Peavey PS-2482 (c. 1995)
Peavey's first 8-bus console, and the polarity switch alone was worth the price of admission.
Overview
The PS 2482 is Peavey's first 8-bus desk. It stepped up from the split-console thinking behind the 2400, 1600, and 800 Series, which split the signal path between separate input and monitor sections. The 2482 goes inline - the layout that had become standard practice in project studios by the mid-1990s. It retailed at $5,859.99. That's not cheap, but it's a fraction of what a "real" 8-bus console cost at the time, and the pitch was that Peavey pulled features down from its pricier desks into a board a modest studio could actually finance.
Every channel carries a discrete-transistor mic preamp with switchable 48-volt phantom power and an input pad for hot mics. Then there's the feature reviewers kept circling back to: a polarity reverse switch. EQ (November 1995, p.36) singled this out as something almost nobody else offered in this price range. The reasoning is practical. Flipping polarity on a drum kit or a multi-miked guitar amp usually means running into the live room to swap a specially wired cable. On the 2482 it's a button push.
The channel strip is a full inline design with a secondary signal path, and Peavey added a couple of twists. There are six auxiliary sends with alternative routings, plus a stereo tape monitor send with its own pan and level controls. That alternate mix can run as a separate cue mix while tracking, or be assigned into the L-R mix to effectively double the input count on remix. The alternate mix also appears on its own at the jack panel, so it can be switched to serve as auxes 7 and 8. That saves repatching mid-session.
The EQ section is a 4-band design - high- and low-shelf plus sweepable high-mid and low-mid - normally applied at the 100 mm fader. The shelf bands can be split out to feed the alternate input, which means the tape returns get EQ too. Peavey calls the circuit a "wein-bridge" design developed in-house for the Production Series, and claims it cuts the op-amp count to roughly a quarter of a conventional EQ stage. Fewer amplifiers in the path, the argument goes, means less noise and a more transparent sound.
The tape-return handling is the other place the 2482 separates itself from generic 8-bus boards. Each channel gets dual tape inputs — an unbalanced RCA jack at -10 dB and a balanced TRS jack at +4 dB — so the console can accommodate essentially any multitrack machine without outboard level-matching. On the effects side there are eight stereo effect returns, each with a 60 mm fader, high- and low-shelf EQ, and sends to auxes 1 and 2 (switchable to 3 and 4). Any return can be assigned to any of the eight busses or the L-R mix, which makes printing effects to multitrack a matter of pushing a button. The practical upshot, as the period review noted, is that you can run a headphone cue off the auxes and still get reverb into the cans without repatching a single cable.
Every channel has a two-color LED that shows green for signal present and red for clipping anywhere in the chain. Soloing can be done PFL or in stereo, and in PFL the master meters display the true level of the soloed signal. The L-R masters, and the optional 24 x 2 meter bridge, use Peavey's Delta VU metering. It's an LED ladder that reads peak level at the top of the scale and average level at the bottom simultaneously. It's easy to read at a glance in a dim control room, and it's aimed at getting the best signal level from input to output.
The input and output jacks sit at the rear of the top panel, angled for easy viewing and repatching. Nobody has to lean over the desk to find one bad connection.
Mix (June 1996, p.31) framed the PS 2482's flexible aux/matrix routing as an industry-leading feature for getting signal where it was needed — a period endorsement of the routing design specifically, which lines up with the impression the console gives on paper. This is a board built by people who thought about how a session actually runs, not just how the numbers compare in a lab.
The PS 2482 sits in Peavey's Audio Media Research product line, and it's the model that marks the company's entry into the 8-bus market. For a project studio of the mid-1990s, that combination — inline architecture, polarity reverse, dual tape inputs, eight assignable effect returns, and Delta VU metering — at $5,859.99 was a serious proposition. It's not a collector's trophy in the way a vintage large-format desk is, but it's a genuinely interesting piece of Peavey history: the moment the company stopped being only the value brand and built a console that could hold its own in a real recording room.
Production years, detailed dimensions, weight, and current market values for the PS 2482 are not documented in the Archive's files. Collectors chasing one should verify the physical condition and fader health directly, as with any console of this age.
Similar items on eBay
No exact Peavey PS-2482 listings are live right now — these searches show current Peavey and similar vintage audio gear on eBay:
As an eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support our independent vintage technology research.