Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

Re: Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

Diego said:
I've always been impressed by how ugly these old Peaveys were.
Zero visual appeal. That VTX MX head is just hideous; not juding it's tone credential (never tried one) but sure it's fugly...
Click to expand...

It used to be reason #1 why I wanted one; they're pretty good, but super-ugly amps. Nobody wants to buy or keep them, but they work well enough.
 
Re: Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

I still have an old Classic VTX Combo with 2x12 Scorpion speakers. Its a 2x 6l6 hybrid amp, about 60 watts I think, with a cool sounding phaser.

The distortion is brutal..not very refined, and the cleans are average.

Nothing says old school country like an old Peavey amp. While i don't share the sentiment that these amps are "great" like some here, I like to keep my old Peavey to have it as a amp for my pea-pickin Tele tone.

One thing about those old Peaveys, is that they are all at the end of their service life.
They are pretty hard to work on too , and so they are all still relatively cheap-but getting harder to come by as people snap them up and hold on to them.
 
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Re: Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

Darn straight man! Just took these tonight at the jam room, picking up a bunch of stuff that needs to go to the tech. I just sold one of my 80s Butchers a few days ago. Still have a Butcher and a VTM120 - awesome amps. I gigged with the Butcher for the past year or so. It's now my clean amp, the Electric "Green" MV-120 is my main dirt/fuzz amp now! I'll buy Butchers and VTMs all day long. Sorry for the crap pix, didn't realize they were so bad until I uploaded them.

If you are concerned about how "ugly" or "pretty" you gear is, especially vintage stuff - I don't have much use for ya. Your decision to play gear because it looks nice or is just expensive means I can hoard it until it becomes valuable. And prices are rising! I play the Peavey stuff because it's loud, cheap, reliable, sound good to great, takes pedal really well, and were readily available - but that is changing, people are figuring out that some of these models are great amps and they being bought up (mainly the old Butchers and VTM120/60s). I paid $150, $200, and $200 respectively for my 3 Peavey amps. I had a Triumph 120 that I paid $80 for but it just wasn't very loud for some reason - that is a common issue with all of those. I am in the market now for a Dual Chorus, Renown, or Deuce 2x12 combo.

electric-orange.jpg

butche-vtm120stack.jpg

Here is the one I sold - it was very original and minty. Even had original tubes. But the old Butcher that is beat up has the mojo!

butcher2.jpg
 
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Re: Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

MACE

The name describes it!

SIX 6L6 power tubes 160 watts...

Marshall killer!
 
Re: Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

P1000349.jpg

This photo is very old, but I still play the Peavey Prowler, 40W w/ 2 6L6s. I never cared for the "lead" channel and the bright switch makes the amp too bright, but the clean channel is very good. I've been through two other guitars and three or four pedal board revamps since I bought the amp back in 2000.
 
Re: Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

I've had several Peaveys over the past 25 years. My first was a Bravo, which seems to have a cult following these days. It was my first tube amp back in the early nineties. Had some great thrash tones in it. Tried one out in a music store a couple years ago & hated it.

I've also owned one of the big 2x12 hybrid amps from the 70s; a Windsor Studio; A Classic 30 & just a couple months ago I snagged a Bandit for 40 bucks.

The bandit was from a Music-Go-Round. The controls were dirty and I couldn't get any sound out of it. Bought it for 40, took it home & cleaned it, got sound. But then I found out that the speaker was shot and the reverb didn't work! Spent another 40 on a good Emi Legend speaker & now it sounds really good. Will get a new tank for it one of these days.

Played the Bandit at a jam session yesterday and never noticed that I wasn't playing a tube amp. Did miss having reverb, though...
 
Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

My first 4 big amps were Peavey. A Bandit 75, another one like the Bandit but different name. 125 I think. Crazy loud and great dirty channel. Then I had a Triumph 60 head, then a 5150 head. All of them solid amps.
 
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Re: Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

I played both guitar and bass out of a 1977 TNT100 for years. We used to joke that I could probably throw that thing down a flight of stairs and it would still fire right up. Absolute tank!
 
Re: Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

Aceman said:
Hey Laz, I notice that Maxon analog delay is getting no love over there all alone in the corner. send it my way. I got a spot in the lineup for it.
Click to expand...


That's a real old picture .... before I added a fuzz and a KOT and dropped the chorus and phaser. The Maxon is riding the current board and makes the Strymon El Cap that serves it sound more analog.
 
Re: Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

Stratman said:
MACE


Marshall killer!
Click to expand...

Not even remotely in the same in the same league as a Marshall. SOME Guys ( mostly here i'm afraid) who can't afford Sunn T's or Oranges use them for drone, but thats a 'sound', not a 'tone'. Marshall just eats them alive for breakfast. But if your happy with them, than I'm estatic.
 
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Re: Any love for older Peavey Amps out there?

I bought this one new in the early 80's and gigged it in a Chicken Fried Rock band for several years. It now sports a set of Eminence Texas Heats and a set of GT 6L6 GE's. The drive channel still sucks and the clean channel is still very nice. These days I bi-pass the dated SS preamp with the line out from my SCXD to the power amp in on the Peavey and get some pretty killer tones with that set up.

 
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