Peavey Bandit 112

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.

UPDATE

Figured out what was causing the unwanted overdrive in my Bandit. Know what it was?

The T-Dynamics knob, dummy! (Dummy=me.)

That "subtle" effect this control I mentioned in my previous review is tube-like compression and distortion at stage volume settings. I didn't understand how this worked before, and took the much-espoused 10% T-Dynamics setting at face value. When I heard distortion I thought something was malfuctioning, that I couldn't get rid of it. Why didn't I make the mental leap to realize that this is the essence of what makes a tube amp sound like a tube amp, and if the T-Dynamics is supposed to make the amp sound more like a tube amp at low settings, perhaps--ya think?--turning up would clean it up?

So what I learned is this:

10%=lower overall / maximum volume, non-linear increase in volume=increasing compression and distortion as master volume control goes up. Reasonably authentic tube-crunch tone to boot.

100%=higher overall volume, linear volume increase, quite clean tone all the way up to maximum volume settings.

And of course everything in between.

Jumping over that hurdle has opened up the perceived capabilities of the Bandit 112 considerably. The unwanted distortion was probably the main factor in my giving it a 7 before. I now rate it as a mid-9. Not absolutely perfect, as most amps aren't perfect, but pretty close as cheap 1x12 combos go.

Excellent--I say again, EXCELLENT--value.

If you have money to blow on boutique amps and the Highly Desirable Old Standbys, by all means buy one. For the rest of us--actual working musicians who are often tight on cash--I think the Bandit 112 provides 85% of the sound for 25% of the price.

i have no idea what year this amp was made but i got it used from a local music shop as part trade in for a marshall 30mgdfx it cant be very old as the condition is emaculate and covers hardly faded from light etc. 80 watts into 8 ohms or 100 into 4 ive tryed the extension and even with 4 ohm option its clear and nice! i play mostly metal/hard rock and occasionly an odd bit of emo, has 2 channels clean and lead, footswitchable an effects loop but no headphone jack :( no playing after 11p.m anymore, alot of people call this a practise amp but i will gladly gig it! i never use 100 watts of power, and 50 aint enough so 80 is a nice medium!this is a transtube amp not sure what the means but i think its the equivalent of laney tube fusion? this mean machine comes equiped with a 12" sheffield speaker , never heard of the make before but its built tough took a wee peak at the cone and its tough beast i would say its similar to a celestion u get in most amps nowadays!

i use a modified squier, i ripped the stock pickups out and put in 2 johnson emg single coils for neck and middle and an entwistle red star humbucker at bridge with this fat stat setup there is alot of variety, whoever the person is that gave this amp 1 is deaf , i love this amp's sound its soo versatile! the presence knob helps alot aswell and the t dynamics which makes use of the whole amps power! as i said i play alot of hard rock and metal and this amp is amazing for that 80's thrash sound! with the modern switch on lead channel u can get alot of emo sounds and witht the vintage u can get all that 70's rock sound! i like the " in between setting " for that 80's thrash sound really good for slayer , overkill motorhead metallica etc! the clean channel is cleaner than clean although if u use modern switch setting it can have a slight distortion on it which is handy. as for lead channel it can be as brutal as u want i find that having all setting at 5 then high on 9/10 gives an amazing thrash sound not too brutal with a nice chunkyness!

i havnt had this amp long but it is a tank and has been bashed of a stone gatepost thanks to a clumsy friend and it held up fine i think this amp will be very reliable although havnt had it long enough to rate this section sorry :S

i havnt had to deal with any custome service so far but whatever would need to contact peavey about would be through my local music shop so i will give them a 10 for helpfulness

i have been playing 3 years coming and ive played alot of amps considering the space of time, and this has been the amp that does it for me its so versatile and can suit probably any style of plaing but mostly heavy metal. compared to my old marshall this thing blows the marshall mg's knobs of! if it got stolent i would cry and then buy another one! i compared it to some laneys a fender 65 priceton and a marshall avt 100 watt, the laney and fender had no balls! they are for blues man! the avt was dead nice but outta my budget and i fell in love with the peavet its got grit and not every tom dick and harry in town has a peavet they all got that same marshall sound! i dunno if this amp has one or not but i hope it has a multi footswitch with some effects on it maybe so i can get rid of single pedals,,,, ohhh a chromatic tuner in the footswitch would be damn handy then this would be an even nice amp!

