Peavey 6505 Plus Head

05' Peavey 6506+, 120 watts all tube. Some sort of effects loop which i dont really use. Two channel amp, lead and a clean channel. The clean channel has a crunch boost which is footswitchable. Each channel has independent resonance and prescence controls, this really lets you dial in fell as to whether the amp has a "saggy" tone or a "tight" tone in a way that you cant do with an eq. Really cool.

What i would like to see is the clean channel improved by making it more clean and fuller sounding. Id also like to see the crunch channel moved over to the lead channel so you can get a good solid clean tone and a heavier crunch. Im playing more metal and hardcore these days, as well as some good ol' rock.

Im using an Ibanez RGT-42 and have used a Gibson V in the past. Both guitars sounded really good on this amp. The lead channel tends to be my main channel since i use a lot of distortion. This channel sounds very heavy and tight, great for metal rythym and of course lead. The crunch channel is awesome for harder rock tones ala Rush, Dio, Black Sabbath. It can do lighter tones as well and has a real good Marshall-y sag to it.
The clean channel is utter shit though. No soul in the clean channel, really anemic an tinny sounding. The really horrible thing is since the clean channel and the crunch channel are on the same channel you cant dial in a good crunch distortion and have the clean be clean. The clean it ends up being dirty if the preamp is past 3.

Ive had it for 2 or 3 months, so far so good.

Never dealt with em'.

Ive been playing guitar and bass for 15 or so years. The band im in now is in the vein of Lamb of God, Slayer, Mastodon, KSE, Children of Bodom ect. Really heavy stuff that doesnt require a clean channel. This amp shines for this style. But its very limited in my opinion and the day this band ends ill probably ebay this thing and get a more versatile amp.

All in all its a good amp, but very one dimensional.

this was a 2005 peavey 6505+. notice I say "was" i got the amp 3 days ago and I plugged it in and got it all set up to my likings and I thought that the disortion channel sounded pretty freakin good. the clean/rhythm channel is kinda odd though. but ill get into that more in the sound section. it is not a very versitile amp when I compare it to my TSL 100 but there is sufficiant sound/tone adjustment on it. I use it for live gigs with my band and we play melodic metal/hardcore/screamo.

I use a USA Jackson soloist SL2H-mah with seymour duncan JB in the bridge and a 59 in the neck. well... to get back to what i was saying befor....i have had the amp for three days and the power amp section of the distortion channel is dead. it worked for 2 days and then nothing. the clean still worked though (oh boy). they are gonna send me another one. the clean channel is VERY clean (too clean)when low gain is applied but there is almost no head room. then there is a crunch button on the clean/rhythm channel and it boosts the gain a bit but it doesnt make for a very graceful change from clean to crunch because the crunch boost is too loud and the clean is too soft so when the clean is loud enough to match the lead channel and you wanna go from clean to a crunch into full chaos(the lead channel) the crunch ends up being so loud that its louder than the lead channel. which is really really loud. so my solution is...I will use two cabs and two heads. The 6505+ with a 1960 lead cab and a TSL 100 head with a 1960 cab. the TSL's clean and crunch channel is far superior to the peavey but the distotion (lead) channel on the 6505 is more of my taste because the peavey 6505+ has more of refined and less grainy gain. so I will switch between the clean and crunch on the marshall TSL and the lead channel on the 6505+. SO essentually the peavey is like a $974.00 distortion pedal.

The power Amp section on the lead channel DIED 3 days after having it.
they are sending me a new one so we will see.

never talked to em.

well in its current condition I probably wouldnt care too much if it broken (more) or stolen or something. but if it actually worked ....yes I would buy it again.

It has what is needed, and a little extra on the side. It has the usual Low, Mid and High EQ's, pre and post gain (actually, only pre is gain while post is volume control) and resonance and presence controls, which are extended controls for further scuplting your lows and highs. All of these are available for both the rhythm and the lead channel.

It also has a "bright" switch which will output more treble and it also has a "crunch" switch which will add a tad more gain... Both features are only available in the rhythm channel.

