After a deal for a cool, old Traynor YGM-3 fell through, I picked up a used Peavey Windsor Studio as a backup/rehearsal amp.
The amp seems to be well built, despite being made in China. The knobs all feel solid and smooth. The faceplate is set back in the cab, so the knobs are protected from getting sheared off in a doorway or something (pot shafts are plastic). Cab seems solid enough.
High/Low inputs. Effects loop.
The back panel is laid out well, with some useful features. There is an impedance selector switch and speaker jacks for both the main speaker and an extension. There's an XLR output and a ground lift switch, but this stuff is mainly for recording direct, I believe, so I won't have much use for it, but it's there...
Built in attenuator, which seems to work fine. I won't use that much.
The 12 inch Blue Marvel speaker sucks. I hooked the amp up to my C-Rex loaded Traynor cab and it was instantly better. Louder; more musical tone; cleaned up better; Smooth, not harsh.
I'd describe the tone of these little amps as simplistic. It has a decent tone, but not as "complex" as a more sophisticated amp. Maybe tube swaps will help with this.
For the $225 I paid for it, it's not bad, but it will certainly have to have a speaker upgrade, unfortunately. It comes with JJ tubes and the one output tube is a JJ EL34. I may swap that for a 6550 to try and get some more clean headroom out of it. Might try some other preamp tubes, too, not sure yet.
FWIW.
Forgot to mention: The built in reverb is not too good. It has a small Ruby branded tank and it just isn't very musical...don't know how else to describe it. I wonder if a guy could drop in a new tank and get a better quality sound?
The amp seems to be well built, despite being made in China. The knobs all feel solid and smooth. The faceplate is set back in the cab, so the knobs are protected from getting sheared off in a doorway or something (pot shafts are plastic). Cab seems solid enough.
High/Low inputs. Effects loop.
The back panel is laid out well, with some useful features. There is an impedance selector switch and speaker jacks for both the main speaker and an extension. There's an XLR output and a ground lift switch, but this stuff is mainly for recording direct, I believe, so I won't have much use for it, but it's there...
Built in attenuator, which seems to work fine. I won't use that much.
The 12 inch Blue Marvel speaker sucks. I hooked the amp up to my C-Rex loaded Traynor cab and it was instantly better. Louder; more musical tone; cleaned up better; Smooth, not harsh.
I'd describe the tone of these little amps as simplistic. It has a decent tone, but not as "complex" as a more sophisticated amp. Maybe tube swaps will help with this.
For the $225 I paid for it, it's not bad, but it will certainly have to have a speaker upgrade, unfortunately. It comes with JJ tubes and the one output tube is a JJ EL34. I may swap that for a 6550 to try and get some more clean headroom out of it. Might try some other preamp tubes, too, not sure yet.
FWIW.
Forgot to mention: The built in reverb is not too good. It has a small Ruby branded tank and it just isn't very musical...don't know how else to describe it. I wonder if a guy could drop in a new tank and get a better quality sound?
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