A Dominating, Versatile Metal Amplifier for the Performing Guitarist
Written: May 06 '07 (Updated Sep 23 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A powerful, versatile tube head for hard rock and metal guitarists
Cons: None. This is a high quality amp that is value priced.
The Bottom Line: The Peavey XXX head is a metal standard, and listening to it reveals why: power, headroom, tightness, massive gain at a reasonable price. For serious guitarists.
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| buffoonery's Full Review: Peavey Triple XXX(R) Head 120W Guitar Amplifier He... |
Peavey makes terrific amps but still has the perception of being a “second-rank” manufacturer behind the likes of Fender, Mesa, Marshall and maybe one or two others. This perception is entirely unjustifiable. But it is a great boon to amplifier buyers: you can get a terrific Peavey amp considerably less than what you would pay for a “name” brand of similar qualities.
Indeed, in a recent interview, Hartley Peavey (founder of the Mississippi-based company) made this price delta clear. He noted that an unnamed prestige brand had asked him to manufacture amps under its nameplate some years ago. He rejected the idea when he found that the firm would be charging for the amps three times what he would be paid. Screw that, he said in so many words. The rest is history.
Among the most famous of the Peavey products is the bone-crunching Triple XXX amplifier head (straight and slant 4x12 cabs also available). The Triple has become a staple of hard rock and metal bands from Nickelback to Nonpoint to Ministry and a test drive will show you why. The head delivers a very wide range of sounds from a piercing clean to napalm-fire crunch. It is clearly intended to compete with high-gain amp models produced by Mesa and the like.
The Triple comes in a black cover with silver plate featuring a number of silhouettes of what is presumably a rather willing individual of the female persuasion. After getting past the mildly erotic pictures (at least, erotic to a desperate adolescent), one digs into the guts of the amp, which is a three channel Clean/Crunch/Ultra 120 watt tube monster equipped with four 6L6 tubes driving the power amp and 12AX7s in the pre amp. (You can easily swap to EL34’s for a Brit sound). This head is loud. Don’t even think of using it is as a practice amp: this creature from hell is designed for face-melting stoned audiences in large clubs. It’s a sin to play it at any less volume than cranked.
There are separate volume and tone controls for the three channels. The Clean channel controls on the right have Bass, Mids, Treble and Volume while the Crunch and Ultra channels have “Bottom” (bass), “Body” (mids), and “Hair” (treble) (these names are frankly a little silly), Volume and Gain controls. (I personally would have liked to see a Gain control for the Clean channel as well.) Note that the eq controls on the Clean channel are passive (i.e. you’re dialing off tone, like on a Strat) while they are both passive and active (you’re boosting the tone) on the Crunch and Ultra channels. There is also a Master volume control that changes the volume of all three channels simultaneously. This is important because you can individually adjust the volume for each channel so they deliver equivalent sound and then change the volume for the entire head on the fly without changing the relative volumes. A footswitch allows you to change between the Clean and Crunch/Ultra, which makes it a little inconvenient to switch between the latter two. Why not just have three buttons? The front panel also has the power and stand by switches as well as the input jack.
The back panel has the usual amp controls and jacks plus a few goodies. There are Effects Send/Return jacks, cabinet impedance switches, and footswitch and speaker output jacks. The goodies are the bias adjustment switch (for using EL34s) and the “damping” switch. This last is quite cool. It controls speaker cone motion after the signal disappears. A “Tight” damping factor reduces cone vibration more than a “Loose” factor and the switch effectively works like resonance and presence switches on other amps. Volume is louder at Loose, but a Tight you will get a really focused bottom that is highly suited for metal.
The head comes with a multi-language manual of average quality that does no more than give brief explanations of the various controls and jacks. It pales before the manuals produced by Mesa.
The sounds of this head are, well, superb. I ran it through a Les Paul Standard at the local guitarhead shop. Talk about sonic destruction. The Clean channel is ideal for standard rock and blues lead and rhythm. The highly focused tone controls will let you play a wide range of music from 50’s rockabilly to 60’s and 70’s standard rock. The Ultra channel will give you more gain that you will ever possibly need. The 6L6s provide plenty of sonic complexity and overtones. The distortion is out of this world. Metal player will really not need anything more than what this amp delivers. As for the Crunch channel, it is perhaps the most versatile of the three. You can get great hard rock rhythm, chunky power chords, anything from mild to heavy (though not Ultra) distortion. It’s great for 70s hard rock, 80s hair metal, some nice 90s grunge, and points in between. The tone controls again are superb and mild adjustments will give you wildly different tones pay attention.
At $1250 for the head, $679 for the cabs, and $1700 for a half-stack at Musicians Friend, this ain’t cheap but it’s at least one third cheaper than the equivalent Mesa Triple Rectifier and similar amps. What you get in great sound quality you give up in the prestige of the name. You make the choice.
Bottom Line:: The Peavey Triple XXX Head is a serious amp head that is designed for the gigging or serious amateur guitarist who plays hard rock and heavy metal music. It’s obviously too powerful for practicing and indeed, for small clubs because it should be played at volume in order to overdrive the tubes. While the head delivers some very, very nice clean tones, you are paying a lot of money for the power and high gain this delivers when cranked and in the Crunch/Ultra channels. While a blues or country guy can get some mileage out of this, there’s no need to pay all that extra money for those features. Those guys should stick to Fender or Vox combos or, indeed, something like the terrific Peavey Classic Combo 30 (see my review http://www.epinions.com/content_320997789316 ).
Have fun.
Technical specs:
120 watts into 16, 8, or 4 ohms (switchable)
Four 6L6GCs and four 12AX7s
Power amp switchable to use EL34s or 6L6GCs
Three footswitchable channels
Clean channel: volume, bass, mid, treble
Crunch channel: gain and volume - bottom, body & hair (lo, mid, hi) EQ
Ultra channel: gain and volume - bottom, body & hair (lo, mid, hi) EQ
Master volume
Footswitchable effects loop with send and return controls
Damping switch: tight, medium, loose
Line out with level control
Dimensions - Unpacked 26.625" W x 11.25" H x 11" D
Dimensions - Packed 28.5" W x 14" H x 13.5" D
Weight - Packed 59
Weight - Unpacked 50.7
Here are my other amplifier reviews:
Marshall Super 100 JH
Peavey Classic 30 Combo
Crate Power Block
Roland Micro Cube
Mesa 5:25 Express
Mesa Stiletto Ace
Fender Cyber Twin
Line 6 Vetta II Combo
Mesa 5:50 Express
Line 6 Spider III 75
Mesa Lone Star Combo
Vox Valvetronix AD60VT
Mesa Stiletto Deuce
Mesa Triple Rectifier Head
Fender DSP 65
Peavey Triple XXX Head
Fender Super Sonic 1x12 Combo
Hughes and Kettner Switchblade 50 Combo
Fender MH 500 Metalhead
64 Fender Vibroverb Custom Blackface
Mesa Dual Rectifier Roadster
Peavey Penta Head
Peavey JSX Joe Satriani Signature Head
Line 6 Spider II Head
Crate Acoustic CA30
Line 6 Flextone III Plus
And you may also be interested in a few books such as:
Hugo Pinksterboer – Tipbook Amplifiers and Effects
Ritchie Fliegler – Amps: The Other Half of Rock and Roll
Michael Ross – Getting Great Guitar Sounds: A Non-Technical Approach to Shaping Your Personal Sound
Recommended:
Yes
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