It comes with a 3-buttoned footswitch, which allows you to control channel selection, to add crunch on the rhythm channel and an effects switch which will switch on your effects loop.

As I said, it has more or less exactly what it needs, with a extra toppings.

I play my amp through an ESP M-II with Seymour Duncan JB/59 pickups, which is connected to a Boss TU-2 tuner, a Boss GE-7 that goes through a Boss NS-2 noise suppressor, and then straight onward to the input jack on the 6505+. The head is connected to a Hughes & Kettner Vortex 4x12 cabinet. I acquired it very recently, so the amp is straight outta the box with no "improvements" whatsoever.

The sounds? It does what it was designed for with excellence: Pure and utter annihilation!!! It has more gain than Cain and it has more bottom end than Amsterdams Red Light District. The word brutal gets thrown around a lot, but this time it's justified. This head is capable of outputting sounds that are more brutal than any other amp that I have ever heard. If you know your shit, you know that the only reason to purchase a Peavey 6505+ is for the lead channel. You can sculpt your tone to range from more or less any genre within the heavy metal branch of music, from mild gain to earthshaking and bonecrushing gain with a HUGE bottom end, which is exactly what I need for the style I play (metalcore). And with the Boss GE-7 hooked up to your signal line, you there's even more room for toying around.

The rhythm channel on the other hand, could use some improvement. The clean sounds aren't the best in the world (but not the worst either), and the "crunch" button adds very little gain which kinda forfeits the idea of the crunch feature.

But as I implied earlier, you're not buying this amps for it cleans but for its gain.

I haven't had it long enough to really comment on this, but as I understand it, Peavey builds reliable equipment.

I sent them an e-mail regarding the powersupply of the amp some weeks ago, and they have never responded...

This amp is without a doubt, the best bang for the buck for all you metal/hardcore musicians out there. If you need great cleans, look somewhere else, but if you want to be in Gain City, this is without contest THE amp for you. So far, I like... No wait, I LOVE everything about this amp.

I have played for 7 years, and of all the myriads of Marshalls, Mesas, Hughes & Kettners and "what's their name?" that I've tried, this amp straight out beats them all for my needs, which is gain, gain and more gain!

The bottom line is, if you play in a band that plays heavy metal, whether that be hardcore, punk, grind, metalcore, power-metal, black-metal, death-metal, melodic-metal, whatever, save yourself some time and go check out this amp immediately... I am 99% certain of that you won't be let down!

Yeah, i'd like to say to Colin to leave your dirty diaper at the door when real guitar players smoke your pussy-ass. I guarantee you wouldn't tell KErry King or Zakk Wylde that they are pussy and pathetic for using EMGs and drop tunings. Plus, i know you suck at guitar because you have more effects pedals than all other guitar players in tha world combined.

Anyway, on to the 6505+ or in my case, 5150 II. I bought one from the last batch of 5150II to leave the Peavey factory in late 2004, and man, was i lucky on that day. It is the most killer amp on the planet. No reverb, but if you need reverb, get a pedal for it.

2 Gibson Les Paul customs, one is a Black Beauty and the other is a Zakk Wylde original bullseye, both have EMGs(Colin, read this please.) and i own a Peavey EVH Wolfgang with a quilted maple top with the factory pickups, which are fuckin the best sounding PASSIVE pickup i've heard, but can't compare to the low noise-high output sound of the EMG81/85 combo. I had 5 pedals, a Dunlop Wylde Overdrive, Hendrix Wah and Rotovibe running in to the amp and a Boss Chorus Ensemble and Digital Delay through effects loops. Yep, no noise gate. I have 2 4x12 Peavey cabs(not 5150, straight and top) and this amp has more than enough power to crank out some of the greatest tones you will ever heard.
For the most part, i play metal in tha vain of Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Shadows Fall, Black Label Society and Killswitch Engage. So, for most of my metal, i like to use the Rhythm Channel, with the pre-gain set at 10 and the Wylde Overdrive for a lil' more crunch and sustain. If i need it clean, i will usually just hit the footswitch and cut off the crunch and go to the clean. My chorus is usually always on when i'm using the Rhythm mode, so my effects loop is on, which means my clean channel has that awesome late-80s early-90s ballad tone, which is what i love. Now, if i'm playin shit like Killswitch, Pantera, Shadows Fall, and my own brand of metal which is a bastard child of Van Halen and Fozzy, i use the lead channel with the Wylde Overdrive with the FX loop off. I keep the Lead pre-gain around 3 or 4, and the Wylde Overdrive smooths out the gain and pinch harmonics fuckin fly from the speaker cabs.

