiblities, and opinions differ widely, but the following is what I plan to try if I don't upgrade the whole amp:

Preamp V1 - Tung-Sol 12AX7 re-issue (the tube in this spot affects the amp's tone the most)
Preamp V2 - JJ ECC83S
Preamp V3 - JJ ECC83S
Power Tubes - JJ EL84s (matched set)

Speakers

There seems to be a lot of owners on the Peavey forum who like Greenbacks in there, as well as some who favour Weber Blue Dogs. I got a recommendation for 50W Weber Alnico Silver Bells from Eurotubes ... I asked for something that would give me better touch sensitivity and dynamic response and a smoother overdrive.

As the previous post says, there are more than a few owners who swear by the 1x12 extension, and I seem to remember a Greenback in the combo and the stock Blue Marvel from the combo in the extension cab is a good way to go. Peavey don't make the 1x12 extension cabs (112e) anymore and I think they're quite hard to get 2nd hand though ... might have to go with a non-matching cab.

Have a search on the Peavey forum and on here for more information and other viewpoints.

Good luck ... and enjoy your amp ... as others have said, and I agree, pretty tasty straight out of the box.

 

JJ re-tube is a good start - I am thinking about changing my speaker these days

 

I bought a new Tweed Classic 30 when they first came out.

The best speaker I've found for it is the Mojotone BV-30H.
I did have a Vintage 30 in it for some time, which sounded BIG,
but it had that mid-hump I didn't like. The Mojotone is just clearer
and has sweeter mids and highs, as well as good bottom end.

I also tube it with all JJ tubes - ECC83S's and EL84's. Good tubes
for this amp.

I also recently installed the Peavey Tube Guard for it - I got from the Peavey Parts Dept.,
and they paid for shipping. It's a good addition, as I've broken a tube in this amp before.
There are also after market tube guards for it - just do a Google search and you'll see them.

 

I run mine with the 112E extension speaker. I swapped out the cab's blue marvel with a Weber AlNiCo Blue Dog 30w no dope speaker, JJ tubes and a Tom's tube tamer.



I also have a Classic 20 with a 10-inch Weber Blue Pup, JJs and a homemade reverb. It's one mean mutha...especially when running a 2x12 cab!!!

 

Put a Mullard in the v1 slot and that amp comes alive. A marked difference.

 

I sometimes use JJ power tubes in mine, but I've never liked the JJ pre-amp tubes in the C30. I've gotten much better results with NOS Mullard's or RCA's. JJ's make mine sound like someone threw a blanket on it.

 

Great amps.. I got the classic 50, probally best tube amp for under 500.. I second the JJ tubes and look into a greenback for the speaker.

 

I replaced the Blue Marvel in mine (way too spikey and harsh) with a WELL broken in G12H30. Marked improvement. Also, I have all Tungsols in the preamp and love the sound. This is a good page I found that has some basic mods I may try in the near future.
http://blueguitar.org/new/articles/blue_gtr/amps/peavey/c30_origmod.pdf

 

In light of this discussion, does anyone have a 112e to move?

 

It's true, zombies do exist!

You did notice this thread has been dead for over 6 years? You might want to start a new thread.