Crate Palomino or Peavey Classic?

[jonnymangia]

Brought my SG Standard to GC to test amps and the Crate Palomino 30 watt sounded great. Anyone familiar with these amps? How do they compare to Peavey Classsic 30?

Jonny

[jeremy]

Re: Crate Palomino or Peavey Classic?

i havent played a classic 30 in a while but those 30w crates are pretty sweet. my suggestion is to make them throw in a full set of groove tubes, three GT12AX7C preamps and four GTEL84S power tubes, then get a free celestion G12H-30w 8 ohm speaker, they will probably need to order it for you. throw those tubes and speaker in and you are in tone heaven.

you definitly want the el84s models, they are the jj variety
i like the 12ax7c tubes for a sweet bluesy/classic rock tone. if you like more edge then ask for the 12ax7m tubes

do you have your guy at gc? if not get to know which guy is the good guy and knows his stuff.
if so, or when you find out whos the good guy to know, tell your sales dude you want the amp, tubes and speaker for $650 including tax. if he says he cant do it, tell him youll walk. if he still says no, walk. if hes not a moron, hell do the deal.
always buy from the same guy and getting deals isnt so hard.

[jonnymangia]

Re: Crate Palomino or Peavey Classic?

Thanks for the heads up Jeremy. The one thing I didn't like about it was that the clean broke up really quickly. Will modding it with those tubes, preamps and speaker take care of that? As for tones, I'm looking for Billy Gibbons, Angus Young, Clapton/Beano. You think those mods will do it?

i havent played a classic 30 in a while but those 30w crates are pretty sweet. my suggestion is to make them throw in a full set of groove tubes, three GT12AX7C preamps and four GTEL84S power tubes, then get a free celestion G12H-30w 8 ohm speaker, they will probably need to order it for you. throw those tubes and speaker in and you are in tone heaven.

you definitly want the el84s models, they are the jj variety
i like the 12ax7c tubes for a sweet bluesy/classic rock tone. if you like more edge then ask for the 12ax7m tubes

do you have your guy at gc? if not get to know which guy is the good guy and knows his stuff.
if so, or when you find out whos the good guy to know, tell your sales dude you want the amp, tubes and speaker for $650 including tax. if he says he cant do it, tell him youll walk. if he still says no, walk. if hes not a moron, hell do the deal.
always buy from the same guy and getting deals isnt so hard.

[Xeromus]

Re: Crate Palomino or Peavey Classic?

Try the V-series with the EL-34's sometime too.

[jeremy]

Re: Crate Palomino or Peavey Classic?

the new speaker will give you a better tone but also more volume so you will have more clean headroom just from the speaker.

you could always put a 12AT7 in v1 (tube closest to the input jack) and that will lower the preamp gain a little bit letting you have a little more clean headroom. id suggest a rating of 7 for the gtel84s power tubes, good amount of headroom before breakup but not too hard sounding.
all those guys you mentioned used marshalls, youll be able to get a great tone for that type of music but if you want to nail the tone youll need multiple speakers and probably a bigger louder amp. i think youll be happy with the palomino

[marvar]

Re: Crate Palomino or Peavey Classic?

i havent played a classic 30 in a while but those 30w crates are pretty sweet. my suggestion is to make them throw in a full set of groove tubes, three GT12AX7C preamps and four GTEL84S power tubes, then get a free celestion G12H-30w 8 ohm speaker, they will probably need to order it for you. throw those tubes and speaker in and you are in tone heaven.

you definitly want the el84s models, they are the jj variety
i like the 12ax7c tubes for a sweet bluesy/classic rock tone. if you like more edge then ask for the 12ax7m tubes

do you have your guy at gc? if not get to know which guy is the good guy and knows his stuff.
if so, or when you find out whos the good guy to know, tell your sales dude you want the amp, tubes and speaker for $650 including tax. if he says he cant do it, tell him youll walk. if he still says no, walk. if hes not a moron, hell do the deal.
always buy from the same guy and getting deals isnt so hard.

I have to agree! I picked up an older Crate VC20, which is the older forunner. I put a Celestion H30, JJ el84's GT's in the pre and I am crazy about the tone of this thing! It can keep up with my Marshall with no problem. I did put lower gain pre's in it, just to clean it up a bit, also took a tip from Dr.Z and used a GT12ax7R2 for the phase inverter-

[FireBros.]

Re: Crate Palomino or Peavey Classic?

I think especially with simple upgrades like speakers and tubes, both the Crate and Peavey will have good tone, but Peavey has a much better rep as far as reliability goes.

[Guitar Toad]

Re: Crate Palomino or Peavey Classic?

Jeremy, you make the Crate Palomino30 sound really good. Tone heaven with a set of tubes and speaker change. I like the sound of that! I want tone heaven.

[That90'sGuy]

Re: Crate Palomino or Peavey Classic?

My singer has a Classic 30 that he and I both hate. I picked up a V32 Palomino the day before I went in to record my 3 song demo with the band and if you check out the link in my sig., it will show you just how sweet that amp can sound.

I have the Guitar Center edition Palomino (the one with the Gold hardware and white tolex) and the stock speaker and tubes sound great as-is. I've heard that the past editions speakers weren't too hot, so if you go that route, Jeremy's suggestions will work well. The GC edition speaker is a custom Celestion, so I'm not sure myself what would be the closest production speaker for the job.