Peavey 6505 1992 Original and 6505II

[Deadpool_25]

I didn't think that list was all-encompassing, but yeah if we're doing that then the DR for sure deserves a spot too.

Yeah it wasn’t supposed to be everything. Just some of the obvious no-brainers.

 

[USMarine75]

@BadSeed , I have what I guess would be a request. Do you think you might be able to get your hands on a Budda Superdrive 80 to demo? I forgot Peavey bought them, and I remember liking the SD80 original p2p head a long time ago. Would love to see a good demo of this amp.

I have one sitting in my living room



Peavey ruined the Budda amps. I didn’t believe it until I listened to demos and A/B’s them myself.

They are all different beasts btw. The SD45 is also legit amazing.

You need to find the ones with the fat Budda on the faceplate.

 

[gunch]

My head cannon is Budda got so mad at small glass and 1x12s he made a loud as shit amp

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Copying myself from the other thread.

@BadSeed doing his do



I liked both for different reasons. The 6505II/+ is of course a wall of midrange, while the Iconic is clear, tight, and cutting as a motherfucker. Personally I lean more towards the Iconic since I tend to like tighter sounds without a boost, and I tend to slightly socop the low mids anyway

Is either one better than the other some people anticipated? Absolutely not IMO. Seems like it just depends on your taste

 

[technomancer]

Copying myself from the other thread.

@BadSeed doing his do



I liked both for different reasons. The 6505II/+ is of course a wall of midrange, while the Iconic is clear, tight, and cutting as a motherfucker. Personally I lean more towards the Iconic since I tend to like tighter sounds without a boost, and I tend to slightly socop the low mids anyway

Is either one better than the other some people anticipated? Absolutely not IMO. Seems like it just depends on your taste

Well, taste and if you want an amp today or at some undefined time next year since the new 6505 amps aren't even officially announced yet

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

Well, taste and if you want an amp today or at some undefined time next year since the new 6505 amps aren't even officially announced yet

true.

 

[GreatGreen]

That Iconic compared really well with the 6505+. Technomancer hit the nail on the head with his description.

However I do think there's something, very subtle, about the Iconic that makes the guitar sound juuust a bit thin underneath the distortion characteristics. Again it's a subtle thing and I'm sure it could be resolved by just turning the Presence down a little, or maybe even adding something like 5 db or so of clean boost to the guitar to give it just a bit more balls, but there you go.

Having said that, I still think I prefer the Iconic for how balanced all the frequency representation is, and its clarity as well.

Thanks for making the video @BadSeed, the effort is very much appreciated!

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

That Iconic compared really well with the 6505+. Technomancer hit the nail on the head with his description.

However I do think there's something, very subtle, about the Iconic that makes the guitar sound juuust a bit thin underneath the distortion characteristics. Again it's a subtle thing and I'm sure it could be resolved by just turning the Presence down a little, or maybe even adding something like 5 db or so of clean boost to the guitar to give it just a bit more balls, but there you go.

Having said that, I still think I prefer the Iconic for how balanced all the frequency representation is, and its clarity as well.

Thanks for making the video @BadSeed, the effort is very much appreciated!

It's probably the fact the Iconic is like the rest of the 5153s where the input is very filtered, cutting out a lot of bass and emphasising the high end going into the amp, while it's not as extreme with the 6505II. On top of that there's the low mid scoop the Iconic has.

 

[MASS DEFECT]

That Iconic compared really well with the 6505+. Technomancer hit the nail on the head with his description.

However I do think there's something, very subtle, about the Iconic that makes the guitar sound juuust a bit thin underneath the distortion characteristics. Again it's a subtle thing and I'm sure it could be resolved by just turning the Presence down a little, or maybe even adding something like 5 db or so of clean boost to the guitar to give it just a bit more balls, but there you go.

Having said that, I still think I prefer the Iconic for how balanced all the frequency representation is, and its clarity as well.

Thanks for making the video @BadSeed, the effort is very much appreciated!

I suppose turning Burn on the Iconic will fill in some mids/low mids and make it sound fatter.

 

[Kyle Jordan]

I have one sitting in my living room

View attachment 101510

Peavey ruined the Budda amps. I didn’t believe it until I listened to demos and A/B’s them myself.

They are all different beasts btw. The SD45 is also legit amazing.

You need to find the ones with the fat Budda on the faceplate.

That sucks to hear Peavey fucked them up. The SD80 was a great sounding amp and loud as hell. My fries had a 4x10 Verbmaster and Zenman that had some great mojo.

EDIT:

The pedal he had was the Phatman.

 

[USMarine75]

That sucks to hear Peavey fucked them up. The SD80 was a great sounding amp and loud as hell. My fries had a 4x10 Verbmaster and Zenman that had some great mojo.

EDIT:

The pedal he had was the Phatman.

Well it depends on who you ask. Some will say there’s no difference. Peavey did change some components (I forget exactly which) to make the amp more reliable as it was rumored the pre-Peavey ones had some QC issues. This made the low end more tubby/rounded and note clarity less defined. I guess it doesn’t sound bad just not quite the same. And I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the 1st iteration of Peavey Buddas might have been more similar and that later production models suffered these issues.

Another issue was they changed pots and the gain and volume taper is not the same. So the Peavey ones get too loud too quick.

From what I remember the circuit design is similar to a Naylor and I think Dave Friedman had some minor involvement. There’s some similarity between the original Naylor, amp the Friedman Naked, and the Budda Super Drive preamp. The genius of the Budda version is attaching that preamp to the various output stages (SD18, 30, 45, and 80). They all excel at their own thing.

