Peavey Classic 30

My amp is about 4 years old - I'm the 2nd owner and bought it about a week ago. Very versatile; I even cranked out some Wes Mongomery on it using an arch top and it sounded good. I just bought the amp and used it for practice with the band recently and it did a fine job. The bass player looked at it after hearing how good it sounded size and mumbled "it just isn't fair". He has to tow a lot of speaker to cut through the mix like this thing (plus a 400 watt Ampeg amp!). I wish it had an 8 ohm load feature, but a friend of mine said he used a dummy jack in the external spkr. out to trick his into thinking it had a load and it worked. I'm going to try a Celestion vintage 30 in it and see what that does, but the factory speaker doesn't sound bad like some have said on this forum, just a little too mid-rangey for my taste. I'm used to older amps, Fender mainly (Deluxe Reverb, Pro Reverb, Twin Reverb, Princeton, etc) which sound great but are feature poor. Just having an effects loop is good enough for me, so I give it a 9. Kaa-ching!

I'm guitarded in the worst way. I'll buy one to re-sell and wind up liking it and keeping it. But I still only have one too many guitars: American Std. Strat, Baja Tele, Les Paul classic, Gibson CS356, 50s Tele, and an older Washburn J10 jazz box. That makes 6 electrics - oh wait! I still need one more to have one too many. What was I thinking? The amp is quiet with humbuckers and noisey with single-coils, like all other amps. I don't like or use the distortion channel although the boost button looks appealing. Haven't fiddled with that one enough yet, but I see possibilities. The clean channel sounds great at the volume that I use, but it gets a desirable tube distortion at about half way. Its really too loud for me to use at that point because I mic my amps. I ran the volume at about 3 for rehearsal and it did the job. I use pedals to get the overdrive. I have a SF Fender Twin Reverb to compare it to as well as a Dr. Z-28. They both sound great and this doesn't have the same tone as either one, but it sounds great in its own right. I had to run the mid down almost all the way and the treble up to 7 and the bass up to 8 to keep it from sounding too twangy with my strat, but to each their own. I like it so far and plan to gig out with this one next.

I can't speak for mine since I've only had it a little over a week, but a friend of mine (who turned me on to this little jewel) has had his for 15 years, played out 30 hours a week, and has never had a moment's trouble - just usual tube changes.

I've been playing for a good solid 44 years now and have owned my fair share of vintage gear in the past from Traynor, Marshall, and Fender to Silvertone and other old tube amps. I like this amp well enough to say it has a permanent home. Heck, I may even sell my Twin Reverb now that I have this. The twin sounds great but is a bear to haul around. Nah, then I would have one amp too few! Besides, I still use the Twin for recording and for calming my nerves at the end of a long day. Plus, its like my link to the past. This little Classic 30 can do the same, but its NOT the same, you know? I'll just keep 'em both . . . . along with my DrZ and my Dumble. Its a great little amp, very gig-worthy, and easy to haul. Plus, it looks cool and won't break the bank.

Classic 30 Vintage Tweed 1x12 combo (cool looking amp!!)
Styles of music: Rock, Classic Rock, Roots Rock, Blues and Rock-a-billy. This amp has the ability to cover them all.
This is a two channel amp with the clean producing some real nice bell tones when humbuckers are used. The overdrive channel is awesome and breaks up nice at lower volumes (this thing cranks too!)It's got a standard effects loop and an external speaker output too. I use this amp in my cover band and it has plenty of UMPH! to stay up front for the leads. On the outdoor events, I drag out my 2x12 open back extenstion cabinet. I have to give the features a 1 as it is limited, but it is all you need! Volume, tone, a little bit of verb...

I primarily use a Les Paul Special with P-90's, Les Paul Standard, PRS and a Tele for the pickin' stuff. Playing the straight up R&R it suits the music style great. This amp is fairly quiet, but has the typical tube hum. The clean channel with a distortion pedal tapping in and out give you a great jazz/country/rockabilly tone. the dirty channel with a compressor used for leads is awesome! I do not use my distortion pedal for the leads as the amps own break up is nice. The Blue Marvel speaker that came with it has been replaced a couple times. It was too brittle for me. I first tried a vintage 30 (kind of the same result, but muddier), but settled on a Scheffield 5150. This speaker really beefed the amp up and gave me a much better hitting bottom end that it needed. I didn't really care for the spring reverb that comes with it, so I run a sep. reverb and delay pedal through the effects loop. I also replaced the power tubes with J&J's. Stock amp I'd give it a 6 for sound, with Mods, I'd give it a 10+...

