Peavey Bandit 112

I have no idea, probably 2004. I play no bullshit blues and blues rock. I don't give a fuck about a lot of versatility, just want something in my living room that I can practice on and get a decent clean sound and decent crunch from. This amp is more than good enough for that and it is loud. I was a little disappointed in this amp. I've had several Peavey amps and while they are not BAD amps, they just seem to lack something and I can't figure out exactly what that something is. I'll give it an 8 because it does what's its suppose to do.

I have the following guitars:

1956 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop, yep - original, passed down from my Dad. Two P-90 pickups.

1962 Fender Stratocaster, also passed down from my Dad. It was upgraded to Fender Vintage Tonless pickups (absolutely suck) switched to Texas Specials. I can deal with the buzz.

1964 Fender Telecaster. The last of the electrics passed down from my Dad. I have the vintage noiseless pickups on these, which are actually stacked humbuckers. They kick ass.

1972, Fender Telecaster Custom. I bought it new. Has a Vintage Noiseless at the Bridge and a stock Fender chrome covered humbucker at the neck. A Keith Richards look alike.

1982 Fender Standard Stratocaster. I also bought it new. Has the stock pickups on it, made in USA. Sounds great as is.

1995 Gibson Les Paul Standard. Everything is stock. Two humbuckers.

I've had lots of other guitars, but these are the only electrics I have kept. This amp is good BUT NOT GREAT for all these guitars. Handles humbuckers quite well. I play pure no bullshit blues based rock. I do my own stuff, but I draw heavily from late 60's to mid 70's blues based stuff and Southern Rock (hey, I'm from fuckin Georgia) like Hendrix, Zeppelin, Sabbath (yes that is blues based hard rock), Stones, Skynyrd, Molly Hatchett, AC/DC, Blacksnake, etc.. Nothing else is music to me. I don't care for this heavy metal shit. This amp will play all the music I like and for a living room or a porch practice amp, it is good. It's noisy though, even with humbuckers and very high quality cables. Clean channel "breaks up nicely" at higher volumes AT IS SHOULD and that is the best thing about this amp. Go to volume level "5" and you can get a very nice crunch but it's a hundred watts so that volume level is pretty fuckin loud. Distortion can be brutal if that's what you want but the distortion doesn't have "soul". I bought this for Skynyrd, Molly Hatchett, 30 Special type stuff and it does it ok......does Ted Nugent type stuff ok. I keep the gain around 3 or 4 and that's more than sufficient for any of the music I play. Again an 8. Not a bad amp - just not a great amp. I wouldn't gig with it. Unlike the Marshalls or VOX amps, you can't compare the Peavey solid state amps (even the transtubes) with the Peavey Tube Amps. To me, Peavey Solid State Amps miss something the others seem to pickup. Peavey tube amps are awesome though - just don't forget your billfold if you go to buy one.

Now in this department - built like a fuckin tank.

Never dealt with them.

I've been playing since I was 3 or 4 and I'm 51. I come from a musical family (obviously since most of my guitars were handed to me when my Dad passed away). I have the guitars that I mentioned above, a Gibson Acoustic that is older than me, an Epiphone Hummingbird, and a couple of Martin Acoustics. I have a VOX AC 30 and a Fender Super Reverb for tube amps (the VOX was also passed to me by my Dad), I bought the Fender Super Reverb at a pawn shop for $200.00 several years back. These are my gig amps when I do gig....which is not as often as in my younger days. I also have a Marshall MG30DFX and a Marshall MG10CD which are damn good. Finally I have a VOX Pathfinder 15R, which is the best damn practice amp I have ever played. I don't have all this shit because I'm materialistic or rich. I'm a musician......that should tell you I ain't rich. I've just accumulated this stuff over a period of years. Now that I have a steady job, I can't play as much as before, but I can afford to buy more stuff. I'd get another one if it were lost. It won't be.....and it won't be stolen either. I have a hald timber wolf, half german sheppard who loves to play with intruders. I live very far in the country in the mountains of North Georgia on 30 acres of land so I can play as loud as I want to. Somehow my wife has put up with all this shit for over 30 years.

