NAD: Peavey JSX

[Kim]

I've been wanting one of these for some time now, mostly just for studio work.  But hey....who knows, right?  I got a GREAT deal on this halfstack, too.

I'm not a huge fan of Mr. Satriani, but I certainly do respect his work so this being his "signature" amp for a brief time had no bearing on why I wanted it.  Tell ya why I wanted it:  the specs/features.   

All tube: 4 12ax7 preamp tubes and 4 EL34 power tubes.
Footswitchable 3 channels: Clean, Crunch, and Ultra.
Fully adjustable Noise Gate on board for the OD channels.
Can use EL34 (from factory) or 6L6GC power tubes (and a few of their cousins like KT77 and such), and has an external bias pot and range switch.
Made in USA.
Designed by James Brown (no, not that James Brown) who worked closely with EVH to dial in and design the legendary 5150/6505 amps, the Classic series amps including the rack poweramps, the Triple X amps, then JSX, etc.   (James has his own company now known as Amptweaker, btw)
Independent volume knobs for each Channel and one Master Volume.
3-band EQ on each channel; Active EQ for OD channels and passive EQ for Clean channel.
Separate Fat switches on the OD channels.
Global Resonance and Presence controls.

And the matching JSX cab came with, and........ATA flight cases!  :o   (I think I actually bought the flight cases and got a free Peavey JSX halfstack thrown in....)

Boy, I'm gonna be busy experimenting with this.   :whoohoo!:

[rnolan]

Very nice Kim  :whoohoo!:

[Dante]

DAYUMMM, that is a nice rig. What're you gonna do with that? You already have your rack rig ;)

[Kim]

DAYUMMM, that is a nice rig. What're you gonna do with that? You already have your rack rig ;)

The Rig of Fire (rack rig) is the rig that stays at the band's rehearsal studio and gets gigged with. This JSX is staying at home for my recording projects because I have so many options to use with different poweramp tubes, pedals, etc. for whatever I come up with.

The JSX cab will handle 400 watts (so should last forever) and even has an XLR DI on the back, should I ever want to just hit the "Easy" button. Attached is a pic that I grabbed from the web....

[rnolan]

Wow, a built in DI/Cab sim box, cool.  The speaker label is confusing though. So I guess it has 4 x 16ohm 12s in a parallel/series combination and the whole box is 16ohm and the 2nd (parallel) jack is for another 16ohm cab (amp then sees 8ohms)

[Kim]

Wow, a built in DI/Cab sim box, cool.  The speaker label is confusing though. So I guess it has 4 x 16ohm 12s in a parallel/series combination and the whole box is 16ohm and the 2nd (parallel) jack is for another 16ohm cab (amp then sees 8ohms)

I believe so.  And the amp also has a pair of parallel Output jacks and a switch to select 16, 8, 4 ohms.  So maybe it can run a total of four 16-ohm cabs with the switch set at 4-ohms?   >:D  I sure don't need to do that!   :o

[Dante]

MATH!

i hate it - knokitoff wit all that math

[rnolan]

Kind of necessary maths for a guitarist LoL so you don't blow shit up.  Mmm 4 x 16ohm cabs  >:D :headbanger: :whoohoo!:

[Chip Roberts]

Oh man how badly I was pining for one of these bad boys when they came out.  If I remember correctly, this was more or less a souped up Triple X, right?  I loved the 3 channels - all of my contemporaries favored the 6505, but the thing only had 2 channels and sounded no-good at low volume.
The JSX had plenty of gain on tap and mounds of features.  I envy you, sir.

[Kim]

If I remember correctly, this was more or less a souped up Triple X, right? 

IIRC, it was based off the Triple X which btw was originally designed for George Lynch to be his signature amp to endorse, but somewhere along the way before actual production the deal fell through so it was released as just the Triple X.

The way I understand it is that the Clean and Ultra channels are the same between the two amps while the Crunch channel of the JSX has a "more mids" type of sound than the Triple X Crunch.   Truth be told, I haven't even tried the Ultra channel on mine yet because I need to replace the busted toggle switch in order to access that (and because of that is why I got such a screaming deal on the price)  I'll also tell you that the Youboob videos of this amp do it no justice...this things RIPS even in Crunch mode.

[Kim]

Toggle switch fixed and I now have all 3 channels available.   :whoohoo!:

Still say I am pretty impressed with this in person.  Lots of great tones already in there, and I don't max out the Gains to 10 either.   6 and 7 are plenty for me.  And besides the 3 channels I own 3 different Drive pedals that I can put in front and the amp responds to them just beautifully (something I'm sorry I can't say about the MP-2 or QuadTube.)    The Noise Gate isn't so much of an actual "gate" that shuts down as it is a "noise reduction" that takes away the extra hiss.   Speaking of noise, the amp head is dead quiet in operation with no mechanical buzz or hum from the chassis.  Every tube amp I've ever tried has had some sort of mechcanical buzzing or humming coming from inside and I always thought it to be normal.

Oh, and then I even put some good hearing protection on and wound it right up for a bit.  Apparently, the "JSX" stands for "HOLY F***KING SH*T"       

[Kim]

Update:   did a minor cosmetic mod and now it sounds even better!   ;)

[Dante]

That looks F'in cool! did you make that?

[MarshallJMP]

Yeah sounds more green now  ;D

[rnolan]

Matches Dantes MXC LoL