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Well, if I want a solid state head, I could go on eBay and find the Peavey Standard Series 260 4-channel P.A. head amp, and then find a cabinet that matches the impedance. (If this is wrong, please correct me, because I know little to nothing about this shit and I'm going on something I half-listened to in a guitar store about matching heads and cabinets.) A Marshall 4*12 cab will work, I believe. Anyway, though, plug your humbucker guitar into that specific Peavey head with matching cab, turn it way up, and you apparently (according to Wikipedia) have the setup that produced Greg Ginn's guitar sounds from the Nervous Breakdown EP to Damaged. Plus, Peavey T-40 basses produce great sounds, though they look and apparently feel heavy enough to use as Saxon maces.

Their newer amps sound mostly like total ass. I'm guessing their guitars do too, judging from just how plug-fugly they look. Yecch.

I guess the consensus for me is: the earlier stuff gets a resounding Not Crap, but the newer stuff gets a big Crap.

chumpchange wrote:The legacy of Peavy amplification will always look to me as so:

In the fall of 1993 my band was touring the US (the usual independently booked show by an overstaffed Canadian band that no one gave a shit about but we were fine with that). In Tempe, Arizona we found that the other band on the bill, Witz End, had perfectly feathered haircuts, a drum kit of at least 18 pieces and a guitarist with a Peavy stack. But not, say, two 4x12 cabs and head but a stack of pawnshop irregulars starting with a 4x12, then 3 combos of diminishing proportions arranged in a teetering pyramid of embarrassment. ALL Peavy. The man was loyal to his brand. In his defence, by this time Eddie VH had been a long time Peavy advocate and I suspect the 5150 or whatever was not an affordable option to the working man of Arizona hard rock cover bands. Christ, 14 years have gone by and when someone says Peavy all I see the picture of this guy's rig in my head.

Memories...

The mental picture I get from your description of that is sublime.

The only Peavey part I own is the amp head to a Bandit. I have beheaded a Bandit. I use this head to this day.

For many years, I played guitar through a Yorkville bass amp. Okay. guitar through bass amp. Not a schtick, just happened to buy it for cheap from a supposed friend. After much abuse and spillings of beverages, the head of that combo amp got a bit difficult and stopped working for the most part. Meanwhile, a new opportunity presented itself. The other guitar player in my band (who was also the bass player in my other band) managed to find a Peavey Bandit in an alley. It was just sitting there, in perfect condition. He reckons it wasn't meant to be left there, but he stole the thing, I guess. He sold it to me for a case of Old Style. Anyway, I used the thing for awhile, until one night I blew the speaker. Oh well, says I. A few nights later, I looked at the blown speaker o' the Bandit and the limp, dead head of the Yorkville and pondered the possibilities. Taking a hacksaw, I made space for the Bandit head inside the speaker cabinet of the Yorkville, securing the addition with screws and duct tape. I attached the head wires to the speaker and the beast was born! This is the beast I use to this day, my cheapo "Frankenstein" combo amp which keeps on ticking despite all it's flaws and the abuse I apply to it. It is a crappy mass of duct tape, beer soaked "upholstery", reflective foil tape, splintering wood and fungus. It makes some great sounds and I feel so lucky! Oh, I am in love with my Peavey Frankenstein Cheese Curds and Beer Combo Deluxe!

NOT CRAP. The budget "musician" can get much outta cheap and/or stolen Peavey gear. If if weren't for stuff like that, music would be in the hands of cocaine-addled gearheads with poodle haircuts and guitar teacher jobs. Or, snobbish indie-rock gearheads LIKE MOST OF THE FOLKS ON THIS FORUM. Heh.

KeithV wrote:Peavey Frankenstein Cheese Curds and Beer Combo Deluxe!

Alright, no holding out -- you got a picture for us? This amplifier sounds incredible.

My little opinion of peavey:
here, in uruguay, the only CHEAP bass equipment (and with cheap y dont mean to say "ridiculously cheap", but, more like "affordable") is Peavey. EVERY FUCKING LOCAL BAND, escepto, 2 or 3 rich bands that play incubus covers, plays with peaveys, tnt, or tko115, or any variation of their 15inch speaker combos. almost the same with guitar amps.. not that extreme, but you see loats of peavey bandits everywhere. there are the only choice, escept if you want to spend a grand in a fucking SWR or something. those peaveys bass amps go for 300-400$.
so, not crap.

3 years later and Peavey is solidly ahead in the poll.
My TNT 100 is almost 30 years old.
It'll probably out live all of us.

It "fells" good.

Like many others, my first amp was a Peavey bass combo. It was like 60 watts, $200. All I could afford.

You could hear it over drums! Not fabulous sound-wise, weighed about 400 lbs. You could drop it off a bridge and it would survive.

NOT CRAP

Not Crap.

A friend of mine used a tube version of the Road Master with all manner of mismatched speaker loads, bass, lapsteel, guitar, theremin, etc. and it refused to die. I can respect a Road Master.

Biznono wrote:Yes, I too try to make love many times to the Peavey, especially to the TNT! She was all I had, but she was never good lovemaking. I think this is the thing about the Peavey. Is great that in the 80s she was cheap. But I never felt anything but remorse about having her and only her to make love to.

My brother, he struggled more than I did with a T-15, who always had terrible intonation, but whose bridge was useless to allow for the fixing of this problem. Then he plays this always out of tune guitar through a Destroyer...

Peavey amps in their names always captured something essential about the experience of playing them. I wanted to blow up the TNT. My brother wanted to destroy the destroyer. Our friend had a Bandit that he could get no one to steal (or was she Bandit because she stole, from the dreams of teenager, the possibility of good sound?!).

So, thank you, Peavey, for being an option. But you were the only option. And you did not sound good at all.

I say to you now, for giving of the profits earned from the monies of little dudes and girls to the Republican party, you are not even solid turd!

To this day this post makes me laugh every time I read it.

Alright. I have more than a few Peavey stories to share.

I currently own a Minx 110 tiny little Bass combo which I use as a practice amp. Its Not Crap for a lil practice amp. When I turn all the knobs up and theres nothing plugged in the input jack, it makes hellacious screeching and buzzing sounds which are also Not Crap. I believe I recorded some metal guitar tracks with one of these someone left in my dad's basement and they came out pretty decent.

The bassist for my old band owns a Roadmaster and that thing fucking kills. She is the loud! Oh, how she make-a the ears ring like-a bella donna.

I played through a Peavey Triple XXX head recently and got some sweet face shredding, super distorted metal tone with some nice low-end. I borrowed the head and cab from a guy in a Death Metal band that was going on after my Grindcore band at a little basement show. My guitar sounded, stoner-y, crunchy and sweet. I was very impressed. The 5150 is also Not Crap. However, there are a multitude of shitty combos they've made recently that are very Crap. They almost make you want to pull out that Crate combo you have collecting dust somewhere. Sound-a like the ass, she does!

Anyway... Peavanio. She no break down. She not cost many Lira. She make wail!

Not Crap.