Bought my Bandit 2 years ago new, so that would make it a 2003 model. This thing on the distortion side goes from Fender tweed/Supro to Marshall combo to drop tune "Cookie monster" crunch with a 3-way switch on the face of the amp, clean channel and effects loop. Comes with a clunky 2 button foot switch for clean/distorted and effects on/off. Solid state, sturdy and no maintenance to speak of.

I use a Warmoth body/'91 jap ('51 re-issue Broadcaster) maple neck "telly" with Texas Custom pick-ups, a Squier Telly for slide, a Resonator for other slide, a law-suit"Strat" from Vester(a great sounding axe!) and a law suit Les Paul from Tokai probably(it's had a decal put on it,but is too well made to be a Korean) a Cry Baby and Boss delay. I play everything from AC/DC to Zepp. The Bandit goes nicely with all those sound palettes. JUST ONE PROBLEM. It's still solid state, and if you're spoiled from using expensive tube amps(as I am) you're first impression will be "golly" it sounds fat at low volume(unlike tube amps which sound like a kazoo until you get up to about 7) and you'll give it a "close but no cigar" rating at higher levels. Well I got this amp to play small venues and it has enough power to be heard on larger stages too..about as loud as a Twin. I had an old B.K. Butler 2-tube driver with a clean/overdrive. I use the clean side of it as a pre-amp and go into the low input of the Bandit..that made all the difference.. now it sounds like my old Marshall combo which had a 100w Mark II head.

Average of four nights a week for two years and the circuit breaker shut down once! when the 9V power tranny for my delay shorted out. Came right back on when i took the offending plug out. No more $280 "tune-ups" to keep the sound every three freekin months. I haven't needed a back up with this thing and we're talking 400 gigs and i don't know how many practices.

Hasn't come up

I've been playing guitar for 40 years and this amp is the best small amp i've ever owned. I constantly get great comments on my tone from other guitarists and soundmen because this thing sounds amazing miked up, although i did put in an 80W Celestion speaker as well. With minor modifications such as a cleanish tube-pre and a Celestion speaker my Bandit sounds identical to a $2000 point-to-point Fender Vibra-King I just tried out and that's no bullshit........my druthers is a pair of Mark II Marshalls with four cabinets, but,again, I'm not trying to break the mirror behind the bar, and don't have roadies to schlepp it all around these days. Give it an 8 without the tube-pre and a 10 with. Hate the way it looks, i took off all the name plates but couldn't get rid of the nasty red stripe so i just hide it behind the sub-woofer and everyone aks me what kinda amp i use because it sounds so goood.

Feature-wise, it's difficult to complain about the Bandit. With an effects loop, footswitchable clean/overdrive channels, 80W of power (100W if you plug in an extension cab) and separate EQ knobs for both channels, if you're actually using both then this is quite accomodating and what you would expect from a quality product. No headphone jack, but save those for practice amps anyway.

The Bandit is my second amp. Before it, I owned a Fender Frontman practice amp (the reverbless version). In my opinion now, the difference between the Frontman and the Bandit is the speaker and cab and not much else. In fact, for what purpose my Bandit has served, I may have been better served keeping the Fender.

My main guitar is a custom-made Warmoth Jaguar with DiMarzio humbuckers (Super Distortion in the bridge and Air Norton in the neck position). I also own a cherry red Fender Toronado with stock pickups (humbuckers), although I rarely pull it out of the case anymore.

My style of playing is very much rooted in alternative and grunge music; my favorite band is Nirvana but I play stuff like My Vitriol, Mansun, Gatsby's American Dream, Catherine Wheel, and other bands that have very eccentric, effected sounds in addition to my own stuff.

As a result, I hardly ever have use of (this) amp distortion. I used to run a DS-1 straight into my amp. This works fine for blitzing, grungy, close-to-over-the-top metal distortion but provides little versatility. My current pedal lineup includes a Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde Ultimate Overdrive (GREAT two-in-one pedal, like a TS-808 Tube Screamer and a Marshall JCM800 in a box), an AnalogMan Clone Chorus, a DOD Graphic EQ, and a Digitech RP200 that I pull out sometimes for some of the effects.

Whether the Bandit is "noisy" is debatable. If "noise" means hiss, this amp is as quiet as your pedals and pickups allow. If noise means terrible icepick-to-the-ears overdrive, then the distortion channel is nothing but noise. Personally, I've never used it seriously for more than five minutes -- it sounds absolutely terrible. Unmusical, lifeless static.

