Peavey Mace 212BW

i have a mace 212bw and i am very happy with it. i have the original4 wayauto mixer, im not sure of the yr model but it looks very old. outside cover in not in good shape but to me it gives a lot character to it. i mite be in market to sell it all. also i have a peavey duece.

this amp will blow out the windows

the 212 is really a very trust worthy piece of equipment

This is a followup on my original post of 10 years ago.

1. My Mace 212BW is still going strong.

2. The guy who designed it told me that I could pull tubes out, starting from the outside pair. It's possible that he was an idiot. It's likely that I'm an idiot, but them's the facts. (It's also possible that the person I talked to misrepresented himself as the designer. Maybe he was just emptying the waste baskets and answered the phone on a lark.) At any rate, I've been playing it that way (off and on) since it was new in 1977 (78? 76? It's the older version without the phase shifter crap.)

3. It still has the original tubes.

4. It still has the original speakers.

5. I take really good care of it.

I have other, smaller, amps that sound better, but I've NEVER heard anything louder.

I traded a weight bench (valued at $75) for this amp. The f/x channel was shot to begin with, but the overdrive channel and reverb work just fine. The volume is insane.

I read a review that said you could run it on two power tubes. THAT'S A LIE! It will run awhile, but it will sustain major damage. The tech at Peavey told me you could remove the far right tube and the far left tube. Absolutely no more than those. So I'm just going to run it on all six. Better safe than sorry.

I hope to have the amp restored someday, as it really is a nice piece of equipment.

I use an Epiphone Les Paul Special with stock humbuckers. The amp is very quiet, and really the only reason I use it is for a bottom end grind in a two amp setup. The amp I use for the mid and hi end is a Crate GX60C. As a stand alone unit, it sounds pretty much one dimensional, but it delivers the punch I need to achieve my desired sound.

I play heavy rock. And this is the thickest, grinding, loudest setup I've ever used. The distortion is just right for the low end.

Since it's recently been acquired, I can't say. But I've owned other peavey amps and a guitar, and all of them were tough as nails. I have no reason to believe this is any different.

I e-mailed them last night and got a reply today. Not just a reply, but the answer I needed. They score high in this department.

I've been playing since 1974 when I first heard Glen Buxton of the original Alice Cooper Group. If this amp were lost or stolen, I hope I'd catch the guy and get it back. It was such a good trade that I'd hate to try to replace it, as it would cost me alot more. I love that it's just what I was looking for, and I hate that the second channel is shot. I don't think anyone would be satisfied completely if this were the only amp in their setup. But who knows? It's pretty nice. I use no effects but what's on my amps. I may buy a wah one day.

1977 Mace with 2-12 BW.. I have had this amp since it was new. I love it, and always have..

Power galore.. maybe too much for small gigs.. I usually use a processor before it hits the amp..

I run a stereo rig with a marshall on the left channel, mace on the right.. silly right?

I really wish these had been designed with tube preamps, but for a working amp they are awfully hard to beat.

I replaced the Black widows a couple years ago with JBLs.. gave it a different sound.. but good.

Built like a tank.. Can these amps BE broken????

I'd give it a 8 overall.. great amp.. every working musician should have one.. heavy though..

I think my amp is a '79. It has two channels unfortunately, when I bought it used it no longer had the footswitch (If anyone knows where I can get one please email Morma1@aol.com). It has reverb and a phaser. The amp runs on 6 6L6 tubes. It still has the original 12" black widow speakers.

I play an epiphone sg-400 directly into this amp. I crank the pre-gain up as high as I can get it without causing constant feedback. This amp gets a really fuzzy warm distortion. I personally really like the way it sounds (but I can see how it would not appeal to some people). This is a good amp for heavy sabbathesque metal. This amp gets really loud. I plug the second output into a 4x12 peavey scorpion cabinet. It sounds HUGE. Some people have suggested running this amp on fewer than six tubes. I have all six tubes in mine, but I think one might be fried. Also 3 of my tubes are sylvania and 3 are General Electric. These are the same tubes that were in my amp when I bought it about 5 years ago. The phaser on this amp is a pretty cool feature. I think it sounds best when the phaser is on a low setting. Turning the phaser above 8 makes the amp sound ridiculous--You can't even make out notes anymore--It's just pulsing psychedelic madness.

I've had this amp for five years and have never done anything to it service-wise. I've been thinking about putting some new tubes in it.

I've never dealt with peavey.

