Peavey Backstage 30

Bought in 1978 for $about $65.
Two inputs, main and second with reduced gain.
This is a very basic, simple amp with pre-gain and master gain, plus treble, mid and Low. Has pre-amp output (1 volt). 15 watts rms. one 10" speaker. Has almost no built in features - but this is a truly a practice amp. Would like to see a headphone jack. The features are limited but not bare bones- suitable for what it is.

Very clean.
This thing gets pretty loud and then distortion kicks in - but you really need pedals or effects to get anything but basic clean. Sound is full range and not bad, for clean.

No problems. Original owner for over 23 years.

not needed.

Perfectly good, solid practice amp.
Will crank for a small gig if needed.

I bought this amp together with a crappy Epiphone Les Paul knockoff back in the early '80s. It was second hand at that time. I have no idea the actual year of manufacture. It's a basic amp but modern enough to have pre and post volume controls so you can get your range of clean to full-out distortion sounds at low levels. It gets pretty darn loud if you want it too, though. It's not ideal for playing in band context. It's for practicing "backstage".... and hence the name. I use it at home for practicing and I take it out with me to teach lessons or just jam with one other person. It's pretty handy that way. It's light, portable, functional and built like a tank. Yes, it's solid state. I won't win any awards with it for tone, but that's not the function it serves.

Again, a wide range of functional sounds are available for informal events such as personal practice time or lessons etc. I use a Godin LGX-SA. It's a versatile guitar which bridges the gap between the Les Paul and Strat sound so I get the best of both worlds. My music styles are classic rock, blues, jazz and country. I don't feel the Backstage amp limits me in any way in this regard. It's just a practice amp anyway. I have other equipment to use for "real" situations.

This amp is probably 20 years old. I think it meets criteria for reliability. Now my little kids play with it (two boys aged 4 and 1.5 years). They can be brutal with stuff but the amp is like a roach - you just can't kill it. It's never needed servicing.

Can't comment here.

A good, reliable, functional amp. Suitable for a wide range of music styles. Not designed for regular gigging. It's a practice amp.

not much in this just 2 gains and a high, mid,and a low

way to clean for me.NO distortion at all.lots of extra noice.it does crank high in volume

not reliable at all.it sat in my friends garage with 2 other amps and this one did not make it for more than 3 days

n/a

work for a while but is dead now:(.got it free so not bad deal i juess.

This is a sad but true update to my last rating of the amplifier.
Here sre the features:
1.)Preamp out (I hot wired it so I could run a cabnet and the speaker)
2.)Pre gain (Now part of my harmony Frankenstrat)
3.)Low (Now part of my DuPont carpeted Rage/Backstage frankenstien amp
4.)Mid (Also on the frankenstien amp)
5.)high (Frankenstien amplifier)
6.)Post (Now a free loose spare pot)

the more I think about it, the more I think this amplifier sounds like an Ice cream truck speaker.

Actually, it has been fixed once, and I am not going to fix it again, no way in hell I am going to pay $40+ to get this little piece of shit fixed. It just stopped working a week ago and I am still fucking pissed off about it seriously. I spent $70.00 fucking dollars on this used piece of dogshit and I am tired of fixing it and working on it to keep it running for all eternity. And the worst thing about it is that it breaks in a transistor every time, not the fuse, not a switch, not a pot, a fucking transistor. And theres seventy of em to to make this simple piece of junk work. The last time I had it fixed, they replaced all of the transistors, a few resistors, cleaned the pots, and Peavey was such a waiter as to make it take almost a year for this amp to be fixed, I got out of school again before I got it back. The problem with the time was that the local store was fixing it and Peavey had to go look hard in an old warehouse for the parts to fix this lousy amplifier.

Theyre so fucking slow, but they get the job doen at least.

I am through with Peavey, I will put up with them no longer. I am going to buy a Mesa Boogie next. Epiphones Korean amps are better than Peavey, I have had the same Epiphone SC28 for 4 years now and It has been dropped, hit, kicked, rained on for 30 minutes, and had beer spilled on it and all I have broken are the plastic corner protectors. But yet I leave this backstage 30 plugged in to an outlet unattended for 5 seconds and it is dead. This is a testament to what makes a crappy practice amp, no features, no reliability, and most of all, no pain tolerance.

Pretty Basic, Pre Gain, low, mid,high, Post gain setup. Good for the technically challenged. Did I mention this was one of the first ones made in the late 70's with the aluminum knobs with black inserts.

Read my rig under the DOD super american metal pedal and you'll see what I use. This amp is good enough for playing around school, i used it in the Jazz Ensamble this past year and the only shortcoming I had was volume (Dang sticky Volume Pot). Otherwise this amp can crank the shit out of anything. Even with the pre gain at 10 and the post at 0 you can hear your guitar. it's a little too midrangey for metal but i fixed that with my distortion pedal. This amp gets some good tones and suonds more like an old radio with a light overdrive than an amp.

The onlything that can kill this amp is a thunderstorm. It was in the shop for half a year just because a thunderstorm blew it up and the shop could not find parts for it easily.

This is a great amp if you don't like 300 knobs, 40 buttons, 2 million jacks, and don;t need distortion thats even as light as the Beach Boys distortion levels.

A friend gave me this amp several years ago after his roommate moved out and left it in a closet. That was about 15 years ago and I've had it ever since. It's got two gains and Low/Mid/High EQ settings. Also two phone jacks and a power switch in the back. No reverb or EFX loops -- very basic.

The distortion is, to my ears, awful, but some might like. Very transistor sounding. The clean is very clean, this is what I used it for (before I retired it to the closet), playing acoustic through with a Zoom 505 EFX pedal. It will get loud as hell. Seriously, you *can* damage your hearing with this thing. Definitly loud enough to play with a drummer.

The gain knowb on mine has started to get a bit scratchy. Also, not the amps fault, but I need to replace the 8" speaker, I punched a hole in it stuffing a guitar cable in the open back one night. Funny, the 1/4" hole in the speaker didn't seem to affect the sound that much (at low volumes that it, crank it up and it sounds like a Neil Young record now :)

Don't know and don't care

It's okay considering I got it free. If it disappeared one day, I probably wouldn't notice though. Nice to have it around though in case friends drop by and I need an extra practice amp...

My amp serves it's purpuse but not the way I want it to. It has a nice, clean tone and if I knew this before I probably wouldn't have got it. It has a 3 band equalizer(spelling ???) low, med & high knobs. It has one gain/distortion knob and one master gain knob.

I got an Ibanez with two humbuckers, and it sounds really rough and sharp on my friends amp but an this amp only clean sound really good. The gain/dist. knob is really weak, maybe it's broken. If you put it on 10 it sounds like it's on 4.5.

Despite the lack of wanted sound this amp can take a good bruising. It's very dependable. Asides from the (gain???) I have no problems with it

Not bad for a beginner it has a little of everything but if you want distortion go back to the music shop and return it