On both post gains, i've never had a need to go above 5 when in a rehearsal situation and never above 3 in a live situation.

If there is a better amp, i'm sure as hell i wouldn't be able to get it for the $900 i paid for my baby. Shit, i'd laugh, die, be shocked, etc. if you could find one for $2900.

Hell yeah, i'd gig with out a back up, i've been a dedicated Peavey user ever since i started playin guitar 8 years ago, and i could have bought any amp and will stand by Peavey til tha day i die. Hell, if tha best in most genres(EVH, Gary Rossington of Skynyrd uses the Peavey Mace amps and new XXX amps, Satch with the JSX) use Peavey products, need i say more.

And if some one ever fucked it up or stole, i'd kill them, their family, pets, children, etc. go out and by a new one.

No, really, i'd just be really upset and know that i can go out and get the same great tone for less than a $1000.

I just tried out this amp in a local music store this weekend. The amp has killer tones and a variety of them. The features are somewhat limited by intent of design. I decided I have enough amps and this one although truly awesome, wouldn't add anything really to my collection. I'm a reverb kind of player. I like it and that's why there are so many different amps and FX out there. The single BEST AMP ON THE PLANET IS THE ONE YOU LIKE THE BEST.

The sounds were killer. There were a variety of sounds and we were allowed only a ten minute try out. That sucked. I got away with a 1/2 hour. The amp wasn't real noisy for being such a high gain amp. There was some noise, but hey, I've got a Bad Cat that is Class A and noisy at times. I tried four guitars through it: A LPC; Strat SSS; Strat HSS; and a Strat with EMGs HSS. Yes Colin, I've been playing for 35 years and have played in places you probably could not even approach. My triute band was #1 nation wide! I do think "The Dude at" was a little rough on you though. I don't find it necessary to get all emotional and curse someone because thier tastes are different from mine. I also don't think you've got the right to blast someone either. If you don't like a product, don't buy it and don't use it; perhaps don't even listen to the musicians who use them.

If this amp is like any other Peavey tube amp I've ever owned, it will be an unstoppable tank.

I've dealt with Peavey for 30 years now. Mr. Peavey himself has written me two emails and contacted me once on the phone. Peavey sets the stanard for customer service by which all others should be judged in my opinion.

If this amp had reverb, I'd probably find some way to add it to my collection. My retirement account is suffering, but I've got a storage space full of gear. It is truly an amazing amp with "ALMOST" uncontrollable gain. It sounds awesome for what is is intended to be.

First off I would like to say that Colin, the guy who wrote the review below, likes to rub against little boys on the bus. For some reason he felt the need to bash anyone who uses EMG pickups. Since I use EMG's exclusively, I just want Colin to know that when he is done blowing his boyfriend, he ought to go down to the local corner store and buy himself a clue. Your tone is the result of a number of factors: strings, pickups, the wood the guitar is made of, the amp you are plugged into, the type of tubes in the amp, the cabinet you are playing through, the type of speakers in the cabinet, etc. If he doesn't care for the way EMG's react with the rest of his signal chain, that's his business, but there are a lot of ways to skin a cat. To bash EMG's and anyone who uses them is just a glaring example of how truly stupid Colin is. Hey Colin, please refrain from posting further reviews until your balls drop!

You can check the Peavey homepage for the vital specs, but it's got two channels, Rhythm and Lead. You will notice that I did not use the words Clean and Lead, because the Rhythm channel was not meant to be a clean channel. You can roll back the volume knob on your guitar to help improve matters if you are after a clean sound, but that really isn't what this amp was made for. If you are expecting a Fender Twin Reverb clean out it, you are what is known as a complete fucking idiot.

