Peavey PV 6 BT 6 Channel Compact Mixer with Bluetooth

I was looking for a new mixer for bar gigs. I had previously used mostly Alto for my portable "backpack" mixers, and Yamaha for my rack mount rigs. I decided to try this Peavey. I'm pretty impressed. The form factor on this mixer is really compact. It has some features that other similar class mixers like the Yamaha MG06X or Mackie ProFXv3 don't have. Things like EQ on channels 3/4 (three knob EQ at that), the option for 3.5 mm or 1/4" input on channels 3/4, RCA or 1/4" inputs on channels 5/6, bluetooth, USB, and variable onboard effects make this a highly versatile mixer. The sound quality is pretty reasonable for a portable mixer, and the footprint is small. My only complaint would be the power supply (like many other devices of this type) has a somewhat frail cable that started fraying on me after moderate regular use (1-3 gigs per week over about 3 months). Overall, this is a very solid, and feature-packed mixer.

I'm totally blind. Let this review be exceptionally useful for other blind folks out there interested in this kind of equipment, and may this also be useful to everyone trying to look at the picture to determine what controls this gadget has. My mom can see just fine and she had a rough time trying to describe it.My overall impression as to the quality is good. I haven't noticed any dings or other indications of quality problems. One of my knobs on channel 1, the one for mid knob on the equalizer, does have an almost undiscernable bump at center, but it is just good enough to put up with. The rest of the knobs that have this are right.I was a little disappointed to discover that apparently the reaper software is just a demo. I also was surprised to find this apparently does not ship with a USB cable, not that I could find anyway. The end that goes in the mixer is just the square type like they have on printers though, and I had a couple laying around.My microphone is aRode NT1A Anniversary Vocal Condenser Microphone PackageI run the USB through a hole I drilled in a kitchen style cabinet that sits above my computer desk, inside which sits aIntel Desktop/HTPC 6th Generation Intel Dual-Core i3 2.3GHz, 8GB DDR4, 120GB SSD, Wifi, Bluetooth, 4K Capable, Dual Monitor Capable, Windows 10 Professional 64BitNote that the NUC linked here is not the seller I bought mine from, but the specs are the same.Anyway, that keeps the background noise level down somewhat. On to the mixer itself...PV6-bt has 6 input channels and only one output channel, although you can get that output to come out in multiple places. I use it to mix my mic, an 8th inch patch cable, my PC and maybe bluetooth sources all into one channel which I record into Gold Wave on the NUC. I'm quite pleased with how this is all laid out.Now for the physical description shall we? Across the back I have near the right end from left to right USB, power button, power plug. I like having a power button. When I'm done using the mixer I press this to power it off and the sound reverts to my USB desktop speakers. This mixer does use a wall adapter - is not powered exclusively by USB. Also on the back is llocated a pairing pin you need in order to connect a bluetooth device to this mixer. It is also supposed to be located in the user manual. I don't know if it is available in the software manual that comes on the cd. But if you can see the back edge of the mixer or have someone who can, it says pin: and has 4 didgits. When you try to pair your phone or what ever to this, you'll have to type that in. Mine is definitely not 0000 or 1234 or anything easy like that. I got help reading it though and I found the connection is reliable and easy to work with. Good Job Peavey.There are no noteworthy design elements on the left and right sides except lots of screw heads. On the front the only thing we have is, on the right end a quarter inch stereo trs jack for your monitor headphones.On the underside there are a few stickers listing some things not critical for the use of the mixer, and 4 hefty rubber feet.Now for the fun part. On the topside we have:Down the left most column: xlr/trs combo jack, trs quarter inch jack, the left most edge of the tablet dock, guitar input select toggle button, sensitivity knob, eq high knob, eq mid knob, eq low knob, eq bypass toggle button, affect volume knob, pan knob, gain knob.Eq bypass when depressed causes the eq knobs to be ignored. The affect volume knob lets you assign how much of the global affect you want added into this channel.The second column is exactly the same save it doesn't have the guitar input select button.Going down the third column we have: 8th inch (3.5mm) stereo trs line in, one left and one right mono pair of trs quarter inch to create a single stereo input, the tablet doc, sensitivity knob, eq high knob, eq mid knob, eq low knob, no eq bypass toggle button this time, affect gain knob, stereo pan knob, gain knob.The first and second column are considered channel 1 and channel 2 respectively, The third one is channels 3 and 4 combined, as evidenced by the stereo style of the jacks located there.The 4th column really starts mixing things up. We have left and right RCA inputs that create a single stereo input, one left and one right mono pair of trs quarter inch to create a single stereo input, the tablet dock, input selector switch, stereo pan knob, gain knob, affect toggle button, affect adjust knob, compressor toggle button and lots of lights.The input selector switch is a horrizontal 3 position slider, left is I believe RCA, middle is quarter inch, right is Bluetooth. The RCA and quarter inch plugs this refers to are those located directly above this switch which I mentioned. You only get to hear the source you have this switch set to. Thus you don't get to hear your bluetooth if you have the switch set to RCA, nor quarter inch for that matter. When I say get to hear I of course also mean it does not get added into the mix.The pan and gain knobs here are just what they say, but are noteworthy for being located near the top of the mixer instead of the bottom. They did this to make room for the affect and compressor controls. They consider these two knobs, the switch and the RCA and dual quarter inch plugs to be channels 5/6.The affect toggle button turns the global affect off completely when it is not depressed. The affect adjust knob located right below and slightly left of that button controls how much of the affect, though not the gain of it, you have. For the gain you use the gain knobs mentioned on channels 1, 2, and 3/4. Luckily, turning those gain knobs all the way down does totally stop the affect according to my limited hearing, so