Peavey MiniMEGA 1000 Bass Amplifier Head Review

Peavey MiniMEGA 1000 Bass Amplifier Head Review…

Peavey, a household name in every musicians home, whether you have Peavey gear or not. I’ve played through many Peavey bass amps, small, big, old, and now, new. Peavey gear has always been reliable for me and I am really excited about the Peavey MiniMEGA 1000 Bass Amplifier Head. The MiniMEGA is 1000 watts at 4 Ohms and 700 watts at 8 Ohms. It can be used to practice in the studio, or bedroom, with headphones, without headphones, practically any way you want to use it. I’ll talk about features a little later, but even at its quietest producing volume, it can make any small cabinet sound like the big boys. That is one feature that I had heard about, and of course, I tested that theory right away and was very impressed with the sound produced just from a 1-10 cabinet. I want to touch on another feature, that while it doesn’t have to do with the tonal sound quality that the MiniMEGA produces, it’s still a pretty cool feature. The backlight can be set to any of the colors provided, or can rotate through the multitude of colors. There are ten colors to choose from and they can be left to rotate, which is default when nothing is plugged into the input, or you can choose from one of the colors with the Crunch and Comp buttons.

The Peavey MiniMEGA 1000 Bass Amplifier Head is class D. Along with the Instrument input and headphone input on the front panel are the standard controls for Gain, Comp (Compressor), Kosmos, Volume and controls for the EQ which are Low, Low Mid, High Mid, and High. The Low Mid and High Mid are stacked controls that have filter controls recessed in with the Low Mid and High Mid controls. For the Low Mid, you can adjust the boost with the outer control and the frequency for each with the inner recessed control. The boost for both is -/+ 15 dB and the frequency for the Low Mid can be adjusted from 200 to 800Hz and the High Mid can be adjusted between 800Hz to 3.2 KHz. These specs are also clearly labeled with the Low Mid and High Mid controls right on the front panel. While those are the basic controls, Peavey didn’t stop there.

There are buttons underneath each control, some apply to the control and some have other functions. The buttons light up when they are activated. Below the Gain control is the Crunch button. The Crunch button makes the MiniMEGA sound like a tube-head. The more the Gain is adjusted, the more Crunch you get. Below the Comp control is the Enable button for the compressor. Below the Low EQ control is the Punch button. When activated, Punch gives you 4dB of boost and definitely makes a difference in the low notes played. Below the Low Mid and High Mid EQ controls are the Narrow-Q buttons. Narrow-Q gives you less bandwidth for the filtering. Peavey suggests for typical setting to use wide-Q setting for Low Mid and the Narrow-Q setting for High Mid. Definitely something that can be experimented with to get it to your liking. Below the High EQ control is the Bright button which boosts the high frequencies around 8KHz. Below the Kosmos control is the enable button, and the Volume control has a mute button which also sends a signal to the tuner.

One of the many great features is the Kosmos control. This is a stacked control where the outer knob, Kosmos A, is a sub-harmonic octave control and adds that extra low frequency that can be heard and felt. The inner knob, Kosmos C, controls the bass enhancement, which can make even the smallest cabinets sound big. Kosmos A fits nicely on a gig. I used the MiniMEGA on a gig where the band did some 80’s tunes that used synth bass and Kosmos A did the job. Kosmos C is great for live or just practicing. I used it with a small cab for practice, and then used it with a much larger cab for the gig.

The rear panel has the on/off power switch, two speaker outs that accept Speak-On or 1/4” speaker cables, and aux in to connect your audio device in order to practice along with tunes. There is an XLR Out and TRS Balanced output and both can be run pre/post EQ, with pad for the signal, and a ground lift button is present. There is also an effects loop send and return and you can enable or disable this by holding in the Crunch button and High Mid Button. There is a Midi Jack for the optional footswitch, which can be used to control various aspects of the MiniMEGA. Last but not least, is the Tuner Out, which when the Mute button is enabled, the signal is passed to your tune.

Peavey has gone above and beyond with the Peavey MiniMEGA 1000 Bass Amplifier Head. Using it to practice with and on live gigs, I noticed quite a few things. The tube-like sound you can get with the Crunch button, the ability for it to make even the smallest of cabinets have that big sound, and an EQ that even when set flat, still sounds great. This is one amp that I left all the EQ settings at 12 o’clock and it sounded great. In addition to everything outstanding that Peavey has done with the MiniMEGA, they also include a heavy duty carry bag, something that with most other amp purchases you need to acquire separately. Peavey has put a lot of time into developing an amp that bass players will want and need. Whether you need a new amp or not, the Peavey MiniMEGA 1000 Bass Amplifier Head is well worth a look and listen and could very possibly be the last amp you will ever need.

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