The clean channel is better but lacks the warmth, roundness and overall personality associated with tube amps. My main purpose in writing this review, however, is to stress the lack of headroom offered by the Bandit.

As I mentioned previously, I traded in a Fender Frontman amp as part of the payment for this Bandit. Given that I was never bold enough to really turn the Frontman up very far out of fear that it would rattle apart, imagine my surprise when the store guy, in testing it, managed to get the best sound I'd ever heard coming out of the little thing in the 30 seconds he was mucking around with it at about 6-7 on the volume setting.

You WILL NOT get the same results out of a Bandit. Around 3 or 4, it starts distorting like nobody's business and the distortion, either from the horrible built-in channel or from running a pedal in, will sound like absolute fat ass. Blatty and boxy and terrible.

This is really not what I wanted to discover upon finding some guys to start jamming with at band volumes (which I need to crank the Bandit up past 3 or 4 to achieve).

The irony is, at bedroom levels (ie. 1 or 2 to almost 3) this amp can sound pretty decent and with my pedal setup I can get some pretty nice overdrive sounds for bluesy type licks and riffs. There's never been enough definition in the Bandit to allow for crazily-distorted metal stuff; it justs comes out sounding like loud mush.

It's a tank. As are, I suspect, most solid state amps of reasonable make.

Never needed to talk to them.

Been playing about 7-8 years now; I've had this amp for most of that time, and since I haven't been gigging or performing, it's served just fine in its extended residence in my basement.

Would definitely not buy it again if stolen. If you're serious about playing guitar-based music, you need a tube amp, there's no debate about it.

The thing is this: at $300-400 dollars, the Bandit is a pretty high-end solid state amp. Much more than $300-400 and you get into the range of good tube amps that can do ten times better anything this amp claims to be able to do.

Bottom line: not a gigging or band practice amp in any way, shape or form. It sounds like absolute ass at anything higher than basement practice volumes, inspiring me to cry myself to sleep for an afternoon nap instead of play guitar. My advice to anyone currently in my situation from a few years back (got a few hundred dollars to spend to move up from a cheap practice amp) would be, save it that extra bit much to cross over into tube and valve territory and get a good solid guitar amp that will last. I chose the Bandit because I was unexperienced and naive and thought it was a good deal. In the long run, it's going to end up having cost me money. I plan on getting a Hot Rod DeVille at the soonest opportunity and I expect it will last me for a very long time.

Early 90's model without the 'Tube' simulation.
Has power amp in and preamp out
Sheffield speaker
Quite heavy (16 - 17kg's)
Spring reverb

I play 50, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's rock - hard rock

I use various Yamaha pacificas with single and humbucker pickups. I drive the clean channel with a Roland GP8 and have done so for many years live with great success.

I haven't used the lead channel live because I don't like the sound and didn't want to have to adjust clean and lead channel volumes at the Amp. I generally setup the clean channel volume at the start of the gig and change (increase) it for louder sets.

The lead channel isn't bad but is good for distortion while practicing when I don't want to setup te GP8

I like the reverb and generally use it for clean/chorus lead breaks in those 50's and 60's songs. I like the flexibility of the footswitch

Top marks. The amp has failed me once (in 15 years) when it was too close to a backdrop curtain and overheated. The amp came to life when I moved it away from the curtain

Never need customer support

I give it an 8 because it is a workhorse, loud enough for all situations, and I have found the Power Amp input to be very usefull. The amp is great as a 'Monitor' amp now being driven from my recoding mixer.

I deduct points because it has a 'general purpose' overdrive although it is fine. It is also 5kg's too heavy that causes it to be a pain to lug around.

I have recently tried out the Roland cube amps and are very impressed with the sound, size etc and have considered selling the Peavey but may have changed my mind because it has been such a usefull amp and is now proving to be a great general purpose monitor. The power amp in is also great input for guitar amp modelled sounds.

I probably wouldn't get another if it were stolen because there are many great amps around at reasonable prices

I bought the amp a couple of years ago. I was lookin for a fender but they were a little expensive for me at the time. While lookin I never even considered buying a Peavey. I thought no self respecting guitarist would play through one, not so now. It has two channels selected by a footswitch, clean is nice and clean and dirty is not great but as I play the clean through an effect all I need is a little boost for leads and the dirty channel gives me enough boost to carry it off. I wish there was an LED to indicate which channel is selected I know the sound tells you but some times it would be handy. The volume is loud enough to compete with the other guitarist's 100W valve Marshall head connected to 4 10inch speakers(believe me) and has been gigged without being miked.