I also own an ampeg 150-S guitar amp. The peavey cuts right through the ampeg. Even when the Mace is at a lower volume than the ampeg it just comes through clearer. If this amp were lost/stolen I would probably buy something else (primarily because I doubt I could find another Mace amp). This is an okay amplifier. If you see it in a music store for a good price and you want a loud amp I would say check it out and if you like the distortion buy it. This amp is pretty much a one trick pony. Oh yeah one more thing this amp is heavier than hell. It weights a friggin ton.

The Mace is a two channel, hybrid combo amp with an 'automix' function used to combine both channels. Peavey built these from the mid 70's into the very early 80's. It combines a solid state pre-amp with an all tube power stage ran with 6 6L6 tubes. Has spring reverb, effects loop and speaker out. Very nice clean sparkle, gain channel is not that impressive, but it has a very cool phaser built in. I found this amp at a pawn shop, and didn't know what I bought. I knew it was late 70's, it was a tube amp, it was under $200, and it was 160 watts. I didn't play it at the store, brought it home then found out it was the amp used by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and has become a very desireable amp among people who know what they are. The tone was kind of flat, so I replaced the factory original Sylvania's with Svetlana 6L6GC's. This opened up the amp more than I ever imagined, I have done tube replacements on several other of my amps, but never before has it made so much difference. The amp is in decent shape, and is equipped with Black Widows, not Scorpion speakers which makes a big difference in tone.

I totally bypass the pre-amp in this amp by going through the back panel effects loop. I use a Johnson J-Station, which does very well on the Marshall type distortion and Fender sounds through this amp. 160 watts....and Black Widows...needless to say, the amp has to be quite loud to get it into that tone sweet spot. This is a very good combo if you can find one in decent condition, and as for the previous reviews on this amp giving very low scores, those people apparently have not been exposed to very many amps, guitars, or applications of the two. I have been a professional musician all of my life, and I am very impressed and satisfied with this amp. I have hooked it up to a Marshall 1960B cab, and it sounded great.

Built like a rock...as I mentioned, I had the tubes replaced, and the only thing that concerns me are the speakers. Even though they are Black Widows, I am afraid that due to the vintage of this amp, I will not be able to find replacements should I need them. The speakers should easily handle this amp, but it concerns me none the less. Peavey, even though I have always preferred Fender tube amps, has always been noted in many circles for excellent reliability, and as this was one of the company's top of the line amps in the day, I would assume it should hold up. Mine is 25 years old, and still kicking.

Never dealt with them personally.

Would buy it again, and I am currently looking for a nice Peavey Mace Head for a little more diversity.

This is a late 70s hybrid. It has 6 6L6 power tubes and a solid state pre-amp. It has two channels, both with independant eq and pre and post gain controls. Mine, though purchased in the mid-nineties and heavily used at that, has the original speakers in it. The available footswitch allows you to mix the two channels, which, in theory, could be quite useful, but, in practice, is not with this amp. There is also reverb and a tremolo. Slightly more to offer on paper than the industry standard two channel amp.

This amp is perhaps the loudest amp I have ever heard. As long as the pregain is less than 4 or 5, it has stayed clean for as loud as I could stand. With the pregain up and the postgain down, so distortion is available. It's usable, but not spectacular. The clean is very good. The eq controls, however, don't do much. This and the lesser quality distortion negate the potential usefulness of the automix function. I think alot of two channel amps with independant eqs could be effectively made into three channel amps with this function. Reverb and tremolo are not all too good.

I had alot of problems with this amp. Tubes would fall out, ant one tube blew taking the housing with it. When I got it fixed, the volume would fluctuate, the floorboard won't work, and fuses would blow. If it were new, I would give it a "1," but it is quite old and in rough shape when I got it, so it gets a "4."

No idea.

For the price I paid for it, it was good, but you could get a used solid state combo such as a Crate GFX212 used for about $50 more. This was the amp I got after the Mace, and I was very pleased with the range of sounds I could get (though the Mace was still slightly better in the clean department). If you can get one cheap, it would be a good fixer upper. Like I said, the clean is good and loud. I think this amp would be a great choice (if fixed up) to be in an A/B rig with a good high gain amp in the stead of a more expensive Roland. I've been playing for four years and have had or played through meny, many amps.

I can't really figure out what style of music it is supposed to be used for. The distortion sucked, the switching was accompanied by a loud pop, the reverb stunk, the tubes stunk, and why the hell does anyone need 160 watts?

You're going to need an incredible stomp box for this one, because unless you're in an Amboy Dukes tribute band, the distortion is crud. Reverb is noisy to the point of unusable. The controls do nothing.

