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Back in the 80s I ran a cerwin vega bg 250x215 rig but still wished for a peavey box. Pointy logo and all. If it werent quite so heavy Id gig peavey today. Proudly.
I must have smoked too much wendy back in the day, this is what I have not a series 300. I will get a phot of it and me modded XT.Saw this online and thought it was kind of cool- ad from the 80's for the Mark III:
In '88, I'd heard of no negatives about Peavey--the one I bought was one of the best instruments in the shop, and was a beautiful rock bass. My main amp was a Peavey Combo 300 for my first ten years of playing. Quality stuff and sound.
Very similar to the Mark IV I used to use as a backup head. Probably also has the giant heat sink on the back.I think you nailed it. In the late 80's early 90's (other than Peavey) I remember Trace Elliot and GK being big. Hartke, Carvin, and Yamaha maybe as well?
Saw this online and thought it was kind of cool- ad from the 80's for the Mark III:
Agreed, that and other tube amps were very good for guitars. I was speaking about an earlier time, when they weren't built yet. If Peavey had good tube amps, I never saw them and didn't know any players that used them. In the area I lived, the bass amps and cabs were considered pro, dependable, and worth the money. Guitar players used Fender twins or Marshalls for tubes, and crate amps. Occasionally I remember seeing a Peavey for guitar. There might have been more, I don't remember that well, but I was zeroed on the bass equipment. Almost every pa had some sort of peavey gear in it, that I do remember as well.
How is the new stuff? I've heard mixed reviews of their new class d heads. I'd like to try some, but worried they don't have the quality they once had.
OHHH G****D!!!! Did you ever have the pleasure of using SP1's???? They were HUMONGOUS! It always took two men to move each cab. There was a big folded horn on bottom and a huge horn for high end on top. I think those things weighed 100 pounds or so. But man, they got loud! We had two and two 115 folded horn cabs for the bottom end. We never wanted for low end FOH and I can guarantee you we didn't need any '10,000 class D watts!'
A stock picture of our setup in the 80's:
View attachment 1030664
The bi-ampable tone monster SP-1:
View attachment 1030666
Also, we owned the Peavey silver fin wedge monitors. We powered everything with CS800's.
Yikes! I remember those folded horn behemoths. Seems every pa had some of those around to help with adding to the back pain to come. I am having serious flashbacks now. If I see a guy walk in with a badly done mullet, and a sleeveless shirt with a Japanese rising star on it, I'm gunna freak out and think I was teleported back to the early 80's.
There were the Mace guitar heads. 160 watt tube power amp, SS preamp. Could be paired with the biggest guitar 4x12 I've ever seen. Loud as hell.
I do remember the name now that you said it. You guys are shaking a lot of dust out of the attic bringing this stuff up after all these years.
I used a Peavey PA from the mid 70's to the mid 80's and that gear is still working, though I sold it in the 80's.
Now I am using the new Peavey Minimega 1000 watt bass head and I think it's a great sounding head. And I have Genz Benz, Glockenklang, Carvin, Sunn and several other bass heads, just for reference. It is a top of the line product. If it lasts as well as thier previous products I will be dead before it dies.
Now I am using the new Peavey Minimega 1000 watt bass head and I think it's a great sounding head. And I have Genz Benz, Glockenklang, Carvin, Sunn and several other bass heads, just for reference. It is a top of the line product. If it lasts as well as thier previous products I will be dead before it dies.
In the rural midwestern city where I grew up, during the early 80s when I was in high school, Peavey was pretty much the only option for gear that was (a) giggable, in terms of volume and durability, and (b) affordable. Cheap gear back then was total garbage; there were "real" brands like Fender and Ampeg, but they cost a LOT more. This was before the internet so used gear options were limited to whatever showed up sporadically in the paper or got traded in. You couldn't just decide you wanted a used [whatever] and go get one. So pretty much every group of broke young people equipped itself with Peavey. And while other options were few and far between for instrument amps, Peavey was, as others have said, really the only game around for affordable PA gear.