Very versatile amp, it is possible to use it for all kinds of music. I (well, actually my house mates) miss a headphone jack. The effects loop and the foot switch are very handy. Loud enough for the practice room.

I use a strat copy from Richwood, and together with this amp I'm able to produce some nice sounds. My musical styles are funkmetal and grunge, and this amp suits these styles quite well. From the three distortion types I prefer the "modern distortion" for a more metal sound. With this distortion type and a wahwah pedal this amp sounds awsome. But for really heavy music the distortion might be a little bit too thin, and sometimes I miss some lower tones. The clean channel is really clean, also at higher volumes, and this amp is not noisy at all.

Never had any problems with it.

Don't know.

Really like this amp. Very good price/quality ratio.

I got this amp about 4 years ago at christmas when I was playing guitar for about a year at the time.I didn't know much about amps but I liked it that it was loud so I could annoy my parents at the time =).Although the new Bandit II has more features and sounds better overall this one still is a good little amp.Solid state open back 80watt amp with 2 channels,3 band EQ for both channels,bright switch on clean channel,pre and post gain on distortion channel,thrash and gain button(I think thrash is a mid boost and well sounds like the gain gives u more gain =P),reverb,effects send and return,resonance switch,efx level(still dont know what it does)presence knob and power amp T dynamics knob(I believe it makes it so breakup comes earlier at 10% and is louder at 100%),high and low gain inputs,external speaker jack for another 112 if needed and a footswitch jack.So plenty of features for a little amp except for newer amps being built with digital effects

Well I play mostly heavy metal and death metal although I do play softer stuff too.I play a variety of Yamaha and Ibanez guitars with a RP2000 currently,but for quite a while I had a Zoom 505 pedal.This amp for Solid state 80watts is quite loud although for a loud band situation u have to push it to its limit really,and it starts to lose definition as the low end seems to fart out.Although the overall sound is not too bad,I can't really comment on the distortion channel as I rarely use it since I use pedals but its not bad I guess for what it is.I've always used pedals so some people might think its great but for me I like lots and lots of gain and it couldn't do the over-the-top stuff but for hard rock it should be decent.Clean is pretty good for solid state nice and warm sounding lows with plenty of volume which works well with the pedals.I can't see using the bright switch,simply way too much treble for my taste as the peavey u need to set the treble low I find as most of their amps have a treble hiss thats ear piercing if put too high.Although the low end is full,it can get muffled real easy if your not careful and playing at loud volumes.Reverb is not too bad at all on this amp,not great as I find I need to set it low for it gets too 'springy' but a bit better then average really.I use my Rp2000 for reverbs now as I can have it on and off when I want which is not the case with the amp reverb since theres no reverb switch on the footswitch included.

One thing I can't deny is that this amp as seen some serious punishment and never fails very dependable.I've left it outside in overnight a few times(got it out the car and forgot about it when i got in the house),one night it even rained(yikes),dropped it down a flight of stairs,just generally rough on it and always worked with np so very dependable.My friends who has one also abuses is too and it keeps wanting more.As for playing without a backup I've always done so but thats because their was always other amps of other bands that I could use and same for them if they needed mine.I definetely don't condone playing without a backup as this is asking for something bad to happen,especially when it comes to guitars always have a backup.

Never needed it so can't comment on it although the site is in general pretty useful in finding what u need unlike the Ibanez and Yamaha sites which have limited information.

Overall I would probably rate it a 7.5,which isnt bad but not great.It does what it's suppose to do(it's loud,has a decent amount of features,sounds decent and is built like a tank)at a decent price although I believe there is better sounding amps at this price range nowadays especially.For a beginner this one would be plenty power and for what they need at first but you might find yourself needing to replace it sooner then you think once playing in shows and tone becomes an issue which you would of been rather off buying something cheaper to start off with then saving to get somethign really good.It has served me well in the 4 years I owned it and at the time was a pretty good amp,so I can't say I didn't like it so give it a try it might be perfect for anyone looking for a 112 combo with power and dependability.I'm buying a Traynor 212 YCV very soon(awesome sounding amp for the price,also the YCV40) so I will make a review on that also once I own that for a while to evaluate it fully

I'm not sure of the age of this sorry excuse for a tranny amp, it belongs to the singer in my band & he's not bothered about details like the age of his gear. It has two footswitchable channels (the usual clean & dirty), an effects loop & a dial that is supposed to make the amp sound like a valve amp. It also has variuos buttons that scoop this, fatten that, make it sound modern and make it sound vintage. All the other controls are as you'd expect. I suppose you could say peavey have tried & I for one like a trier.