Peavey USA,....What can I say their stuff is bullet proof and lasts.

I've never had to deal with them

I've been playing for 27+ years and over the years I've become somewhat a guitar/amp/effects whore! I have many vintage amps that serve certain types of music beautifully. I've got a few modeling amps that sound great, but just don't give me the tube amp response to string attack. I wanted a small tube amp that I could easily drag out to gigs and not care to much about beating it up. This thing is awesome and cuts through the mix with authority. For the price, you can't beat it.

Don't wanna post the features again. (Read the manual on the Peavey homepage!).

Because 'less is better' I give it a 10. Who needs amp modeling anyway when the amp itself is sounding right?

The sound is crystal clear and could turn to crunchy. Typical american tube-amp sound known from THD or Fender in my oppinion. Lot's of dynamics!

Because of the fact that this amp is sounding sweet with my Hofner 4579 (LesPaul-Copy) and my Fender Rhodes Mark I Stage Piano, I give this amp a 10 again.

Well, althought the fact that this little amp feels sturdy, I hope that it never breaks. The amp is not wired point to point and the el. parts are on 3 connected PCB's. This is done for cost efficiency and not for serviceing. If a potentiometer has to be changed, the whole 3 boards must be squeezed to remove from the chassis. This is definitely not the best way...
For this i give it only a 5

never needed it but the schematics can be found online.

Although the amp may be hard to service it was a good deal for me and it sounds very good with my Fender Rhodes Stage Piano

Okay, first of all I own the Peavey Classic 30 Head. I figured id add to this review to you can get an idea what the head is like versus the combo. The head is about 2 yrs old now. I bought it new. Features are explained well in all other reviews. This amp is very versatile for what i play, which is mostly blues and rock. Ive tried the mid boost switch maybe twice, and i don't really see any use for it, IMO! Im sure it could fit great into someones style, but not mine. I honestly don't really use the "2nd channel" often at all. I find the best way to get a killer tone from this amp is to crank it! All the tone you will ever need is secretly hidden in the "volume" control. Play light and get cleared up chimey notes, but play hard and you'll get what you ask for, plenty of smooth output tube saturation. It's really nice! I rate this 5 only as i don't use anything else but the clean normal channel and the eq with a small amount of reverb.

I play this amp with a custom strat with fender texas special pickups, an epiphone les paul with humbuckers and a godin sd with 2 SC's and 1 split coil Dimarzio DP161 humbucker. As for my cab, i custom made a pine cabinet with 2 12" Celestions, actually "Hellatones" which are broken in celestions. 1 speaker is a vintage 30 and the other is a G12H30. You can get all the info on this particular setup from avatar or steamcomusic. One speaker is 30 watts and the other is 60 watts. I have this wired in series to get a 16ohm load, speakers are 8ohm's each. My cab is open back. This setup yields great results. These speakers are nicely matched for this amp. They have a higher dB level, about 100dB's each, which would mostly likely be about 5dB higher than the Marvel's you would get stock. Celestions are very efficient speakers and a must for this amp. I play with the pre-amp tubes here and there, swapping them around to see what i get for sound. It's a fun way to easily change the dynamics of the amp. Currently ive tried JJ's, Electro Harmonix and RCA. I've tried almost every combination i can get this what i have and the results are great. My next test is a balanced Tung-Sol for the Phase Inverter with 2 JJ's in V1 and V2. I'm currently still using the stock output tubes (SOVTEK) and they seem to work fine, but im going to swap them for JJ's and keep the stocks as a spare set. I've heard great things about the JJ's, and i mean for $40 bucks, you cant really go wrong. All of my guitars sound mint through this amp. I play SRV, Zeppelin, AC/DC, Dire straits etc. I've found that if you really want a different sound from the "2nd channel", run an overdrive pedal with that channel but only set the gain up to halfway at the most. I find that with the channel gives a kind of compressed signal which is cool for picking dynamics.