This amp is the 5150 with a different name. Internally they are the same amp. I own a 5150, but am writing this review here because obviously it applies to the 6505 as well.

Jackson Rhoads guitars with EMG's (81,60). One guitar is in standard tuning, one with all strings detuned a half step, and the third with all strings detuned a whole step. I use a Marshall JCM900 1960B cab and I play real metal (Old metallica, Slayer, Sepultura, Pantera, Exodus, etc), not the pathetic excuse for music that passes as heavy these days (Limp Bisquick, Lincoln Log Park, Kornhole).

I mentioned above that it has no clean channel, just Rhythm and Lead. If you are really hell bent on getting a decent clean sound out of it, I recommend swapping out the third Pre-amp tube from a 12AX7 to a 5751, which has about a third as much gain as a 12AX7. It reduces the gain enough to get a usable clean sound, and also tames the lead channel a little bit, which some people like since a common complaint is that there is too much gain on the lead channel.

On the subject of pre-amp tubes, I recommend Electro Harmonix 12AX7's as they provide the warmest tone and best harmonic content of any 12AX7 that I have tried, and I have tried all of them short of some NOS tubes that I couldn't get my hands on. A lot of people rave about the JJ 12AX7's, so I tried them, but I found that they had almost no harmonic content and the tone suffered compared to the EH tubes. Everything is personal preference, but I found that the JJ's were dull and lifeless compared to the EH. (NOTE: These were not relabeled Sovteks, they were true Electro Harmonix tubes. The first batch of EH 12AX7's that came over to the states were just relabeled Sovteks, but the EH's that came after are completely different tubes than any of the Sovtek 12AX7's, and Sovtek makes a bunch of different 12AX7's. EH tubes are made by Sovtek, in the same factory as the Sovtek tubes, but they are not identical. The design of the tubes is different from any of 12AX7's that Sovtek makes, and the quality controls are better than the Sovtek tubes) The first three pre-amp tubes are for the gain stages, the fourth is for the effects loop, and the fifth is the phase inverter for the power amp. So, swapping out any of the first three tubes for something else will affect your tone and the amount of gain the pre-amp produces.

When it comes to power tubes, I settled on Svetlana's after extensive testing with just about every kind of 6L6 that I could get my hands on. Again, other people rave about the JJ's, but I didn't care for them at all. They sounded thin and had a spike in the upper mids that gave the amp a horrible honk. Sovtek and Chinese 6L6's were slightly better, but the Svetlana's won hands down for my taste.

The amp has two inputs, Normal and High. I use the Normal input because the distortion is too fizzy plugged into the high gain input. Obviously with lower output pickups you might want to use the High gain input, but I found that with a high output humbucker plugged into the Normal input, there is still a ton of gain, but with a lot less fizz so you retain better note definition. A high output humbucker plugged into the high gain input will result in a VERY distorted sound, so if that's what you are after, go right ahead.

The Rhythm channel with the crunch button engaged (gain boost) has more gain than the lead channel of most other "high gain" amps that I have played. The Lead channel has more gain than anything I have ever owned or plugged into and that includes the famous black face rectifiers from the early 90's (I had a Dual from the second batch of recto's that Mesa ever made). Tonally the Rhythm channel has more bass than the Lead channel, and the bass is also a little tighter on the Rhythm channel. The Rhythm channel is voiced like a lot like a JCM800, but with way bass and way more gain than any Marshall ever produced. The Lead channel has been compared to the Soldano SLO, and while I can't speak to that comparison personally, I will say that a LOT of expensive high gain tube amps have found their way into my possession since I got my 5150 (

Absolutely Bullet Proof.

I have never had to deal with them personally, but their homepage has all of their manual and a nice forum for people with amp related questions.