I can't find a single good thing to say about this amp, it's absolutle bum juice, i hate it. Many people on this review page really rave about this insulting noise making machine, I have to ask myself, are they deaf, are they mad or are they on peavey's pay roll. I've been playing the electric guitar for over 15 years, I'm obsessed with the things, but this three legged asthmatic pit ponny would surely put me off playing for life if it was the only amp that was available to me. My main amp is a Peavey Delta Blues (a valve amp with a single 15 inch speaker) and this amp really shines for its #500ish price range, in fact I would recomend it, it does clean and overdriven beautifully. Back to the Bandit, our American cousins would say, the Bandit sucks. Awesome? Aweless, dull, lifeless, listless and absolute bollocks and that's just the clean channel. As for the dirty channel; what a load of rubbish. Let me elaborate. When I first began my quest for musical enlightenment at the tender age of 18 I set out with my trusty squire strat, a HH power baby and a few pedals to boot. Twas far from my perfect set up but it got me through numerous gigs and jamming sessions. I had a Arion Metal Master that tended to my distortion needs. I listened to a tape recording of a gig i did at that time. That set up sounded better than the Bandit's dirty channel sounds with my USA Fender Strat that I have today. My Gibson Les Paul standard (2004 model with 50s neck in honey burst, nice) doesn't make the amp sound any better either. I don't think even God almighty could make this waste of space sound any better. The only good use i have found for it is to rest my can of cherry coke on during break time at band practice, infact it excels at that task. Oh yeah, it makes a good foot rest too.
If I was going to be honest with the readers of these reveiw pages, save your money and buy a valve amp. I know that it is tempting to go out and buy something because it's feature apear good on paper but believe me, valve amps are the electric guitar sound. Shop around too, find what is best for you, and once you do you won't look back.
I do appreciate tha fact that Pat lent me his amp though, I'm not being ungreatful or anything but even he will tell you the Peavy Bandit is a bag of shit.

I actually have a good word to say about the Peavey Bandit here, it's never broken down. I've had absolutley no problems with its machanical reliability at all so far. Good show you chaps at Peavey (credit where credit is due). If you don't mind sacrificing tone for reliability then buy this amp today.

I have no coment here. The last section clears this one up.

I play in an alternative popy kind of new wave thing with a slight hint of early 90's cheesey dance thrown in for the ladies. I wouldn't play live or record with this amp if my balls were on fire and using this amp was the only way of extinguishing the conflagration. As for my own solo material (my influences are U2, Led Zeppelin, The Vevet Underground, Placibo, Jimi Hendrix, The White Stripes, stuff like that), I'd rather call Miss Furguson from Prisoner Cell Block H (a drama about an Australian womens prison from the 1980's, Miss Furguson was the bad guy, or woman as the case my be) a dried up old lesbian with the body odor of a highly decomposed dead tramp (a bum for all those American types out there) who in life had the worst case of body odor ever known in the history of man kind, to her face, than let my family down by making my guitars sound so veritably egregious.
I suppose this kind of amplifier is fine for kids to learn on but if one is serious about ones tone, for gods sake save your hard earned cash and buy an all valve amp. Sorry Peavey but my mother brought me up to be honest. The Peavey Delta Blues on the other hand is a great little peice of retro cool, save your cash & buy one of those instead if that kind of thing floats your boat.

Old style made in '92. Solo Series. Pre Transtube era. 12" Scorpion speaker. 2 channels (switchable). Perfect for the Garage Guitarist.

I use a Cort M200 with dual humbuckers. I really like the clean channel. The distortion channel is ok. You can always use a pedal to get your own sound. I like the saturation knob, you can do a lot of tweaking with it. This amp is very loud!

I have only had it for a short while. Peavey has an excellent reputation for reliability.

Very good CS. I found the manual easily on their website. I posted the Serial # on their bulletin board and got a response in 2 days.

I have only been playing a few years. The guitar is more of a hobby. I looked at a Marshall, a Crate, and a Fender. The Peavey smoked 'em hands down. I looked for a transistor amp. I don't really want the hassle of a tube amp. If I were a professional it would be different.