you can leave the global affect on and avoid using it on certain channels if desired. The affect is not available for channels 5/6. The compressor toggle button located just below and to the right of the affect adjust knob will disable the global compressor when it is not depressed. More logically, this button is located just to the left of the global compressor adjust knob not yet mentioned.The next column, at least as logically as I can think of it anyway (things are pretty scattered around in this area), we have the bluetooth button, the tablet dock, two buttons I don't know what to call but they control what is included in the mix (more on that in a second), a gain knob which controls how loud the USB audio will be in the mix, affect select knob, compressor gain knob, master gain knob.The bluetooth button is used to toggle the bluetooth presence on and off. I pressed and held this for about 3 seconds and the mixer appeared in the bluetooth settings on my phone. Once paired and I pressed and held this button for 3 seconds or so again, the mixer disappeared, returning my phone's audio output to the internal speaker. Note that the input selector switch mentioned on channels 5/6 which has an option for Bluetooth, must be set to Bluetooth to be able to hear the bluetooth device, even if bluetooth is turned on. For blind users like me, this means if I turn bluetooth on by holding that bluetooth button, but I don't have the switch set to Bluetooth, I won't be able to use my phone since I don't hear the speech. Just something to keep in mind. There is no lag waiting for the phone to wake up or anything if I switch the selector switch away from, then back to Bluetooth. The phone doesn't have any idea whether we can hear it it seems. I played a podcast and moved the switch between bluetooth and the quarter inch inputs just to test that, and it was still playing right along when I put it back to Bluetooth.With the two toggle buttons, the top one appears to set whether or not the USB audio can be heard on the monitor output, the bottom one seems to set whether you get the USB audio included in the mix. I tend to keep the top one depressed at all times, and I can press the bottom one in to include my computer's sound in the mix, or depress it to remove the computer's sound. When depressed, I still hear the computer's sound in my monitor headphones, but it is about half as loud as when this is depressed. The USB audio gain knob is just what it says, assigns how loud the USB audio will be heard in the mix.The affect assign knob lets you pick from about 17 different affects. Each affect can be modified using the previously mentioned affect adjust knob located directly to the left. The left one modifies the way the selected affect sounds. This is remembered on every affect. I got the impression several of the affects on the assign knob are the same ones, but you can make them sound different by adjusting them as such with the adjust knob. All of the affects are really just echo affects, you can be in a stadium, in a hall, a room etc. The affects do not have a stereo affect to them, even a stereo input only coming in on one side gets an echo that is dead center. It is nice and potentially handy, but Gold wave can do better if we require a stereo reverb affect, for instance.Below that affect assign knob is the compressor gain knob. When turned all the way to the right, the compressor is at maximum strength. All the way left pretty much disables the compressor as far as my limited hearing is able to tell, just like the aforementioned toggle button located directly left of this does. The compressor is supposed to detect sounds too loud and internally reduce the master gain to keep the resulting audio from being distortet, clipped or blared. It works in theory, but if you blare your microphone outright this is only going to make the blare quieter, not reduce it at all. It's still a nice touch, and really unexpectedly handy for blind folks. Want to get close to 0 db? Turn the compressor gain knob all the way to the right so it is as obvious as you can get it, then get up close and personal with your microphone and toggle the compressor button while you talk. Adjust one of the gain knobs, master, sensitivity, channel independent gain etc until the sound you hear is pretty much the same with the compressor button depressed as otherwise. Then once you know you have it about as loud as the mixer is comfortable with, you can decide whether you want to stretch out into the headroom a little, and whether you actually want the compressor to function. I like to keep the compressor off, and to have my level a little louder than the compressor wants me to.The master gain knob adjusts how loud everything on the mixer is. This affects the mixed audio source recorded over USB, through the output jacks mentioned shortly, and the headphone monitor out. I keep this almost all the way up, then turn everything else down, because I found that the USB audio isn't as loud in the mix as everything else otherwise.The last set of controls and plugs is as follows, from the top, two quarter inch plugs I haven't figured out what they do though I think they output something, perhaps high z output? The tablet dock, a set of 4 RCA plugs I believe all of which are output, a button that I think toggles between the bottom pair of RCA outputs and the top pair of RCA outputs, a knob which I believe controls how loud these outputs are, a raised button for Phantom power select (is global and applies to both channels 1 and 2 as far as I can tell), and the headphone monitor out knob.The RCA outputs I believe are a remote or local monitor select that lets you choose between the two. Like if you have speakers nearby and speakers way out somewhere else, and they're both plugged into these RCA's, I think, but am not positive, the toggle button below these sets which of those the mixed audio will be sent to. This does not seem to affect the USB audio mix being sent back to the computer nor the headphone monitor out. Speaking of the headphone monitor out, the monitor gain knob I mentioned is located at the bottom of the mixer, just above the quarter inch headphone monitor out that is actually located on the front edge facing forward, making it obvious what this knob is for.Ok, a less than perfect, but pretty thorough overview of the physical aspects. Essentially I've tried to outline the information I wish I could have had on this bad boy before I took the risk and bought it hoping for the best. Please rate my review so we can hopefully get it to appear near the beginning of the reviews list so it can benefit as many people as possible. Thanks for reading!