 

[oneblackened]

People commenting on the transformer size and automatically assuming it's worse - there is an audible difference in note clarity between the 6505 + and 6505 II. John Fields sent me the amp and did not tell me his thoughts on the differences. He wanted to see how I felt about it and discuss afterwards. The clarity was the first thing I brought up, and told me that was the major difference he noticed as well, and it was due to the transformer. It's not just based on a "good" example of a 5150 transformer, either. It's been slightly tweaked to bring out certain qualities that Misha and John were after with the Invective.

I'm going to hazard a guess here: higher bandwidth, lower distortion/higher power handling? I know when I had a 5152 and I swapped in a ClassicTone SLO style OT the difference in clarity and punch was rather surprising. The core was way more layers and a good deal thicker.

 

[technomancer]

People commenting on the transformer size and automatically assuming it's worse - there is an audible difference in note clarity between the 6505 + and 6505 II. John Fields sent me the amp and did not tell me his thoughts on the differences. He wanted to see how I felt about it and discuss afterwards. The clarity was the first thing I brought up, and told me that was the major difference he noticed as well, and it was due to the transformer. It's not just based on a "good" example of a 5150 transformer, either. It's been slightly tweaked to bring out certain qualities that Misha and John were after with the Invective.

Where did anybody say worse? All I said was it will be different... which it it will be. I'd honestly love to play an original and the new one side by side to compare and hope you'll do a video making the comparison (can't remember, do you have an original 5150?)

I've literally seen no one complain about how the Invective sounds when dialed in, so it's definitely not going to suck and your video of the 6505 II sounded fine.

 

[cardinal]

Yeah, I think at least we've been careful to note that the different transformer won't necessarily sound "worse." Just different.

I am poking at Peavey's explanation of how the transformer came to be, though. But that is just speculation. I assume it's as close to the OG spec as possible... within their somewhat low budget constraints, plus whatever tweaks Misha may have liked. But the results sure sound fine from the demo.

 

[Deadpool_25]

Yeah, I think at least we've been careful to note that the different transformer won't necessarily sound "worse." Just different.

I am poking at Peavey's explanation of how the transformer came to be, though. But that is just speculation. I assume it's as close to the OG spec as possible... within their somewhat low budget constraints, plus whatever tweaks Misha may have liked. But the results sure sound fine from the demo.

I’ve heard two things.


1. The OTs are based on the Invective transformers
2. Hartley found the OTs from Eddie’s earliest prototype which was a “way better build.” They modeled the new ones off those

Im not 100% sure what’s what and those two things above aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. And it’s also possible the 6505II has the Invective transformers and the 1992 original has the one mentioned in #2 above. I’m not sure.

Either way, I’m guessing these new transformers are plenty solid. All that matters to me is how the amps sound and how reliable they are and so far it looks like they’re gonna sound great. I’m going to be hard pressed to avoid getting the 1992 Original (and I’m honestly expecting I will go ahead and get one).

 

[cardinal]

I’ve heard two things.


1. The OTs are based on the Invective transformers
2. Hartley found the OTs from Eddie’s earliest prototype which was a “way better build.” They modeled the new ones off those

Im not 100% sure what’s what and those two things above aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. And it’s also possible the 6505II has the Invective transformers and the 1992 original has the one mentioned in #2 above. I’m not sure.

Either way, I’m guessing these new transformers are plenty solid. All that matters to me is how the amps sound and how reliable they are and so far it looks like they’re gonna sound great. I’m going to be hard pressed to avoid getting the 1992 Original (and I’m honestly expecting I will go ahead and get one).

Yeah it's extraordinarily likely I end up with the 6505 1992 as long as we come up with a faster way to type that. 6505'92? 65'92? 6592?

 

[technomancer]

I’ve heard two things.


1. The OTs are based on the Invective transformers
2. Hartley found the OTs from Eddie’s earliest prototype which was a “way better build.” They modeled the new ones off those

Im not 100% sure what’s what and those two things above aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. And it’s also possible the 6505II has the Invective transformers and the 1992 original has the one mentioned in #2 above. I’m not sure.

Either way, I’m guessing these new transformers are plenty solid. All that matters to me is how the amps sound and how reliable they are and so far it looks like they’re gonna sound great. I’m going to be hard pressed to avoid getting the 1992 Original (and I’m honestly expecting I will go ahead and get one).

Yeah I'm going to say what Kyle was told by Peavey's designer is probably accurate and they're using the Invective transformer. It also makes a lot of sense from a production standpoint to have all 3 5150-based amps using the same transformer from the Invective.

 

[Deadpool_25]

Yeah I'm going to say what Kyle was told by Peavey's designer is probably accurate and they're using the Invective transformer. It also makes a lot of sense from a production standpoint to have all 3 5150-based amps using the same transformer from the Invective.

I agree it makes sense to use the same transformer in all those models. Makes me wonder if the Invective Transformer is based on that one from the prototype.

 

[Hollowway]

@cardinal @Deadpool_25 are you guys getting the 1992 and not the Iconic, or both? If not the iconic, is it because you favor the additional mids in the 6505, or what makes that decision for you?

 

[cardinal]

@cardinal @Deadpool_25 are you guys getting the 1992 and not the Iconic, or both? If not the iconic, is it because you favor the additional mids in the 6505, or what makes that decision for you?

I'm not sure. I have to go to a GC tomorrow to pick up a cab and I sure hope they have the Iconic there to play with. The 5151 I know just works. It's the benchmark. Everything compares to it, rather than having to wonder how well it compares to other things.