Session 400 Blues

Steve Benzian · Post by **Steve Benzian** » 26 Jul 2003 1:57 pm

My Peavey Session 400 amps are great sounding when working but they all seem to have problems that make them unreliable for playing for long periods. Maybe they are just too old.

Should they be sent back to Peavey or is it time for a new amp...I've heard mixed reports about the 1000 so haven't purchased one yet. Does any new amp sound similar to a session? I have a Nashville 400 but its not the same.

Jody Sanders · Post by **Jody Sanders** » 26 Jul 2003 8:51 pm

I have a Session 400, a Session 400LTD, just sold a Session 500, and a Nashville 400. Also have a Nashville 1000, and have one of the new Nashville 112 on order. I have never had a Peavey amp to fail on a job or otherwise. You should call Mike Brown at Peavey to discuss the problem. Best regards, Jody.

Steve Benzian · Post by **Steve Benzian** » 26 Jul 2003 9:35 pm

Today the 400 LTD with a JBL that sounds the best of all of the Sessions I have started humming real loud and then went dead. One of the others starts distorting after about 1 hour.

Jerry Roller · Post by **Jerry Roller** » 26 Jul 2003 11:12 pm

Steve, I recommend you pull the chassis out of the cabinet and send it to Peavey. They will make it like new at a VERY resonable price.
Jerry

Ken Fox · Post by **Ken Fox** » 27 Jul 2003 5:01 am

The loud "humming and went dead" sounds rather serious. Did it blow the fuse? One possibility is a shorted output transistor or a shorted biasing-line transistor and a now burned out speaker. When a direct coupled transistor amp gets a shorted output or the bias line get messed up, full B+ (about 50 volts DC in this amp) can appear at the speaker terminals. That will burn out a speaker's voice coil almost instantly.
Another possibility is a shorted rectifier diode or filter cap (not as much damage for this type of repair). You might check you speaker with a 9 volt battery and see if it still makes sound (or just test it on another amp). If the voice coil is open it will not harm another transistor amp (do not try it on a tube amp, they do can't tolerate an open circuit).
If you have a blown speaker I would recommend sending both of the amp chassis to Peavey for repair and then getting a new 1501-4SB for the LTD. You will have two great amps again! You can also have the JBL reconed, but keep in mind it is a 100 watt speaker, the very reason Peavey had to design the Black Widow speakers to start with! The original Session 400 came with a 1-15" JBL or a 2-12" E.V. option. The amps were just too powerful for a JBL! Under average playing conditions they can survive for manys years, but the amp had the power to blow a JBL and did so to a lot of them.[This message was edited by Ken Fox on 27 July 2003 at 06:08 AM.]

John Cox · Post by **John Cox** » 27 Jul 2003 9:10 am

All I know is every ti time I go to our guitar players place and use his ses400 I sound a whole lot better than when I use the P1000, wish they could have kept tone in the new amps. And I've played a Carter, Emmons and MSA though the two and get the same result every time.

J.C.

Steve Benzian · Post by **Steve Benzian** » 27 Jul 2003 10:17 am

Thanks to all of you for your help.

Troubleshooting the LTD found a blown fuse, one output transistor shorted, one fuse resistor blown and one 120 ohm resistor burned. Looks like this amp has been repaired before. I hope to ship it back to Peavey for repairs. I think the speaker survived.

I love the sound of these old amps.

Frank Parish · Post by **Frank Parish** » 27 Jul 2003 11:07 am

You guys with Peavey or Fender problems should call Darrell Combs here in Nashville. He can fix anything on either one and a lot more and is more than reasonable. He's also a specialist on Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer pianos. I mean he can make these things sound like new. I've known him for 20 years and never known him to not be able to fix anything. The number is 615-262-5419. He does a lot of work for local music stores when they can't get to it. He has a shop at his home.

Bruce Derr · Post by **Bruce Derr** » 29 Jul 2003 7:49 am

> When a direct coupled transistor amp gets a shorted output or the bias line get messed up, full B+ (about 50 volts DC in this amp) can appear at the speaker terminals. That will burn out a speaker's voice coil almost instantly.

Ken, that happened to my Webb 6-14E some years ago. Took out a nice D-130F.

Steve Benzian · Post by **Steve Benzian** » 24 Aug 2003 5:13 pm

Well I just want to thank Mike Brown and Peavey for getting my amp back up....it sounds teriffic. It went back to the factory for repairs. Mike Brown was very helpful. They replaced the fuse, output drivers, transistors, diodes, filter caps, resisitors, touched up the solder joints, lubed the pots and set the unit to factory specs (about 25 parts). It was carefully packed with foam packing and put in a very strong box and shipped from Mississippi to California....all for $116.87

I'm happy to have my Session 400 working again and very pleased with Peavey support.

Mike Brown · Post by **Mike Brown** » 25 Aug 2003 8:06 am

Thanks for the compliment guys. I'll state this again and again, you won't find better technicians to work on a Peavey piece of gear than those who built them. However, I'm sure that there are exceptional technicians in the field who are great at what they do though.

We appreciate your support and I'll see most of you at the upcoming St.Louis Steel Guitar Convention this weekend! Drop by to visit and hear what Peavey Electronics has to offer the steel guitar enthusiast.

One other comment......................
It would be easy to sit back and continue to build the same models year after year, but unfortunately, that's not what the majority of steel players want as sales figures somehow seem to decline after awhile and a lot of musicians start looking for that "new, latest" amplifier. We have to continue with the introduction of amplifiers with different features to satisfy the majority. When we introduced or reintroduced the Session 400 Limited, technology had advanced and the original Session 400 and Session 400 Limited didn't "sound" the same. This is what happens when technology advances.

Mike Brown
Peavey Electronics Corporation[This message was edited by Mike Brown on 25 August 2003 at 09:14 AM.]