This is a very good audio interface/mixer for the price. I'm on my 2nd one, 1st one basically got stolen but luckily it was all that was taken.Anyway, the device is great for anybody looking to get into the recording/podcasting realm, I have mine on my desk and use it with a set of Logitech Z623 speakers to add more bass to the sub and equalize the audio coming from my Alexa device.Not only is it good for speakers, but it also supports Bluetooth inputting into the mixer, no Bluetooth 5 unfortunately and no Bluetooth output either. But it does have RCA outputs as well as 1/4 inch audio line-outs, and a 1/4 inch headphone jack on the front for monitoring. I have a stereo splitter cable with 2 1/4 inch plugs on one end and a 3.5 mm plug on the other to connect it to my Alexa device.It also supports a stereo USB input and output, so you can play your computer through this and record it's audio on your computer. If you want to equalize the sound and add echo effect however, you'll need to use the analog inputs. But luckily there is a stereo 3.5 mm jack built into the mixer as well as 2 XLR jacks for extra inputs.Oh yeah, and this mixer has a compressor function as well. So when I'm blasting music, or I want to avoid clipping my mic, I use that to help mix soft and loud audio to the same volume.Besides the 3 1/4 inch outputs I mentioned, this device has 1 set of RCA input and 2 sets of RCA outputs. It's nice that the RCA outputs also have their own volume control.Oevr all, I'd say this is well worth the money. I haven't really used any other sound cards since buying this to be honest. My main complaintss are no Bluetooth 5, no Bluetooth outputs, and only the 1st 4 channels have equalization/effect controls. But for what it does, I say it's a steal.

Got this for my speakers in my barn and it is very good for what you get. Bluetooth is strong and works very well

Overall, I like the simplicity and decent sound from this mixer. The controls are simple, intuitive, and work wellHowever, if you're hoping to use the Bluetooth input for recorded music, you'll probably be disappointed. My experience is that the Bluetooth is noisy, even with the devices placed right next to each other. I understand that a wireless connection will always be noisier than a wired one, but Peavey's Bluetooth implementation seems noisier than others. For example, I don't notice this kind of noise when using high quality Bluetooth headphones.So, great little mixer, but don't expect high quality sound if you use Bluetooth.

Has the right combination of features for a small PA setup for a solo artist. I like the built in compression. I like the level control for the Bluetooth channel. I am sure it will be built to last by Peavey. Haven’t found any down sides yet.