What happened to Peavey?

[Dave W]

I hadn't thought about them for a long time, then a little ad popped up on the MSN home page today. Looked at their company website, they still have some amps (fewer than they used to) but only one bass model, called the Milestone, and two guitar models. $279 through a few stores. After reading the few Amazon reviews, the workmanship must be terrible. But it has the Peavey Powerplate embedded in the headstock. Is this an anti-dead spot device like the old Fender Fathead?

Anyway, very sad to see the company come to this. Time passed them by.

[Alanko]

Odd, as people seem to be increasingly interested in the '80s solid state guitar amps and the T40 has a loyal following.

At a guess, they were always the slightly budget brand, despite being US-built and bombproof. Always a milestone brand on the journey to Gibson/Fender/Marshall.


This was probably reinforced further when they took production offshore and found themselves in a bigger market of cheap goods. Their practice amps didn't keep up with a changing market (now all Bluetooth enabled, 5 watts and ready to connect to an app on iOS). At the same time they aren't associated with heavy metal or any other genre of music. None of their instruments came as unique or interesting as the T40s, etc. They have only just started leaning into reissuing some old combos and preamp designs.


In short, I reckon they are stuck in purgatory between not acknowledging their historic designs but also not leaning fully into modern tech either. There isn't a Peavey equivalent of a Positive Grid Spark.

[Grog]

That is sad. My first decent amp that could handle my EB-2 was a 2-15 Peavey around 1975. I had to buy it at B-Sharp Music making it an unusual experience. I've never owned a Peavey bass but many amps through the years. Just recently bought a slightly used lightweight PA head & it's been ok.

[patman]

The amps used to be pretty much bulletproof gear for the working musician. Never your favorite sound, but always a decent sound.

[ilan]

My first decent bass was a T40. Sad to see the brand fade.

This is 19 years old me in 1981.

[morrow]

Peavey owns Trace Elliot. I had been hearing a lot of friends express their love for those little things , I eventually caved and picked on up. Not a bad little amp , fan is noisy , but not a bad amp.

[Alanko]

Peavey owns Trace Elliot. I had been hearing a lot of friends express their love for those little things , I eventually caved and picked on up. Not a bad little amp , fan is noisy , but not a bad amp.

I would say Trace were the British Peavey! I've seen them in rehearsal spaces and gig venues quite often. They usually have unhelpfully voiced graphic EQs, built in compressors... the weirdest ones have backlight bulbs and are coveted in rat fur. Built tough (usually unserviced for two decades and frequently thrashed). A loud vanilla amp. I've never encountered a signature Trace tone or sound. Versatile(ish) clean headroom. No grind or grit to them at all.

[ilan]

Over here in the mid-80s the 500 watt Trace Elliot AH500X - the ones with the blacklight - were the holy grail. On top of two speaker cabinets, typically 115 and 410, they were louder and cleaner than other bass amps, almost like today's class D amps. For the 80s bass tones they were perfect.

I had their preamp with 12-band graphic EQ into a GK power amp and cab.

[Dave W]

Whoa! I can see how my post wasn't clear enough. Peavey has only one bass guitar left in its lineup, the cheapie Milestone, and only two guitars: the Milestone and the HP 2 (successor to the Wolfgang).

Plenty of amps are still in production, including some Trace, and Pro Audio. I doubt that many are made in US or UK.

[ajkula66]

Whoa! I can see how my post wasn't clear enough. Peavey has only one bass guitar left in its lineup, the cheapie Milestone, and only two guitars: the Milestone and the HP 2 (successor to the Wolfgang).

From what I've seen/heard, a Czech-built Cirrus is on its way...they've been announcing them for a couple of years now...

I would say Trace were the British Peavey! I've seen them in rehearsal spaces and gig venues quite often. They usually have unhelpfully voiced graphic EQs, built in compressors... the weirdest ones have backlight bulbs and are coveted in rat fur. Built tough (usually unserviced for two decades and frequently thrashed). A loud vanilla amp. I've never encountered a signature Trace tone or sound. Versatile(ish) clean headroom. No grind or grit to them at all.

IDK. To me, TE were far more high-end than Peavey. I never found a Peavey bass amp that I liked and also never encountered a British-built Trace that I didn't enjoy. To me, they were the amp of the '80s.

Sooner or later one of those crazy TE valve heads will come my way...

[Dave W]

From what I've seen/heard, a Czech-built Cirrus is on its way...they've been announcing them for a couple of years now...

The HP 2 guitar is now Czech-built.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I love my Chinese-made Peavey NTB 5-er I picked up at a pawn shop. I was in there killing time a few years ago vaguely looking for a budget 5 string to play out with, and picked it up just to noodle. The dang thing blew me away instantly. I played plenty of US-made Cirrus basses, its upmarket inspiration, when they first came out, and all of them left me cold, but my cheapie little Chinese Peavey kicks serious ass, as do my VB-2 and Classic 400 amps and 4x12TFX cabinet, which seems to weigh about as much as two SVT cabs put together.

They have pretty much abandoned Trace Elliot as anything but a budget line after all kinds of QC problems with their updated versions of classic Trace Elliot amps, which was a shame because while they didn't sound like old Trace Elliots, they did have a unique tone that wasn't exactly "Peavey" either, but those amps were even LESS reliable than the ones produced under Gibson ownership, and that's saying something.

[morrow]

I had heard that the Elf had a lot of great reviews , and finally one popped up locally. Quite surprising for the size.