By itself, it's a very nice amp. Throw a BBE sonic maximizer in the loop and you will be in high gain heaven. I also use a Hush Super C, but that's only because I A/B to another amp for clean sounds and need the 5150 (6505) to be completely quiet when it's not in use. You could get a better amp, but it'll probably cost three times as much. Don't be afraid to experiment with different combinations of tubes as the amp is very responsive to the differences from tube to tube. In some amps the tone doesn't really change much even if you swap in different tubes, but the 5150 (6505)will cover a lot of ground sonically if you are patient enough to do a little experimenting.

i got my head a week ago. I still have my old 5150II. Features are the same thing. Just the face plate is different. it was a good clean channel if you use the boos or digitech x sustainer pedals. The crunch channel isn't for emo what i call it something else. The crunch is more use for 60 to 70 rocks or mild rhythm. The f/x loop is good. Now come for the beast and best part of the amp. The Lead channel. Nothing more else to say. I just use the clean and lead channels only. ALL TUBE IS THE WAY TO GO!!!

Clean will need a lot of tweaking and a sustainer pedal. A must need for your Lead channel and that is Boss Noisegate pedal. It will be perfect for the hissing sound. I love the clean and lead. i playing on Ibanez 7-string guitar with DiMarzio Evolution pickups. This are the best. I think people are pathetic with their EMG's pussy battery powered pickup. Get a real passive pick up like mine or the Tone Zone. If all you little pussies out there just use drop tuning then you are pathetic even more. I tune my guitars to B flat to A. I use the new digitech x-series for my sounds. Just Flanger, Sustainer, Delay, Whammy, Phaser, Vox Wah and Reverb. I play classical/flamenco style, and metal. Death/Black Metal. Have fun on your own when it comes to your own settings.

Yes i do all the time, but you will need to replace your footswitch after a 2 or more years. Unless you don't stomp on it like some idiot's do so.

Don't need it cause i never had any trouble. Just when getting another footswitch and getting new tubes put in for me. Thanks a lot Bill.

I would get a new one in a minute if someone stolen it or it just died on me.

Amp was just released in march of 2005. It is a 2 channel all tube amp but their is no clean channel you can make it sound close to clean but come on this amp is made for one thing only, brutal ass distortion. I use only the lead channel for the crazy amounts of gain it has. It has 10 tubes (6 preamp 12AX7 and 4 power amp 6L6) and 120 watts. At volume 2 it is loud enough to hear across an entire house and at 3 your drummer will hate you for drowning him out. If you go past 4 your ear drums are bleeding. Loud as hell!

I use a B.C. Rich KKV with zakk wylde emg pickups (81, 85) and an Ibanez rg7620. The KKV is tuned to drop B and the 7 string to drop A. I play Metal and Hardcore. The amp is noisy but it's a high gain amp, itshould be. Get a MXR Smart Gate or an ISP Decimator and then laugh at your friends when you pull off perfect start stops with your band. The amp is made for super high gain. I never put it above 7 on the gain or it gets to be too much. The clean channel is non-existent but the "rythm" channel distorts easily at almost any volume. If you wanted clean out of a 6505 then you should go put on your emo records and cry anout you pussies. All I need to say is that the BALLS on this amp easily surpass anything short of a Bogner Uberschall or Framus Cobra. Honestly, If you re-bias the tube settings to 35mA then this thing can easily compete with amps more than twice it's price.

Haven't had a problem with anything Peavey I've ever owned so I'm guessing this will be no different.

I haven't dealt with them yet and i don't expect to.

I've been playing for almost 9 years and this is by far the best amp head i've played. For the price it competes with amps it shouldn't even come close to. I play the head through a Randall full stack consisting of a 4x12 and a 2x12 with a 15 that just kills. i heard the 6505 sheffield speakers are even better so i have to go try that shit out. I don;t need a clean channel, all i need is pure heaviness and this amp is perfect for that. I love the way it looks with its grill and faded peavey logo (It's not white like it is in the pictures, it's a dark silver). If it were stolen i would either buy another or work my ass off to go buy an Uberschall because those things are evil. I looked at Marshall JCM 2000 and the shitty new triple Rectifiers that take years to find a decent sound from. Mesa egineering my ass, my peavey destroys any mesa product any day and for half the price. Just buy the damn thing already if you need an instrument of destruction.