When i rehearse with my band i can get away with the volume around 4. It's easily loud enough with drums and bass etc. At home, i usually play around 6-7. It seems to really be the sweet spot for me personally. Playing a 12 i find you hear more of the EQ settings.

No issues here!

Don't have any stories for this as it's never been repaired. I find you can get all the information you need for this amp online by doing searchs for what your intent is. A lot of people play this amp and there's a lot of good information out there as far as settings, speakers used, tubes, wiring mods etc. Take a look, its fun to experiment.

Also, for most who complain about the Tubes rattling, i see that in other combos as well. With a head, you wont have to worry about this as long as your cab is tight and doesnt vibrate too much. But even if your cab vibrates some which can be good as well tonally, you can set the head beside the cab or buy a stand which puts the head on top of the cab without setting it directly on the cab.

14 yrs ive been playing, first peavey amp. Ive had a fender solid state (JUNK) and an epiphone valve junior head which was fun to play with. Ive used traynors, fenders, marshalls etc. My father in law uses a 71 fender bandmaster with 2 12" jenson alnicos, a 59 reissue bassman with 4 10" jenson alnicos and a marshall JCM800 head with a 2 12 avatar cab with Celestion G12H30's. When i come home from his place i can always count on my peavey to deliver what i need, even though ive just played through some remarkable amps and cabs. I wish this amp had more speaker inputs for 4ohm and 8ohm. You are limited to 16 ohm and i find most used speakers for sale are 8 ohm and it would be nice to try those individually without taking out 2 output tubes.

2 Channels tube amp (clean, crunch). A "boost" (I don't use it). Reverb, etc... just the basic stuff but still just what is needed, nothing more or less... maybe a standby switch would have been useful, maybe not after all. Clean may lack a little headroom for big venues in my opinion but for normal use, volume is pretty much just right.

I have to add that it is super easy and fast to dial a great sound out of this amp, which may be the reason why I stick with it.

Clean channel is pretty good. I play clean mostly and use this amp as a practice amp. As I said, I think it may lack headroom for super loud gigs, but I don't do that often so for practice, this is just right.

Crunch channel is very good for rock and funk. It is a bit midrangey which is awesome, it just cuts through the band so well.

The amp is a bit "boxy" and directional, so it may be better to mike it or at least, tilt it during a gig. I ran it through an extension 2x12 once but it was too bassy for my taste.

My amp is super quiet (which is good since I am used to a Jazz Chorus).

Allright so far (about 8 years), changed the tubes a couple of times.

I have never been super-anal about tone compared to most people here but I am a pro musician and after all these years, I tend to stick with what sounds good. Other amps I have right now are are a Mesa Boogie Mark IV (main amp) and a Roland Jazz Chorus (JC120). I usually play with a strat or some sort of archtop.

I use this amp for personal practice and small band rehearsal (I'd rather gig with the Mark IV if I can though). Considering its size and versatility, I think this amp is amazing for what I do with it.

Everybody is talking about the mods on this amp but I don't see the point of that so much as I think it is fine as it is (instead of spending $300 on a replacement speaker/tubes/etc, I'd rather just sell the amp and buy something else). If I need something specific soundwise, I'll just get my Mark IV, but for practice or band rehearsal, this is just perfect: sound great, easy to dial and doesn't look like the dash board of a space shuttle (like my Mark IV).

Enough for me. I use both channels. The reverb is adequate as a starting point for a good "base" sound.
I have one with the tube guard fitted as standard HOWEVER if you buy one of those tube tamers off of ebay, youll have to resite the tube guard slightly lower as the tamer bums out against the tube guard.
Im pimping this amp as i go along.

Using with a Telecaster Plus and a Ricky 360 mainly. The Ricky likes this more than the Tele. Not that the Tele is bad but the Ricky REALY likes this amp.
I play garagey 60's country rock and this amp does what i need.
Ive discovered i have some nice valves in this amp, all power tubes are sovteks apart form one mullard, and i have 2 Brimars and a mullard in the pre-amp section.
I paln on getting an Eminence Cannabis Rex to finish off. I also use this with a 115e extension cab. NICE!
I have noticed however that the amp really sounds ace when im playin an intro on my own but when the band comes in, i seem to lose my edge. Im only able to test this obviously in a rehearsal volume scenario so its a little tricky to nail. Im hoping the Eminence speaker will help here. Ive had plantty of Fender and Marshall valve amps and this trumps them all. I also had a Peavey Bandit once which was THE WORST amp i have ever owned. It took a real leap of faith to buy Peavet again but im glad i did. These are a real bargain 2nd hand.

