What is the BEST sounding Peavey guitar amp ever made??? IYO

[Slobrain]

Hey everyone,

I thought I would ask the question, what is considered the BEST sounding peavey guitar amp ever made? I have heard many people over many years using many different guitar amps made and some sound good, some sound great and some sound downright horrible.

I wanted to ask what you all thought about Peavey amps? I like them but I love Fender amps. I’ve had many Marshalls but still favored the Fenders. The one thing I could always say about the old Peavey amps were cheap in cost but built like tanks.

Cheers

[soundguruman]

Well, on one hand PV guitar amps sound like a jet plane with asthma. The black widow speaker sounds equally awful.

On the other hand, PV supports customers with schematics, parts, free shipping, and very nice people....unlike Chinese mystery amp manufactures. (makers of Crate-Pegs, fake Vox, fake Orange, Fake Acoustic, Fake Kustom, etc...etc...)

But if you are looking for sound quality, Fender, Bogner, Egnator and Marshall...etc... are still superior, and they support their customers very well, it seems.

BEST sounding PV guitar amp? They don't qualify as "sounding." They just turn on and "work." It's amps for the masses, not sound quality. It's like the VW bug of guitar amps.

And you might say that EVH Peavey 5150 is good sounding. But I think it's basically a mistake.
Fender is making the 5150 now...and that should tell you something about quality.

[Justin Thomas]

My father's 69 (supposedly) Les Paul Custom sounded pretty damn good through that little Backstage + he had... very Santana-like but thicker with more meat and sustain. But as is so often true, I couldn't make it sound like that, even with the same settings. But he could get pretty close with my Strat and Shipping Container.

I think that when ALL the factors are considered, Peavey is a great value for bang/buck combination. I've heard really good sounding ones, none phenomenal. But a great player could make it happen. If you've got a lot of money to blow, sure get the Silverface Fender. But if you have limited funds, I could recommend a Peavey. And I'll pick up a Backstage as a practice amp if the price is right.

[dmartn149]

I don't know about the "best sounding" but I used to have an Ultra 410 that I thought sounded great. At the time I was buying guitars at local pawn shops and reselling them on Ebay. That Peavey seemed to make any guitar sound good. Boy, was it heavy though. I've heard some Classic series Peaveys that sounded really good too. Had a 5150 for part of a day. Couldn't get it to sound good (to me)
I don't really have guru ears, but I know what I like when I hear it. Often it is the skill of the player that is the main factor.

[Cygnus X1]

Classic 30 seems to be creeping up just by being there.
Like a working class Deluxe Reverb.

I can remember when DR's were laughed at but quietly has made it's way to top of the heap.
I see the Classic 30's doing the same.

Some people rave about the old Mace and Deuce amps.
I think it's just Skynyrd fan syndrome phenom for those people.

The 5150 does what it does very well...which is a clone but still.

[ReadyTeddy]

What came to my mind in reading this thread is what makes Peavey amps, at least to many people's ears, sound inferior to Fender or Marshall? Leo certainly designed his amps with cost management in mind. I guess what intrigues me is that there may be some fairly easily correctable things that would make a cheap old Peavey amp quite respectable, e.g., different OT, different speaker, changes in component values, change in B+ voltage?

[g1]

what is considered the BEST sounding peavey guitar amp ever made?

I guess there would be as many different answers as there are different styles of guitar.
Hard rock, country, metal, classical and acoustic, pedal steel, what style of music are you asking about?
Peavey made amps for all kinds of players, I don't think there is one model of amp that is best for all styles. If, for example, you are in a country band, what a metal player considers the best Peavey amp is not going to help you.
Maybe you could be a little more specific about the style you are concerned with.

[dmartn149]

What came to my mind in reading this thread is what makes Peavey amps, at least to many people's ears, sound inferior to Fender or Marshall? Leo certainly designed his amps with cost management in mind.

Yeah, that thought occured to me too. Probably it's because we are used to hearing Fenders and Marshalls. Now they are the "standard"

[salvarsan]

Classic 30 seems to be creeping up just by being there.
Like a working class Deluxe Reverb.

