Delta Blues 115 and National

[jazzbass12]

I’m looking into a Peavey Delta Blues 115 for my National. I have situations where it is just me and a drummer and Harp player-and I need to amplify.
I was thinking the 15” would give me a little more bottom and volume.
Any experience with this or other amp
suggestions?
Resorocket woodbody with Hotplate
NRP with National Slimline PU
Thanks

[twang1]

Hi, I think it all depends on the kind of sound you are looking for and if you are amplifing the amp. If you are just plugging into your amp with no P.A. and you want a cleaner sound you might be better off with something bigger and more power keeping the volume low. If you are looking for some '50s growling a-bit-distorted sound the Peavey sounds all right. And it also depends on how loud is the drummer... :-)
P.S. I love the woodbody resorocket!
Frank

[blueshome]

The Peavey will be incredibly loud when turned up but will consequently have loads of headroom at lower volumes.

Why not just go into the pa?

[twtx]

When I was a pedal steel player, a 15 was a must-have item, just because you wanted a speaker that could handle lots of watts and a wide range of frequencies, while keeping the tone super clean. For blues, I like a little more "hair" on my tone, so I use a 5-watt tube amp with a 12" speaker. A 15-inch speaker can get a little flubby in the low end; I'd probably rather have two 12s if I was using that much power. Those Delta Blues amps are nice, but hauling a 50-pound amp around gets old fast!

[Deleted]

I use a 15" with tweeter for backline, and put a small PA amp through it. No sign of flabbiness, just great full tones.
I also use a pair of marshall 2x12" speakers for my PA at small gigs. Great sound, but not as good as a 15".
TT
some tasty playing here with one...

[snakehips]

Hi there !

I made up a 15” amp combo with a Jensen 15” alnico speaker, a Award-Session Blues Baby 45 amp chassis, and had a cabinet made for a 15” speaker, with top cut-out for a Fender Blues Jnr (as the Blues Baby amp chassis is exactly same size, same screws & screw holepositions etc).
With the larger/wider cabinet, I was also able to fit a full width reverb tray, instead of the short on s Blies Jnrs come with.
Great amp and not as heavy as a Blues Jnr, despite being bigger. It’s got the same controls as a Blues Jnr, plus acouple of tone switches., no valves but sounds like a valve amp.
Even lighter with a ceramic speaker

[bonzo]

Hi everyone, I've also got a session amp fully loaded (Thanks Kristo) that I've enjoyed very much, accepting my limited skills. Last week I heard someone else play through it (MIM Telecaster) WOW.
Amp really came alive. Like Snakey I would really recommend. Limited knowledge on the subject accepted as mentioned earlier! Definitely worth checking out, it really has a smooth valve sound without some of the worries.
(I like valves (tubes for some overseas members!) with hi-fi as well as guitars.

Best wishes to you all, John

[snakehips]

Hi again,

Here is my 15” amp combo, using the Award-Session Blues Baby 45 (watts !) amp inside.
Cabinet maker in England somewhere buolt the cab for me, and I put it all together.
No specialist tools or skills were required, just a Philips screwdriver !
Standard Fender Blues Jnr beside it for size comparison.
The bottom most picture is from when I had my Blues Jnr amp in the 15” cab, as you can just see the black knobs on the top.

Attachments:

[mitchfit]

self admitted tone snob here, preferring amps from a select few US builders.

that said, the delta blues 15 is a good [cost vs quality] amp for your described use. also, twtx's advice above about weight is worthy of consideration.

these amps are a ~well executed~ hybrid of tube and pedal circuits. with the pre volume set high and post gain knobs set low in the dirt channel nice low to lowish volume authentic tube sounding dirt is available.

the clean channel has a nice fender-esque tone circuit. it is NOT a vox cascading AC 30 tone circuit like one would think given output tubes/valves. as such, it will require higher volumes if you wanna make 4ea 6BQ5/EL84's sing sweetly. what's he saying here? if you plan to use the clean channel mostly, a hollow body guitar will likely be problematic due to feedback issues when the amp is up into the tube "shimmer" zone.

verb and trem can be used with both channels. trem is good stuff, verb is so-so.

used, these are about 1/2 cost of new [USA] the older ones [with a square logo plate] had a very inefficient 85 dB (+,-) rated speaker in them which would be a real plus for volume attenuation unless you play medium to big venues.

if buying used make sure to get factory foot switches required to switch on the fly with dirt/clean and verb/and or/trem. if OEM is not in the deal, these are not expensive new from peavey.

also, let's say you can find a beat up used one on the cheap that is in good working order. then you could decapitate it and keep the speaker in the separate cab created to greatly improve mobility issues. could be as simple as screwing plywood on to seal up both remaining sections.

but as ugly as a mud fence. if you got it cheap, not much resale value lost by this.

warnings--needs to see 16 ohm speaker load. so stick with OEM driver, or go with 2ea 8 ohm speakers wired in series with aftermarket cab as suggested in above postings.

if going with separate cab use speaker cable. read: not a Hi_Z guitar cable. never turn on a tube amp without a speaker load attached. you can cook a transformer in seconds.

don't ask me how i know....

$0.02,
mitchfit

[twang1]

The best sound I ever obtained at any volume with a reso through an amp was with a Fender Twin or a Super Reverb (or the two combined). Small rooms, big stages, stadiums...
But...dragging around such an amp...you know...your back might not be so happy!
Frank