My first bass amp was a TKO 65 with a Black Widow. I also had a Decade guitar amp, later upgraded to a Bandit 65. My dad bought a T-40, which I played for several years. I subsequently graduated to a used Mark III Bass head and a homemade folded horn cabinet with a 15" Black Widow in it. I have the distinction of being one of the few people to actually kill an old Peavey bass head: at a gig, somebody spilled a Coke down the back of my Mark III head, and from then on it never worked right.
I subsequently picked up a used Mark IV Bass head, which I used with the same 15" Black Widow in a Fender cabinet. That was my main rig for the mid-90s. In general, while they got the job done and were an incredible bargain, I found the Mark III and Mark IV head tonally bland . . . but, I did have one combination that I really liked, which was the Mark IV, the 115 with the BW, and my old Gibson Ripper, on the series pickup setting. That combination gave a pretty nice punchy tone.
After a drummer stole my cabinet with the BW, I got a new rig, a GK head and Hartke cabinet. But I kept the Mark IV as a backup for a long time. I ended up trading it for a microphone. Then I got a too-good-to-pass-up deal on a Mark VII (I think) head which I also used as a backup, but I sold it a few years ago during a gear purge.
I can't say that I miss those amps, but I was certainly glad to have them at the time. My main gripe with Peavey gear from that era is the incredibly annoying pots with the plastic shafts. It's a rare old Peavey that doesn't have at least one control with the pot shaft broken off flush with the front of the amp.
While I think Peavey gear from the 80s was generally better than it was perceived, for many applications there was probably something better to which most people using Peavey aspired. My Bandit did yeoman service for me through years of hard use, but when I had the financial wherewithal I got a tube Fender and didn't look back. The Mark # Bass amps were solid but didn't hold a candle sound-wise to the Acoustics I later discovered, nor to the Thunderfunk I use today. Obviously, those amps were much more expensive than the equivalent Peavey products, but that's the point: at that time, you bought Peavey because it was the best you could afford. Fortunately, it was very solid and dependable.
I have now come to realize that Peavey's guitars and basses were, in fact, as good as anything (albeit some were a little quirky in appearance or ergonomics). I would put my early-90s Fury up against any other Precision-style bass made by anybody. I also have an early-80s Razer guitar that is very cool and has one of the best Strat-style tremolo systems I've ever used.
Regarding latter-day Peavey stuff, I don't have any experience with their metal amps or their new bass gear, but I can say that the Classic 30 guitar amp is an excellent amp, one of the great guitar amps of recent history.
My first bass amp was a TKO 65 with a Black Widow. I also had a Decade guitar amp, later upgraded to a Bandit 65. My dad bought a T-40, which I played for several years. I subsequently graduated to a used Mark III Bass head and a homemade folded horn cabinet with a 15" Black Widow in it. I have the distinction of being one of the few people to actually kill an old Peavey bass head: at a gig, somebody spilled a Coke down the back of my Mark III head, and from then on it never worked right.
I subsequently picked up a used Mark IV Bass head, which I used with the same 15" Black Widow in a Fender cabinet. That was my main rig for the mid-90s. In general, while they got the job done and were an incredible bargain, I found the Mark III and Mark IV head tonally bland . . . but, I did have one combination that I really liked, which was the Mark IV, the 115 with the BW, and my old Gibson Ripper, on the series pickup setting. That combination gave a pretty nice punchy tone.
After a drummer stole my cabinet with the BW, I got a new rig, a GK head and Hartke cabinet. But I kept the Mark IV as a backup for a long time. I ended up trading it for a microphone. Then I got a too-good-to-pass-up deal on a Mark VII (I think) head which I also used as a backup, but I sold it a few years ago during a gear purge.
I can't say that I miss those amps, but I was certainly glad to have them at the time. My main gripe with Peavey gear from that era is the incredibly annoying pots with the plastic shafts. It's a rare old Peavey that doesn't have at least one control with the pot shaft broken off flush with the front of the amp.
