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Author Topic:  Nashville 400 mods?
Lynn Kasdorf


From:
Waterford Virginia, USA
Post  Posted 2 Nov 2021 12:04 pm    
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I recently acquired an original Peavey Nashville 400 and used it on a couple gigs so far. Now, I'm used to my trusty Nashville 112 and its tone settings for happiness. But I could not seem to get a sound I liked with the 400. No matter what, there seemed to be a midrange resonance that just barked out to me, no matter how much I dropped the parametric and swept it.

I know that Ken Fox and others have mod kits for these amps, and I think that Peavey had some changes to the tone control circuitry. What would you folks suggest? I am an experienced elec tech and can do all the changes myself if I have a list of component changes.

I know that Ken Fox likes the Burr Brown op amps, and these are socketed and would be easy enough to replace. I suspect this alone would not account what I was hearing. But maybe.
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Jack Stoner


From:
Kansas City, MO
Post  Posted 3 Nov 2021 2:31 am    
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The NV400 tone mod, either Lemay or Peavey won't do anything for the original NV400's that came with a 1502 speaker. The later models that come with a 1501 speaker is what the mod is for and fixes the tone circuitry to match the 1501 speaker. The 1502 speaker is a "bass" speaker and the amps tone circuitry was designed to work with the "bass" speaker. The 1501 speaker is more a "guitar" speaker and without the tone mod low end and some mids are lost. The tone mod restores the lost low and mids.

I had a NV400 that came, new from factory, with the tone mod installed. I tried the 2604 and 2134 chips and found that it didn't make a difference.

To Add, Using a Franklin D-10 with Lawrence 710 pickups and using George L's cables, I wound up with same EQ settings on every Peavey steel amp with the Parametric Mid controls (including the modded NV400 and NV112). Bass +9, Shift 800Hz and Mid -2, High and Presence +1.


Last edited by Jack Stoner on 3 Nov 2021 7:27 am; edited 1 time in total
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Michael Brebes

 

From:
Northridge CA
Post  Posted 3 Nov 2021 6:31 am    
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The original tone circuit had an overlap between Mid control and Treble control. If not careful, some nasty mids could come out of the amp. The changes that the Peavey mod did was to get rid of the overlap between controls which fixed the nasty mid problem. The opamp changes are for noise and better high frequency response.
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Steve Sycamore

 

From:
Sweden
Post  Posted 5 Nov 2021 12:54 am    
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I wasn't really satisfied with the Nashville 400 until I replaced the second generation 1501 speaker. The Lemay mod made a significant difference but the speaker change made an even bigger improvement in the musicality of the amp.

I heard (and felt) quite a difference using Lemay's chosen op amp replacements. They were probably Burr Brown's but with a high slew rate. Noticably more nibble with greater tone clarity, especially the high end. I tend to use an aggressive highs forward sound with the vintage pickups on my guitars so that is likely a factor that allows the op amp upgrade to make a noticable difference.
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