Peavey: 6505 Piranha

The 6505 label has a marked legacy. At the very least, it's renowned for perpetuating some of the best tube drive in the industry after a certain Van Halen parted ways with Peavey. The Piranha manifestation of the 6505 is a partial tube variant, running at 20W. Sporting two channels, the CRUNCH is a pseudo clean voicing, breaking up at higher settings. The clean headroom available depends on the amount of gain one dials up. The LEAD channel is a high gain menace, as metal as it gets, no compromise. 

Before we proceed with the appraisal proper, the Piranha is by no means a scaled-down version of the 6505 for a simple reason- it's not a full tube unit & not duplicating that technology per se. The pre-amp section is driven by a single 12AX7 tube & the rest runs on a solid state blueprint. 

The cleans here are mediocre at best despite the tube warmth. I've heard some other solidstate amps out-performing this one in this aspect. Things sound a little more appealing if you factor in some chorus into your signals. Single coil pickups simply couldn't make the tone any more appealing, sad to say. Moving on to the driven goodness, let's remind ourselves it's not the real 6505 in action. Overdrive sounds raunchy in all setting & the solitary EQ knob couldn't quite refine any deficiencies across the frequencies. If you wish to hear more bass, this could be had but it doesn't cure the dreary top end. Same goes for more treble, no mushy low frequencies could be addressed while you're at it. 

The Piranha is rather accommodating when it comes to handling external pedals but that's more so for the CRUNCH option at about 50% gain setting (no break up heard). Even the loop option (seen above, the Piranha's rear panel) lends itself well to pedals, drive/distortion ones included. The LEAD channel on the other hand, reacts best with boost type units. Overdrive & distortion do not supplement the amp's default voicings. A successful formula on the other hand is the employment of active pickups. That's right, the instrument's high output pickups are more successful here. 

All in all, the 6505 label here is a misnomer- there's no true 6505 tones to be heard. We hear a hybrid technology in action which defies categorization; it's neither the sublime 6505 high gain menace nor the great solid state grit coming from a Peavey Bandit (among others). On that note, if you are a fan of raunchy amplifier overdrive that guarantees to fuel the most intense of punk & hardcore tones for that matter, this is it.

All in all, the manufacturer is treading a messy path by calling the Piranha a 6505. Granted it's a clever labelling through product differentiation (by adding the Piranha label there, of course), it leads to confusion & misrepresentation. In view of the 6505 affiliation there, the Piranha is an underwhelming performer with very limited options in tone tweaking should things go south in terms of expectations. However, it does let loose some of the crustiest overdrive coming from a hybrid format. Here's hoping that there are further developments in the works, otherwise, it is simply living in the shadows of the 6505 label.

Rating: 69%

Peavey: 6505 Piranha (storage/carry bag included)
Availability: Guitar Workshop

Piranha bites

Good Saturday morning to the gear heads out there. It's fast approaching mid-month & for many of us, our funds are running low. Nevertheless, we move on with the consolation that good affordable gear are available if we look at the right places. With that in mind, the Peavey 6505 Piranha head seen here is an affordable piece of gear, listing for $250 & I managed to check it out at Guitar Workshop last evening.

First impressions

There's no clean channel on offer here so if you need to toggle between clean & dirt, please consider something else out there. Also, contrary to popular embrace, the Piranha is not a full tube unit; it features a tube pre-amp with a solidstate power section. This is a flagship technology done years ago with Peavey (TransTube) & Marshall (Valvestate) being the forefront names in the game. Peavey eventually removed all tubes in their TransTube technology & products with this technology tag are 100% solidstate. 

The crunch channels offer a fair serving of Bluesbreaker-esque nuances at the early gain stages, moving on to a good ACDC type attack at both higher gain & volume levels. The lead channel pushes the gain boundaries while retaining the crunch bite. This might upset the 6505 fans out there but the Piranha does not offer that blistering heavy metal assault we love to hear coming from the 5150 & 6505 amps under the Peavey moniker. Instead, the high gain module offered here remains crunchy but with excessive jabs to address all things heavy metal- this is the crucial difference. It had to happen this way because Peavey has the lunchbox type 6505 in the catalog & if you wish to tread the 6505 way then you need a real 6505 to do the job. The Piranha here is a different take on the 6505 aggression using an essentially different approach- a hybrid pre/power section.

I'm holding back further appraisals for the Piranha until mine gets here 😁 I took up the pre-order promotion for the Piranha yesterday- a 10% discount (you should too, if you are interested) & I'm fully aware that I'm not getting a full fledge 6505 tones upon acquisition. The showroom model isn't for sale but it's a good opportunity to hear the Piranha in action. So head down to Guitar Workshop for the personal experience. 

Thank you Guitar Workshop for the opportunity. My special thanks to the lady boss in store for helping me with the testing yesterday (didn't catch your name- apologies!).

PS: 10% discount only for the first 5 pre-orders (OK now down to 4...)