I play a fender tele and this amp suits it well. I believe in starting with a clean sounding amp and using effects to dirty it up. The crisp sound from the tele comes out well unlike a tube amp which I find is always fuzzy (Yes that's right I DO NOT LIKE TUBE AMPS). Having said the dirty ch is not great it can be alright if you mess with the pre gain and post gain. We play ~Clash Jam and Pistols stuff and I find that you can get that late 70's sound quite easy. I've played this amp at 8/9 vol and there has been no distortion. By the way this was a shop Demo amp so has taken a lot of abuse I would imagine and still it preforms great.

I always gig with no backup and I have no problem in doing so. Like all solid state amps there is no replacing of tubes and this in itself is worth it's weight in gold. So far in two years I have had no problems.

Never dealt with them. Never had to.

I 've playing for donkey's years but only started playing in a band in the last three years. Until I bought this amp I borrowed amps from the rehearsal studio (fenders, marshalls and a roland jazz) But I am happy to use my Peavey 112. It was lost stolen or broken I would probably go for a fender purely for the name but if the price was right I would definately consider the bigger peavey 212.

well it is not a tube amp but it sounds like one. i use it at home and in my band. i play bossa, swing, metal, blues, pop, rock...everything. it has 2 channels but the clean has two choices and the lead 3. it has enough power for me.

it fits to nearly all styles. clean channel has just a little crunch if it is loud. sometimes it is noisy i dont know why. the distortion is okay

ohhh yes the quality is **** when i lifted the amp the handle just broke. i was licky thath the amp did't fall on my feet. so pay attention people! i could use it without a backup.

the warranty is 6 years if you sent in a card. when the handle brome i went to a peavey dealer and he said that peavey didn't get that card i paied 60 ?

amp is great for beginners who wants to have more for less, but some parts are****

Bought the amp at Xmas 2004. It's really versatile for the heavy rock music that I like playing, but can also do nu-metal and bluesy type stuff. I wish the three modes available on the filth channel were able to be selected from the footswitch. Still not quite sure what the benefit of a footswitchable effects loop is!!! It has bags of power, is plenty loud enough

Right this is where I say my true feelings about this amp. I bought it as my second amp, one which I can use when I work away from home without fear of valves letting me down. I wanted something with a british type of rock sound, that would be robust enough to handle a bit of rough treatment and still deliver the goods. BTW, every week when I'm at home I gig in front of a full Marshall TSL100 stack, get the drift......??? I bought a Line 6 spider 2, arse! Then I bought a Marshall AVT 100, even arser! I sold them two and continued my quest for a decent sound out of a combo that wouldn't cost me a bleedin' fortune, trying amps at random until I stumbled on an article about the Peavey bandit. I did own one during the early 90's and seemed to remember that when I put a distortion box through the clean channel, it sounded great. So off I went to try one of these bad boys with a view to throwing my Marshall jackhammer through the clean channel, or maybe a guv'nor. NO NEED!!!! The highly versatile crunch channel sounded fantastic, three voices etc etc etc, all different in their own rights. The purchase was made and I haven't looked back. A truely great buy. Gets a ten for the sound from an SS combo, not compared with a full valve amp. This is the closest I have heard to a valve sound from a tranny amp. It hasn't even got a valve in the pre-amp like a lot have these days, any way, from experience this sounds and feels much better.

Peavey, nuff said.

Five year guarantee if you post off the warranty form which I can't see me needing to use. Never dealt with the company, my Peavey gear has never let me down.