Beware! This amp was designed all wrong, as a combo amp the speakers can't handle the power of 6 (!?) power tubes. I defy anyone to find one with the original speakers. Most of them have blue dot specials, which are not the originals. They've all been blown! If you don't believe me, next time you see one in a store, check to see if there are Peavy speakers in there, chances are there won't be. Then tell the clerk you'll give him 10 bucks for the amp, and use it for an end table.

I couldn't even get my local music store to work on it. They just laughed at me.

I have been playing for 10 years and I have never played such a piece of shit! The heaviest combo amp ever made, I'll bet it weighs more than an SVT (cabinet included!!!) I chose it when I went to college because I thought it would be a good tube combo amp, and more portable than my half-stack. Boy, was I wrong. To think I sold a Bassman and a Celestian- loaded KMD cabinet so I could buy that! Worst purchase ever! Whoever designed it should be sent to prison for fraud! Luckily I was able to unload it to a stupid junior high kid for 200 bucks. (Otherwise I was going to throw it through the window of a Starbucks!)

Ok this amp was made 21 years ago (almost 22) so it was built in 76' this am has 4 channels a normal channel, parallel, series, and effects... it has no distortion whatso ever unless you turn the pregain up all the way then you get a mild overdrive... its got 6 6l6 tubes.. and is a hybrid amp so those are all power tubes... the last guy said it had 150 watts but the manual says 160... i wish it had better distortion but i make up for it

ok i play a fender strat, a harmony LP ripoff, and a jackson ss-2 through this monster and have it coming through a Randall Cab that is equiped with 4 jaguars (know for the most bass in any cab on earth *l*)... this amp is slightly louder then God in my opinion, i mean not to demean God or anything but this amp is freaking loud... the clean channel is sweet... but like i said earlier, no distortion, so to fix the problem.. pedals pedals pedals... i am into digital which is a sin with tube amps but when hooking up a mere Zoom 505 this amp sounds like Gabriel's trumpet calling for the end of the world... this amp is good for anything in my opinion...

this amp is very reliable for 21 years old it has most of the original tubes in it the only this i see wrong with it is that the tremelo went out and ive yet to fix it also i am having a power drain on the normal channel, but it doesnt phase me

never needed it

This Amp F**ing rocks!!!

This hybrid combo, with 2 channels and 2x12 speakers, time-warped from somewhere in the 70's into a local pawn shop, where a gullible young guitar player snatched it up because it "didn't work". After perceiving that the problem was a lack of power tubes, the amp powered up just dandy. The channels can be run separately or "automixed" (don't ask me why). The clean channel lacks a midrange eq control, but damned if the effects channel doesn't have a phase shifter. Reverb controls are separate. My model has preamp/power amp jacks, as well as 1/4" line out and XLR outputs. I had to have a local shop modify a four-switch footswitch to fit this amp, but they either didn't do it right or the footswitch wasn't meant to be able to toggle between the channels, only between clean and automix. The power amp section has six 6L6 tubes and puts out 160 watts. Also, there's an output for an additional speaker cabinet.

As with any hybrid amp, the transistor distortion is sloppy and shouldn't be used in any situation other than an empty room by yourself. But the clean sound is very clean, loud, and the eq controls are very effective in shaping the sound. The phase shifter absolutely rocks and has a wide range (only has a moderate amount of hiss mixed in) and can be switched with the footswitch. I would probably compare this amp to a Roland Jazz chorus: good for clean, but it needs a box in front of it for distortion.(recommendations, anyone?) I tried this amp with an ES-175, an SG, and an SG junior, and each one was accurately represented by this amp. For playing rock, the Mace can shake the walls (160 watts, fer Chrissake), but you can remove two or three of the 6L6's and run it at lower wattage.

It's a Peavey. (There, I said it.) Once this amp went down the stairs the hard way. One tube shattered and the glass on two cracked, but once replaced, Mr. Happy churned right along. One great feature of this amp, as noted above, is that you can run it on only two or three tubes, so if you run on six and one blows out, no problem, just pull some more out and turn the post up a little more

I've never had to have this amp serviced, but I have dealt with Peavey about one other amp and recall being satisfied with their service.

I've had this amp for four years and have no complaints with the amp itself, just with my choice of distortion products. If anybody has owned a Mace or a similar hybrid, I would like to hear about your choices. I might buy it again if it were stolen, but the damn thing's so heavy I only have to worry about that if Arnold Schwarzenegger's around. I might also be willing to sell if somebody's interested.