Peavey iPad Tablet Mounting System Review

Aloha!

When I do shows, I use a DJ program on my iPad to sequence songs, and have never been happy using it with the Apple case on my sound table. It is never at the right angle, and it slides around, not to mention that sometime it accidentally gets touched and completely screws up whatever is playing at the time. So, I set out to find a good iPad stand mount that would work with a tabletop mic stand, and settled on the Peavey tablet mounting system.

The Peavey mount is essentially a plastic plate that uses different inserts so that most iPads will fit. The kit I got came with adapters for the the original iPad, as well as the iPad 2 & 3, the iPad Air, and the Mini. After assembled, the mount can screw directly onto a standard microphone stand threads, or it comes with a mounting arm that attach it to a microphone stand post or boom.

I only have an iPad 2, and it snaps solidly into the Peavey mount, and it can be installed or removed with fairly little effort, but it does not seem like the tablet would be very likely to a fall out on its own. Once mounted, there is quite a bit of adjustment to the head, using a lever on the back of the mount to lock it down once find an angle that you like.

In the real work, it works very well. It is nice to get the iPad off the table and at an angle where I can see it better and compensate for glare and sunlight. I would not go to a gig without it, and as an added bonus, it makes for a lot more professional-looking DJ set-up!

Besides the fact that the Peavey tablet mounting system works like it is supposed to, the other thing that is great about it is its price: about 30 bucks from Amazon. It is much better than anything else out there that I have tried, so if you need something like this I recommend that you give it a try.

Mahalo!

Peavey PV 15PM Powered Floor Monitor Review

Como estas?

Floor monitors are a necessary evil, but I loathe spending much money on them as they are not what the audience hears. Then again, if I cheap out on them they are going to work like crap and the guys on stage are going to be chapped at me. Well, since I have made the switch to powered PA speakers, I have been trying out different powered floor monitors, and thought I would pass along my thoughts on the Peavey PV 15PM powered floor monitors.

Peavey has been around since 1965, and is one of the biggest manufacturers of amplifiers and speakers. My fist bass amplifier was a Peavey, and most every musician I know has owned or used Peavey equipment before.

The PV 15PM monitors are members of an endangered species. There are not really very many choices in the wedge-type floor monitor world, and even less choices in the powered wedge-type floor monitor world. This is because speaker manufacturers have figured out that if they build PA cabinets with angled sides that they can also be used as floor monitors too. But, there is nothing like the look of an old-school wedge monitor…

And these look the part, covered in carpet with heavy-duty steel handles and a steel grill. They measure about 26 inches wide by 19 inches deep, with a 40-degree upward angle. They are not lightweight, coming in at around 47 pounds each. No plastic in these bad boys.

They are loaded up with a 15-inch Peavey speaker with a 2-3/8-inch voice coil and a neodymium magnet and a 1.4” titanium diaphragm compression driver. Power is supplied by a pair of class D amplifier that are bi-amped to provide a total output of 200 watts (150 to the woofer and 50 to the tweeter). Peavey does not say if that is peak, but it seems to me like continuous power, just from how loud they are. And they are rated up to 120dB by Peavey, with a frequency response of 52 Hz to 21 kHz.

Everything is loaded on the face of the cabinet, which is something I appreciate as I hate fumbling around with wiring on the back of floor speakers. This includes a combo jack with ¼” TRS and female XLR microphone or line-level balanced input, two ¼” phone jacks for link-out/direct-in capability, the power switch, a level control, a ground lift and a pad switch.

And these Peavey floor monitors work great. They look nice and seem sturdy enough that they will last forever. They have decent lows and cut through on stage with a loud drummer. But they don’t do much of anything better than the Mackie Thump speakers I have been using for monitors, and that is a problem. The Mackies sound just as good, are much cheaper, have a higher power rating (400w), and weigh a lot less (under 30 pounds). Plus they can also be set on their sides for floor use or mounted normally on stands. New Mackie Thumps will run you about 300 bucks each, while the Peavey PV 15PM speakers have a street price of $400 (list price is $479).

Try them both out and do the math, and as nice as they are, you will probably not end up with the Peaveys.

Mahalo!

Memory Lane: Peavey TNT 150 Bass Amplifier

Hello!

Today we are looking at my first bass amplifier: a Peavey TNT 150. A friend of mine once said that after the nuclear holocaust, only cockroaches, AK-47s and Peavey amplifiers will remain.

I think he may be right, as this amplifier was built like a brick house.

I bought my first electric bass back in the mid 1980s, and after a few weeks of monkeying around with it, I started looking around for an amplifier. I was still in school and did not have a ton of extra cash from the part time jobs I was working, so I ended up roaming the pawn shops. At AV Pawn in Long Beach I found this Peavey for a reasonable price ($150, I think), so I dragged the heavy beast home in the back of my Honda.

This made in the USA (really?) combo amp put out 150 watts at 4 ohms, I have since seen other TNT 150 amps that put out 160 and 200 watts. They must have made a few changes over the years.

This one had a really heavy-duty plywood cabinet that was covered in the most durable tolex ever created on this planet. It held up like one of those spray-on bedliners. There was only one carry handle on top which made transporting it a bit tough, so eventually I added handles to each side of the cabinet. This made it a little easier to get it in and out of my car.

The speaker was a 15-inch Scorpion (if I remember correctly). These could also be had with Black Widow speakers. It held up well with the abuse that I gave it.

There were plenty of controls for me to mess around with, including a 9-band equalizer with sliders. Every 19 year old loves eq’s with sliders. It also had a chorus effect that sounded pretty awful, but I did not have much money so at least it gave me the ability to try out some new sounds on the cheap.

The TNT 150 worked fine for me with the passive P-J Fender basses I was playing back then. It could put out enough sound to keep up with a drummer playing at a reasonable volume. The tone was boomy and did not provide crispy highs, but it worked well enough. I wonder sometimes how much benefit we really get from the high-end equipment that everybody and their brother wants today.

I ended up selling this combo when I decided to go with the GK/Hartke set-up that everybody else was using in the early 1990s. For the stuff I played, I cannot say that it really made much of a difference, but the new rig did look cooler…

Mahalo!

Peavey Custom Shop J-84 John Taylor Liberator Bass

Hi there!

Today we are looking at a pretty rare bass. It is a Peavey J-84 Liberator bass, made by the Peavey Custom shop, and endorsed by John Taylor of Duran Duran.

This bass was designed and built to John’s specifications, with custom black hardware and Juicy Couture graphics. It is a 34” scale bass with 21 frets on its bolt-on neck. It has an ebony fretboard. The electronics are Peavey custom shop active electronic humbuckers. First-class stuff all the way.

John Taylor and Juicy Couture (which his wife owns, IIRC) also came up with a great case and accessory package to go with this bass. The custom case has a bass hanger and an integrated amplifier/tuner unit. There is also a custom strap, and a canvas goodie bag with a custom cord and a pick.

And, of course, there is a certificate of authenticity signed by John Taylor, stating that this is number 29 of only 100 that will ever be built. So, with Duran Duran’s worldwide popularity, these were instantly collectible, which also made it an unwise business decision to actually play the thing.

The only bad thing about these basses was that you could only buy them through Neiman Marcus. For a company that charges a premium for what is supposedly the best service around, they really dropped the ball on this one. The sales representatives knew nothing about these if you called up to ask them questions. Then the nightmare of constantly changing delivery dates began. Eventually it did show up, though.

I paid $1400 for it back in 2006, and flipped it about a year later for a premium. You know how I am…

Mahalo!