Mine has the tube guard fitted, ive got 3 spare 12AX7s in my case. Think im OK. I would gig without backup.

Never dealt. Got to be better than Marshall.

playing since 1982. Would replace if nicked. Like the retro vibe. All logos removed.
Had a blues junior which i sold for more than i paid for this. Bargain.
Shame it isnt true 2 channel with seperate EQ. But no biggie.

You all know the amp and what it does.
This amp has no master volume, so you have to balance your 2 gain pots to suit where your playing. I had an amp tech mod the amp and fit a master volume. What a difference.

A 9 after the mod and probably a 7 before it

The gain is pretty weak but i run a tubescreamer constantly.
The master volume allows to you crank the gains up then play withe the volume. Take time and you'll find some nices sounds.

I play mainly rock and indie and what i love about this amp is that it doesnt sound pure, its messy and it squeals, perfect for me.

The clean sounds great for blues.

Had to replace 2 tubes early on and i just changed the power transformer after it shorted out. Not the best for an amp that is only 9 months old

Great, really helpful with ordering parts

I play a Duesenberg starplayer through a noise gate then on a loop on the noise gate i have a Boss Phaser, Boss Distortion, Ibanez TS9- back to the noise gate then a digitech digidelay.

I love this amp, not great for metal and such like.

You know the features by now.
BUT the footswitch kinda sucks. You kan switch between clean and distortion and switch the reverb on/off. There??s a boost button on the amp but that can??t be controlled by the footswitch.

I??m using a eagle with dimarzio pups and a Fender lite ash special with stock seymoure duncan vintage pups.
For classic rock this amp is pretty good but the mid is killing me, it has a screaming touch to it... so i usually dial it down to 3-4.
I belive the problem is the stock speaker, now it??s being replaced with a eminence lil?? texas speaker and the mid problem is gone!
The distortion is kinda weak for playing metall, but works pretty well for classic rock.
The spring reverb starts jumping around at high volume distortion... not so good, but I??m playing with a digital reverb now so thats not a issue for me.
I??ve had some issues with the hum... probably because of somekind of ground problem.
It would get a 9 with the eminence speaker!

It??s kinda sturdy built... but a week ago the tubes started to rattle. I belive this is a common problem with this model!

If stolen or lost I would consider another amp. But it has served me quite well!

This amp is made in the USA. It's a versatile amp, but it's more voiced for classic rock and blues playing. Comes with 2 channels which are clean and the OD channel. The clean is awesome on this amp. It sounds way better when It's at 5-6 on the volume dial. As for the OD channel, It is fantastic. I usually keep the pre amp gain to about 5-6 for that santana soft gain (Think samba pa ti). This amp can do Ac/dc, led zeppelin, rolling stones, Hendrix. Mostly classic rock. It has enough gain for me. If you want metal, well you'll need to get an OD to get to Metal territory.
Wish this amp had a standby switch, but doesn't matter for me. I just turn it on and have the guitar volume to zero and just let those tubes get nice and warm for about 45 secs. Also wish that it would come with a footswitch. I use this amp in a townhouse. Does well in a bedroom too. I keep it 2-3 when I'm using it in my bedroom and 4-6 when I'm downstairs in the living room. Definetly has enough power for me, and can also get over the drummer and STILL have nice clean sound.

I'm using an ESP F-50 with stock pickups. Sounds allright I guess to me. My guitar does not suit for what I play, but it still sounds decent for what I do play now(classic rock). It has white noise coming out when you start turning it up, but you can't hear it once you start playing. So don't worry about that. It's just a humming noise. All tube amps that use EL84's will make that humminh sizzz sound. The clean channel has a lot of headroom, and starts to break up when it reaches around 7-8. Distortion is not Br00tal, so don't be expecting to get metallica out of this amp without an OD pedal.

