Peavey Tour Series

[Dustin Teel]

A buddy of mine is the manager at the Ken's Pro Sound in Macon, GA, about an hour from where I live. He and I used to play in a band back in the day, and he just got in the Peavey Tour 700 head with matching cab. He's been urging me like crazy to come play it and see what I think; he also offered me a hell of a deal on it, about $200 cheaper than I've seen it online.

After playing it in the music store for hours and trying several different basses with it (including my own) I left empty-handed. I was surprisingly unimpressed.

It had decent, clear highs and smooth mids, but I found the lows to be a little lacking. It didn't seem to move a lot of air for 410s. I love Peavey, and was surprised that I couldn't really feel that all-too-familiar Peavey "thump" in the lows. Honestly, I think it was the cabinet. The head had decent enough tones, and I really like the industrialized, streamlined look with the onboard EQ.

But it just seemed too quiet, I guess. I had the pre and post gain at half and, while it was bumping, I expected a 700 watt Peavey rig to be rocking the place at half volume. I really think it was the cabinet, the speakers seemed kind of weak.

[monkeyking]

I had the Tour 700 as a backup for about a year and your description fits it well. The few times I used it I ran it through an Ampeg 410 which roared and thumped nicely - when it was driven by the Hartke 3500.

I was very surprised how much gain I needed on the Peavey to get anywhere near the volume I was used to. That amp should have been supplying double the power of the 3500. I eventually gave the amp to my stepson who uses it through my old SWR cabinet.

Seemed to be a pretty good amp and I'm sure it takes a good beating like Peaveys tend to do, but I was underwhelmed.

[Gaetano Paul]

I was looking at the combo, glad I did not pull the trigger!

[dukeisdog]

I love mine. I find that it has tons of power through my 8 ohm Avatar 212, and liked the Tour 215/810 cabs. I haven't had any issues, my cab puts out plenty of lows, and it gets loud. I haven't rant it at 4 ohms yet.

[ClassicJazz]

Got to try a Peavey Tour 700 and the matching Peavey 4-10 cabinet last night at a new rehearsal studio that open up near me. It was a horrible experience! Now all the equipment in this studio is brand new, so it was not abused. But I just could not get a decent tone out of this thing. There was no clarity in the tone and I fiddled with the controls over the course of two hours and could not dial in a pleasing tone. I could not get a nice punchy tone. When I adjusted the tone for slap playing, it got even worse!

Compared to my GK MB212, the GK just blows it out of the water. And the GK is much easier to use and dial in tones. Just give me a simple EQ layout! It took me no more then 10 minutes to get a great finger style and slap style dialed into it.

And compared to my Carvin B2000 head, well not even in the same league! (ok, it is a more expensive head, but not by much)

I know Peavey makes some great gear, I used Peavey PA equipment on the road. Built like tanks. And I've played through other Peavey bass rigs that sounded great. But I was very disappointed with this Tour amp.

FYI, I was using my '72 Fender Jazz with a outboard Sadowsky preamp.