Vintage powered mixer help! Aes? Anyone?

[peaveyrules]

Alright, so for practicing, our band uses a Peavey Powered Mixer. I know its an older Peavey, maybe 80's - early 90's model. I am unsure of the RMS power it puts out, but I do know that the power amp portion of the mixer has died. The mixer still turns on and shows levels and lights up, but no vocals or anything can go through. As a result, I was forced to call upon one of my other friends, who happens to have a lot of vintage equipment. He gladly hooked me up with a "Peavey Commercial Power Amplifier". This power amp is huge, really old, and weighs a ton, but he says its the most reliable and beastly thing he's ever seen. Now, for my questions:

(1) The power portion of our Peavey powered mixer has died. Is it possible to hook this power amp up to our existing now-unpowered-mixer? How would we go about hooking this thing up to our mixer?

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d103/ThomasCurrie/PEAVEYPOWERAMPFRONTSIDE.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d103/ThomasCurrie/PEAVEYPOWERAMPBACK.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d103/ThomasCurrie/PEAVEYPOWERAMPFRONT.jpg

(2) Can anyone explain to me what some of this stuff on this power amp means? And it says it has 2 channels,A and B, rated at 400 watts per side. Does this mean we only need to use one channel, if 400 watts will be enough?

(3) Lets say that our Peavey Powered Mixer previously put out 300 watts, would it hurt anything in any way if we then pushed this 400wattPerSide power amp through the mixer, if the mixer was originally of lesser power than this power amp is. And vice versa, would it hurt if our powered mixer originally ran at 600 watts RMS, and we would now only put 400 watts through it?

(4) What do the 2 switches on the front, as well as the knobs on the front, do exactly? And is this right? Do I need to check any ohms or anything to see if they all match up to the mixer?

Power Amp---->Mixer---->speaker cab?

Wow, that was alot, but I'd really like to know. Thanks to anyone who can help!!!

[peaveyrules]

Bump. Please somebody, atleast tell me how I should hook it up to the mixer, please!

[10571z]

ok well.....

firstly to hook it up to the mixer get 2 chords from the line out and put it in there power amp inputs.

i would actually recommend buying a cheap behringer insteed of messing around with the old broken one.

what type of speakers do you have?

[jmlb13]

i habe pieced together my fair share of pas in my time and the amp you have will never die. My band has a peavey cs 800 that was used by this band before i was born (1984) and they still have it. Yes my band was around before i was. Anyhow, there should be a jack somewhere on the mixer that says main out or something to that effect. take a guitar cable and run from it to the A line in on the back of the amp. Then take another guitar cable and run from the other a line in to the line b in this will give you signal on both channels, no it will not hurt the amp and if you want an explanation email me at JMLB13@aol.com and i will gladly give you one. you should no have signal to the amp. it is now occoruing to me i just posted a post for you about a blown fuse in an amp no more than 10 mins ago and if this is the one or if it is the powered mixer do not be discouraged itll get up and running somehow if you run into any more problems about this sstem email me and i will gladly help you. i professionally setup sound for 3 bands now and i dont mind helpin newbies to the pro audio world get their bearings so you have my email address contact me if ou need me

[Aes820]

I'll strongly agree with the suggestion to buy another little unpowered mixer to run into that poweramp instead of using your current broken one.
A little Behringer or Yamaha mixer should only be a couple of hundred at the most.

That poweramp looks like a bit of a Dinosaur.
And has got a couple of things on it which I'm not complety sure about.

To get it going all you'll probably need to do is run your signal from the main outs on the mixer into the pwramp inputs on the poweramp. One to channel A the other to channel B.


Don't worry about bridging it. Leave it set to stereo.

The LowZ input would be used for connectng a dynamic microphone (or other low impedence signal source) directally into it.

I'm not too sure how you'd use the crossover in it. Maybe it's got some kind of simple crossover in there that you can run either the high or low freq outputs of into subsequent channels or even additional amps for bi-amping applications. But I'm really not sure.

Nor am i sure on what that Bal. X-Former thing does. Could it be a simple balance control?

Is there anyway you can get a hold of a manual?

Run a minimum of a 4 ohm load off each of the outputs on the poweramp. Running 8 ohm speakers off it is fine to do but will decrease power output.

[10571z]

a 4 track behringer mixer is like 100 bucks a will sound way better most likely and be a hell of a lot lighter

[peaveyrules]

I'll strongly agree with the suggestion to buy another little unpowered mixer to run into that poweramp instead of using your current broken one.
A little Behringer or Yamaha mixer should only be a couple of hundred at the most.

That poweramp looks like a bit of a Dinosaur.
And has got a couple of things on it which I'm not complety sure about.

To get it going all you'll probably need to do is run your signal from the main outs on the mixer into the pwramp inputs on the poweramp. One to channel A the other to channel B.


Don't worry about bridging it. Leave it set to stereo.

The LowZ input would be used for connectng a dynamic microphone (or other low impedence signal source) directally into it.

I'm not too sure how you'd use the crossover in it. Maybe it's got some kind of simple crossover in there that you can run either the high or low freq outputs of into subsequent channels or even additional amps for bi-amping applications. But I'm really not sure.

Nor am i sure on what that Bal. X-Former thing does. Could it be a simple balance control?

Is there anyway you can get a hold of a manual?

Run a minimum of a 4 ohm load off each of the outputs on the poweramp. Running 8 ohm speakers off it is fine to do but will decrease power output.


I love you for a reason. Yeah, we plan on purchasing a whole new system to use for P/A, but for now we don't have the money and we have to work with what we have. In reguards to my other thread though about the blown fuse, do you know what kind of fuses I should be using with this amp? The fuse we pulled out of this thing reads as a "Buss ABC-15...250Volts". We tried putting a new age "Buss AGC-15...250 Volts" fuse, and it turned on for a split second again before it blew that fuse. Any idea AES on what kind of actual fuse this thing runs off of?

Thanks for the help guys

Actually I just got to reading my other post, so thanks for those replies. We'll set up the P/A again and I'll see if the fuse blows again. If it does, then we'll just pretty much be screwed for a while!

[Aes820]

I googled and found this:
http://members.lycos.nl/lichtgeluidswanen/hpbimg/Peavey%20cs800%20achter.JPG

According to what's printed on the back. The 220 volt version of this requires an 8 amp (does it say 8A? - looks like it to me) Fuse.
Which is what yours may also be. An 8 Amp fuse.

But... what's those things in those X-Over and Bal sockets?
http://evolution-control.com/trademarkg/images/craigslist/cs800_rear.jpg

Why hasn't yours got em?

EDIT: I found a manual for it.
http://www.peavey.com/media/pdf/manuals/80300068.pdf

Aparantly those plug things are jumpers and you'll need different ones depending on how you plan to use the poweramp.
Ugh!!
I only kind of scanned through that manual quickly but If you're feeling up for a read then give it a look through.

[peaveyrules]

Thanks Aes!!! Actually, this one seems to say "120 VAC , 15 A" on the back of it. I have no idea about this thing at all, it is crazy. I asked my friend about it acting funny, and he said that he'd take a look at it and have it fixed. I think we're better off just finding another small mixer and another easier to use, somewhat newer power amp off of ebay.

[milk box]

the behringer 2600 power amp is known to be insanely unstable if you half the gain setts for each channel. it literally pulsates, unless you have a decent mixer to control the volumes and max the gains on the behringer to keep it from happening. other than that its a cheap and very powerfull amp to consider. (just an fyi since someone here mentioned behringer)

[Aes820]

I think we're better off just finding another small mixer and another easier to use, somewhat newer power amp off of ebay.
I'd agree.