Definetly can depend on this amp. Hasn't broken down on me. I would never gig without a backup. Always need a backup no matter what.

Peavey is very helpful. They answer my questions quiete fast. I've never sent it to them to get it repaired. Warranty is 2 years, but if you fill their 3+ year form that they have inside every amp manual. You will get an additional 3 years.

I've been playing for a year and a half. I plan on buying some new tubes since this one came with Sovteks. Put in some JJ's in there and it'll be like having a new amp! I would probably buy it again. I did compare it to other amps like the valveking 112, Palomino, and Fender blues Jr.

My particular amp was made in the late 90s.
The good: 2 usable channels (sharing eq), 1 channel with nice preamp gain, reverb, effects loop, reverb & channel switching foot pedal option, light weight, 30 watts
The bad: weak stock tubes, boost is not foot switchable and therefore useless- how stupid is that!, small boxy cabinet that beats up tubes and makes the speaker sound somewhat boxy
The ugly: Tubes rattle and the sound carries through the speaker, horrible nauseating sounding Blue Marvel speaker

It seems like these mass production companies would just go the extra mile to make products they and their fellow Americans can actually feel proud of and simply add $50 to the retail price to cover the expense of including decent tube sockets, tubes, speakers etc. But alas they do not.
I have owned this amp along with others for many years but only recently discovered that this is a great little amp! The sound was improved somewhat when I switched to JJ tubes, but the huge improvement came when I disconnected the Blue Marvel speaker entirely and played through a Celestion G12H30. What a difference! I do test recordings and A/B comparisons on my computer of my amps at healthy volumes using different tubes and speakers etc. Actually every speaker I owned sounded significantly better than the Blue Marvel which sounds just downright ugly to me. Go figure. This speaker ruins the amp in my opinion.
The amp has EL84 tubes which produce a thin sound when compared to all other types . The tubes seem to compress the signal and yield the feeling of much more sustain at clean settings than do other amps I own which have different tube types. I like this a lot! The amp sings well without so much distortion.
This amp produces a kind of dark sound which I think makes it quite different from a Vox (which I've never played through but which I know uses the same tube type and is famous for its bright jangly sound).
On the clean channel (with good tubes and speaker), the Peavey Classic 30 is tailer made for blues, 50s rockabilly, and old funk. It sounds great and perfectly right for those styles.
At first I didn't like the dirty channel. But it sounds great when played through humbuckers and turned up about halfway on preamp and master through a single Celestion G1230 in a closed back cabinet. This speaker which is about as good as it gets for 70s style rock is a big part of the reason. Overall the amps distortion is really good and there is plenty of it. It is like a marshall but smoother and much less aggressive.
I should also mention that the reverb on the amp is quite usable.

Face it folks no one amp does everything. This amp excels in the areas previously mentioned and is therefore relatively versatile I suppose.
It does not have anywhere near the sheer beauty and richness of tone as my Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue. It does not sound aggressive like my Marshall Anniversary or do modern aggressive gain on its own. It does not do surf or Stevie Ray Vaughn which require fat sounding 6L6 tubes. It probably does not do a really authentic Vox impersonation (though I could be wrong). However as I said it does blues, rockabilly, old funk, and its own brand of 70s rock really well.
I only give it a 7 because you have to spend more on tubes and a better speaker and maybe a cab in order to get the goodness out of this amp. Buy one used if you can and spend the extra bucks on these improvements.
I would even suggest removing the speaker all together and using a roomier external cab exclusively for better speaker sound, and to also eliminate tube rattle and abuse.
About the speaker. I searched the internet and the consensus seems to be that you can use an 8 ohm speaker with this amp but only if you do the following: 1)Disconnect the internal speaker and tape the leads apart from each other for circuit protection. 2)Plug 8 ohm speaker into the extension jack.
Why does this work? The external jack supposedly switches the transformer tap from 16 ohms to 8 ohms when a jack is plugged into it.
Alternatively you could use an 8 ohm speaker internally by plugging a dummy (open) jack into the extension jack thus switching on the 8 ohm tap but not adding any load.
I'm using the first method. Try at your own risk. I am not an authority.