I get fed up of reading reviews on this great musical resource written by people who quite frankly talk out of their backsides. This is a relatively low priced solid state amp and should be reviewed as such. Believe me when I say that I am ultra fussy about my tones and after quite a lot of experiences with equipment that simply doesn't cut the mustard for me even though they're blown up to be the nearest thing to a valve sound, my suggestion is 'use your ears'! Youngsters may go ahead and slate this amp before they proudly announce they've been playing guitar for 4 years or whatever. Do they have a clue? Not IMHO. This amp IS fantastic value for money, sounds great and I would definatly buy another the next day if it was lost or stolen (don't think it'd break down on me!!!).

i dont know what the year is but i think it might be 2004 seems very new
amp is good for clean the transtube does a great job
2 channels clean and lead
3 band eq for both channels and for the lead pre gain and post gain
i use this amp mostly at home doesnt have enough power to keep up with the band even though it says its 300 watts on the back, ive used it as a preamp and plugged it into a 412 cab and it sounded good
no headphone jack that was a let down

solid state amp sounds almost tube amp like

i am using a kramer special with 2 humbuckers
i play classic rock and metal the clean channel sounds flawless and the lead channel doesnt have that good of sound it can do blues like sounds good but i find it gives way too much noise in hum than from strumming the strings if i turn it up. doesnt have much of a variety but i use pedals with it and that seems to work really good. sheffeild speaker 2 thumbs up

i can depend on it to last of corse its a peavey and peaveys dont seem to die i would use it on a gig without a backup if i used it at a gig which i dont. i have not had any problems with this guitar i keep it mostly on the clean channel

havent dealt with them

i have been playing for 4 years i own a kramer special digitech death metal distortion , dod grunge thats about it i sold pretty much everything i had to get what i have
i wouldnt ever buy this guitar new the price is far too high and isnt worth it for the price i payed id buy it again

I got my amp about a year ago (2004) and I think it's part of the last wave of bandits to be made in the states and with good quality etc (or that's what I hear)
The features on this amp are great, very versatille clean and dirty channels. The footswitch is great for gigs if you dont use a distortion pedal. It's got useful stuff that I just havn't found the opportunity to use yet (effects loop which is also footswitch activated) Its got a bunch of other jacks for connecting cabs and stuff, but no headphone jack. (the amp speaker is always on) There is a noise reducing ground switch, that's always good. I don't think that there are too many effects that you would need directly on the amp, I use everything seperately.
The tube is great, love it.
And the 100watt 12inch sheffeild is awesome, more than gig-worthy.

I've tried the bandit with a variety of guitars. It suits just about any style, although it doesn't tend to go extremely crisp clean and the distortion could be heavier, but not for what I play (pop-rock to classic rock to metal) yes I find it is good enough for most metal. There is not alot of noise at all. The sound is great, just could be more crisp.

Hell, I havn't found problems. And I've abused it.

Havn't required any. This thing is a tank.

I love my bandit. I don't think I would buy any other combination (head-cab) amp under any circumstances. I would buy another if it was stolen or lost...yeah. There isn't anything that I have come to hate about it so far, she's great. I don't think it's lacking anything especially for the INSANE great price!
Buy it. Use it as your primary amp for home/band practices/most gigs/whatever. It's great.

This is a '93 model 80 watts, with saturation control. EQ and bright controls are pretty responsive. All the other Bandit stuff on it too.

I use it with a Strat and a LP copy with seymour duncans I installed.
I play music that is very clean to very overdriven. Only thing is, when it's overdriven I still want tonal quality.
This amp sat for about a year because it had a very scratchy, cutting out volume pot. It sucked bad. I finally figured out that you could order parts directlty from Peavey and replaced the pot.
The pot replacement is very easy and well worth the few bucks it costs.
Sounds: I wasn't really happy with the sound on either channel. The clean channel had sort of a muffled sound. The distorted channel just plain sucked. It didn't have any chime to it even with the bright button pushed.
BUT then I tried running my Boss GT3 through the effects loop (which is an excellent pedal if you know how to program it) And the sound was great. It had a much more clean tone. THEN I hooked up my 25 watt all tube Excelsior amp through the other side of the stereo out on the GT3 and it blended so beautifully. The Bandit enhanced the tube amp by giving it a really nice low end. It sounded pretty good when I miked it from the tube amp too.
I knew this amp had to have potential, based on all of the good ratings for it. I just had to take the time to figure out how I could get it too suit me.

I think I could prolly use this thing as a jack stand on my car.
Volume pot was fucked up when I got it and it was an easy fix.

What can I say...Peavey is the BEST company I've dealt with so far. So friendly and helpfull. Great American integrity that seems to be hard to find these days.

I think I'll keep this little beast.
Keep in mind there are many variations of Bandits and they don't all sound the same. One things for sure though, it's a loud SS amp.