I'll go a little further and say they actually sound good with a P90-equipped guitar and a mild level of master gain. This is at performance, not practice, sound levels when they can otherwise have an ice-pick-in-the-ear quality to them.

[Chuck H]

What's with the bashing on Peavey tone?!? Peavey amps sound just fine IMHE. But I'll agree that all Peavey made or branded speakers could be replaced for a significant upgrade in tone. I've heard A LOT of players using Classic series amps and 5150's in clubs that sounded great. I'm pretty particular and a friend of mine was crying about the bad tone of his Classic 50. So I took out the Blue Barfbag speakers that were in there and replaced them with Emi Private Jacks. Which, as it turns out, are a phenomenal match for that amp. So as far as budget goes I think Peavey's, while modestly priced at face value, come with the prerequisite of speaker replacement. Adding significant cost to the user. But once that's done they are fine sounding. Best picks? If you play hard rock or metal the 5150 or it's current incarnation, the 6505. For anything else I'd say the Classic 50.

And as for anyone digging the older Peavey tube amps because of their Skynyrd heritage... They're more impressed by the playing than the tone, they just don't know it. Ronnie's tones were most often barely listenable for me personally.

[Slobrain]

Wow, I just got back from vacation in Florida and didn’t get a chance to go to any pawn shops... only one that had no guitar gear, only guns...

The reason I asked about Peavey amps was out of nostalgia from my early days playing metal on Galveston Island in the very early 80's before Hurricane Alicia hit the Island. For about 10 years all I could afford was Peavey SS amps. Then I went on to use a Carvin X100B with and old Marshall 4x12 which sounded good back in 1993. I did have a nice old Marshall non master 50 watt thru that old Marshall 4x12 that sounded good too but had to sell that t help buy a PA system. The Peaveys were used by so many musicians on the Island back then.

yep, some Peavey amps sound bad, like the Bandit 65, but some models sounded better than others. The funny thing is I used to see so many Peavey amps in Pawn shops but now I hardly ever see them in the pawns anymore, mostly just cheap junk China made amps which is pathetic since we are a nation of builders who used to make quality stuff, now we all buy cheap import stuff.

I sure hated to see Peavey move manufacturing to China... Peavey was always known as the working mans amp. The build quality showed it was definitely American build too. And, yes I do think someone could have come up with mods to make some of those old SS amps sound better. Peavey always seemed to build a mid hump into the sound of the amp which may be good for some styles but not others.

Cheers

[Mark Hammer]

My very first "good" amp was a Classic 50 - the ss+power-tube w/front-mounted controls model - with two 12's that I bought new in 1973. It was a good amp but the speakers had multiple personality disorder. You'd familiarize with the amp settings during practice, then at gig levels, they'd behave entirely differently. Drove me nuts. I'd keep an eye out for one 2nd hand, if I didn't know in my heart of hearts that I would have to buy new speakers for it.

Apart from that, Hartley and co. make a good product that has, from day 1, delivered value for the money for working musicians.

As an aside, some years ago I took a book out from the library that I think was called "300 Great Ideas" (or maybe it was 100). These were business/organization ideas that had been submitted to Inc. magazine over the years from Fortune and Forbes 500 companies. Just little "Here's what we did..." things. One of the cleverest, IMO, came from Peavey as a way to reduce workplace accidents. They would run a factory bingo with decent prizes. Bingo numbers would only be announced following an accident-free day. Of course, "accident-free" means that if you want to get to a prize faster, you also need to make sure that your co-workers work safely too, not just taking care of yourself. You gotta respect someone who can come up with something like that.

[dmartn149]

Wasn't he also the first to use CNC machines to carve guitar necks and bodys?

[Chuck H]

I sure hated to see Peavey move manufacturing to China...

I don't know how much of Peavey's line is made in China right now. As of about three years ago it was mostly just pro audio stuff and the guitar amps were still made in the US. Could have changed. I obviously haven't kept up.

[Enzo]

Can't tell you percentages, but a lot of lower end guitar amps now come from China. ValveKing series for example. They still make a lot in Meridian.