Mostly crap. BUT big Waffle factor for T-40 Bass (ugly but good) and the CS-800 Power Amps. Solid stuff for cheap.

My buddy is in a Wedding band (The Five Card Studs, miles better than a "Normal" wedding band. They will be playing MY wedding next year). ANYWAY, he has great gear (Matchless / Marshall amps, '66 Telecasters, etc.) but his main Gig amp is some weird tweed Peavy thing. It takes a pounding! It will NOT die, it's been used and abused for over three years, and he doesn't have to worry about setting up and leaving the area, no one is going to steal it...

The best thing about Peavey amps, their stunning durability, is also the worst thing about them for a cheap bastard like me. I spent a year and a half trying to kill my Mark III (is that what they're called?) bass head so I could replace it with something that didn't sound like complete ass. I did everything one could think of to kill an old solid-state amp: from spilling beers on it, to running entirely too many pedals through it, plugging it into paralleled 2 ohm speakers (for a total impedance of 1 ohm) and turning it all the way up (not just the master and the gain, I'm talking about cranking all the tone controls, the distortion, all the shit). Nothing worked. It still farted along just as it had when I found it in a friend's garage. I finally just relegated it to "practice amp" status. Fucker still works. Still sounds like ass, to boot...

my third amp ever was a peavey. first was a crate B80XL. then i got an old SVT810 cab (70's or early 80's, i dunno) and picked up a fender 300W solid state head to power it. then a coworker needed some money and offered to sell me his peavey TKO for $100, so i bought it. i played guitar through it for quite a while, pretty much through the entire existence of fakir if i remember right. guitar into a boss DS1 into a peavey TKO. i was pretty happy with it. i thought it sounded fine. i ended up selling it several years later (after using it for probably 4 years) for $75. yeah, if i tried to play guitar through that TKO now i would probably barf, now that i have some great gear. but considering it got me through about 30 shows, i used it as a subwoofer for my boombox for a while, and then i sold it for only $25 less than i payed for it, i'd say that peavey TKO served a great purpose in my life. i think peavey gear can be a great part of a musicians learning curve. it also gives us all a sort of reference point... if there was no shitty gear, then good gear wouldn't mean as much, right?

I'll go with not crap. Every company has good and bad stuff.

Last night, I am to watch these concert of the Roy Orbison on television publica. Is good show; so many the beautiful song! So many the good guy in band: the Elvis Costello, the Toms Waits, the Springstini, the James Burton, and ROY! Orrore! I am to seeing these stack of the Peavey amp on stage! I am to think James Burton is to picking the chickens through these Peavey! W T F? James Burton! Surely he is to know better!

The first amp I played on was the decade:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 79333&rd=1

Just like that, but bigger....

What a piece of crap. Of course it didn't help that most of the bands in school used it, but still. Every company has bad gear, sure, but none as widely varied in crapness as Peavey.

All Peavy's M.I. market stuff is pretty much shit. I had a friend who has a Peavey "BASS" head, that through cosmetic modification became the "ASS", which pretty much summed it up (ha, ha, it says ass). Through an Ampeg 8x10 cab it certainly achieved the aesthetic he was going for. My first practice amp was a Peavy 12" combo that was also totally ass....

Peavey's pro-audio stuff isn't too bad. It's not too good either IMO. I've spec'd a few amps before, though I'd just as soon spec a budget range QSC or Crown - even though the Peavy's can take a beating well. Their boards suck.

The only thing Peavy has that's actually good is the MediaMatrix and NION lines - which are a separate company, almost. They're great products thought, if you're looking for a digital DSP matrix with RS-232/485, CobraNET, unlimited piggyback expandability - it's a great solution. Because of their right-wing leanings, I'd be just as ready to use a Biamp, Yamaha, or other DSP solution instead.

I like the way these Peavey company runs herself.

In these 1990s, when these live music begins to die, and these Peavey, she no make sell no many amplificatore, these Hartley Peavey, he make no reduce to the staff! He say, okay, you of the consruzzione d'amplificatore, you are no today to make amplificatora we can no sell! Today to replace roof! And you, of the hideous chitarra-bassa, you no make her today! You are to cut all of these grass on beautiful Peavey compound. So nobody to lose job! Is so cool!

I like that these produtti di Peavey they will work forever. This is so cool thing for young musician with the no even little money. So cool thing. And can wail away in these basement in Missoula, Montana or Dallas or Palatine. So cool to wail.

But is no so cool for the sound. And no so cool for money for Repubblicani.

Except, I like very much these T40 bass! I use her many times, and is cool! So heavy, like the lead metal. So cool the bridge. So ugly the logo.

Also, I no hate these Mark II, Mark III, Mark IV bass amplifier. Can be no so bad.

Also, these steel-chitarra player di Nashville, they are all to love these Peavey combo. I no like, but to them, is "the sound." Okay, okay. Maybe you know something old man, maybe you do. Me, I no like, but you can hear it and be "I love it the Peavey!" so okay.

Anything made the Peavey, if you find her today, even bury in landfill, you can plug her, and throw switch -- she will come on! She will make sound! She will sound bad, but who cares! You can wail with her! So cool!

my first guitar rig was a mark III bass head with a 4x12 (or was it 4x10?). I had a squier strat and a metalzone. It was probably one of the the ugliest sounding guitar rigs in the history of amplified music, which was perfect for me because I didn't know how to play my instrument anyway.

The amp and cab are still somewhere in my home town. I loaned them to a friend haven't seen them in like 10 years. I probably won't see them for at least another 10. But yes, if I ever take them back, I can be sure they will work when I am seventy-five years old in case I want to let my teenage grandkids make loud noises on a solid-state relic.

Here in Chi, my band needed more vocal volume at practice. I found a peavey bass amp with a 15" cone sitting in the trash. It had poured rain the night before. I took the 75-pound thing and threw it in my back seat and carted it to my practice space. It works fine. It sounds like a rapidly oscillating high-volume low-frequency turd, but our vocals are now twice as loud at practice.

The bass player in my old band had a Peavey Maxxbass rackmount head. That thing sounded pretty damn good for $100 or whatever it was he paid for it. I also have a Peavy Classic 120 tube power amp that looks like shit but sounds really good too. The Mark II sounds decent as well.

I pretty much despise anything else I've ever heard that said "Peavey" on it though. I voted NOT CRAP simply because there are a few nuggets of sweet corn amongst the ass-filth that the company normally squeezes out.

Mmmmm.. Sweet corn.