While I think Peavey gear from the 80s was generally better than it was perceived, for many applications there was probably something better to which most people using Peavey aspired. My Bandit did yeoman service for me through years of hard use, but when I had the financial wherewithal I got a tube Fender and didn't look back. The Mark # Bass amps were solid but didn't hold a candle sound-wise to the Acoustics I later discovered, nor to the Thunderfunk I use today. Obviously, those amps were much more expensive than the equivalent Peavey products, but that's the point: at that time, you bought Peavey because it was the best you could afford. Fortunately, it was very solid and dependable.
I have now come to realize that Peavey's guitars and basses were, in fact, as good as anything (albeit some were a little quirky in appearance or ergonomics). I would put my early-90s Fury up against any other Precision-style bass made by anybody. I also have an early-80s Razer guitar that is very cool and has one of the best Strat-style tremolo systems I've ever used.
Regarding latter-day Peavey stuff, I don't have any experience with their metal amps or their new bass gear, but I can say that the Classic 30 guitar amp is an excellent amp, one of the great guitar amps of recent history.
I just brought in an Acoustic 370 head to my local tech for repair. He used to be an authorized Acoustic warranty guy back in the day. I asked what cabinet he mightrecommend to go with it (if not the original acoustic) and he without hesitation suggested I look for a Peavey 1516 or maybe an 1820.
Previous Peavey bass, amp and cab owner here. I can attest that their build quality was always outstanding and the sound always robust (if not interesting) with the gear. It does make me sad that they've moved so much production out of Meridian though. I always felt as though they had a great damn-the-torpedoes attitude when it came to quality and price, and a real pride for manufacturing so much in the south. That spirit seems to have faded....
I still own a Nitrobass head as my backup to my Aguilar TH500. It has great tone but is just too heavy! I used to own a T-Max 210T Combo with a 115BXBW bottom to go with it. Amazing tone but just the combo was 100lbs. The extension cab was another 65lbs. I used to own a T-40. Wish I never sold it.
I used Peavey gear for many years. I live in Tennessee and it was and I guess still is popular in our area. I had a Peavey Mark III bass head and 2-15 cabinet. I later got two Peavey 1820's and an extra Peavey power amp. It was probably overkill, but it looked cool in the 1980's. Later I had a Peavey 2-10 and 1-15 cabinet and powered it with a Peavey tube pre-amp (can't remember the name) and a Peavey CS400 power amp. This was my first experience with a tube pre-amp. It really sounded pretty good with my P bass. I later bought a Peavey 4-10 cabinet in the 1990's and I think it is probably one of the best sounding cabinets I have ever owned. One of my friends bought it from me and he still has it and loves it. I no longer use Peavey gear live, but I still have a Peavey 1-10 bass amp at the house and it still sounds great. I have always believed that Peavey offered a good product for the money and the equipment gave many years of bullet proof service. By the way, this was a great trip down memory lane!!! 
Early to mid-1970s Peavey is the way to go. Upgrade a few components and then cascade the channels. Good stuff.
Some of the "WORST" tones I've heard have been from some of Peavey's bass combos and certain models of their bass cabinets....
Some of the "BETTER" tones I've heard have been from some of Peavey's bass heads and bass cabinets....
Depends on which of their models your playing through.
IMHO, Peavey's latest offerings of bass heads (Mm-1000) and bass cabinets (PVH 210 nd PVH 212) are some of their best.
Still not a fan of their combos....
Some of the "BETTER" tones I've heard have been from some of Peavey's bass heads and bass cabinets....
Depends on which of their models your playing through.
IMHO, Peavey's latest offerings of bass heads (Mm-1000) and bass cabinets (PVH 210 nd PVH 212) are some of their best.
Still not a fan of their combos....
The Peavey Mark series served me well for years. I still have a Max Bass pre in my rack. Reliable, rugged, and good sounding. Wanna try the new mini amps.
