Peavey Classic 30

Though only a two-channel amp, it offers amazing tonal flexibility. The effect loop is very handy. I wish the controls were in front, because I usually prop it back when I play. Sometimes, I set my processor on top, and that makes accessing the controls very awkward. The mid-boost control completely changes the character of the amp, making the tone raw and creamy when engaged. Lots of features for a small amp, though a headphone jack would be nice. Reverb is very sweet sounding, but not as good as an Accutronics unit like Mesa/Boogie uses.

This amp is a real pocket rocket! Somewhat limited tonal flexibility, though; it won't do extreme metal or hi-volume crystal clean. It provides the sound your looking for about 90% of the time. A guitar with P-90's in it sounds absolutely incredible through this amp! The high end limitation is apparent with a Rickenbacher or a Tele, it doesn't have the headroom to do a loud, clean, bright sound. (country players steer clear) However, this amp is loaded with personality, and is great for Blues, most rock, and Les Paul type clean stuff. This may be the loudest 30-watt amp around; it blows away a 2x130 watt solid state amp I once had. The clean channel gives an incredibly ballsy sound when cranked up to very high levels (8-up); think 1959 Plexi. Sounds best with a hardwood bodied guitar with humbuckers (Les Paul style). The extension cabinet is a sealed, one 12" affair and really extends the low end depth of the amp while tightening the sound. With my Hamer Special with P-90's, it comes alive. Lose the factory tubes, get Groove tubes, Sovteks, or Boogie tubes.

The unprotected tubes are scary and fragile, but mine is going strong. You just have to be careful, and don't store your wah pedal in the back of the amp!

Peavey's large customer service network handles calls quickly and professionally. Peavey dealers tend to be less helpful than the company itself.

I would definitely buy this amp again. Its soulful tonality is right up my alley, though the Delta Blues has a little more of an SRV sound. I wish Peavey would put their new, 5150-style logo on all their new products. The disco-era, lightning Peavey logo has got to go. This is probably the best value in a smaller tube combo amp around. Fender Twin users will miss a sparkling brightness on the clean channel. For 90% of the time, this amp will satisfy. For a certain range of blues-oriented sounds, this amp is almost indescribably wonderful.

All tube 4- EL84's, 3- 12AX7's, reverb, bass, mid, treb, pregain, postgain, normal, FOOTSWITCH IS NOT INCLUDED

This amp kicks some blues ass!! Clean stays clean, not quite a Fender clean but for $200 less than the Hot Rod Deluxe, I can deal with it!! The gain channel absolutely SCREAMS a great tone for blues this channel blows away the Hot Rod Deluxe (which just blows...), it starts to sing just past 4 with the preamp cranked.

I have used a variety of different amps over the years but alway find my way back to Peavey. It just gets the job done without fail.

Never had a problem, but they happily answered my questions.

If you are into Blues/rock/funk, buy this amp. If you are into metal, but this amp and a BOSS Metal Zone . Nuff' said.

All tube design, 2 channels - a clean channel with separate gain and a drive channel with pre and post gain adjustments, spring reverb, 3 tone controls, boost switch, FX loop, ext. speaker jack, footswitch jack, 30 watts into a 12" speaker. Tremolo which would have been a nice addition although its available in Peavey's Delta Blues model. I ended up buying a Voodoo Lab tremolo stomp box to use with it. Since I use it only at home a headphone jack would have been handy. Having separate tone controls for each channel would have also been useful. It's plenty loud enough for my needs - loud enough to hear over my son's drums, which I couldn't with my 20 watt Fender solid state. I bought the footswitch ($24 Cdn) which switches between the clean and drive channels and turns the reverb off/on. In general I prefer amp controls on the front, not the top like this has but its part of the "classic" look. I play whatever I can, which is mostly blues or rock/blues. The features of this amp are fine for this.

I like the sound of this amp. It is my first tube amp so I'm pleased with the tone after using my little solid state. I use it with a Strat Squire with Gold Fender Lace pickups. The clean channel is clean, at least at the volumes I generally play at, and I've had it cranked. The drive channel is very versatile, you can get just a hint of distortion or a lot. I sometimes use a Boss Blues Driver for distortion since I can control the tone and it gives a different sound. The amp is very quiet. The reverb sounds great and has a wide range of adjustment. Overall I find the sound to be bright (trebly - but you easily control this with the tone knob) with good bass response - it sounds great with my strat. It's easy to get a great blues tone, and of course it has that tube sound that's hard to beat. With the Lace pickups I can get a good jazz sound too. The clean channel is different from a vintage fender (no surprise). I've played through a friend's Fender Hot Rod Deville (4x10)and it's similar, although the Fender does sound better (but it is twice the price - and why just a couple of buttons for drive?). It is more different from another friend's '63 Princeton which sounds really warm and smooth. I've never noticed any rattle at high volume that others have reported.

Once developed a case of what can best be described as a case of laryngitis - resocketing the tubes cured this. This thing's three years old - still has the original (Chinese) tubes in it. As others have noted the tubes are exposed in the back. If I were to move it around a lot I would add some grill to protect the tubes.

Never called them so don't know.

I was looking to buy a tube amp when I came across this one used. I was looking at a Fender Blues Jr. (too basic), Hot Rod Deluxe (nice), as well as the Peavey Classic 30, Delata Blues and Bandit 212 as well as used vintage fenders. The market around here seems pretty knowledgeable so that finding a vintage fender for a good price is challenging.
For the money I feel that it was a good value purchase - tube sound, good features and in excellent condition. I probably would have bought a Fender tube amp if I could find one with similar features near the same price.

This amp's features are decent - See other submissions for details. I wish this amp came with a footswitch. The 30 watts is pretty loud.

This amp is very mediocre. When this amp worked it sounded ok. Clean channel is fairly clean until you crank it up. Drive channel sounds ok at moderate drive but sounds horrible when cranked. The speaker in this amp is cheezy and distorts at high volume.

I used to like Peavey. After owning this amp, I HATE PEAVEY. This stupid amp has cost me more time and heartache than any other amp I've owned. About 3 days after I bought it, it broke. The volume sounded like 1 watt and was all distorted. I took the amp back and they sent it in for repair. About a month later I got the amp back and it worked for about a week, then notta. No power. Nothing. I took the amp back to the store and they sent it off for repair. I got it back, opened the box and the tubes were smashed. The store replaced the tubes for me for free. I got the amp home and guess what?!?!? Same tinny 1-watt sound! ARGH! I marched the amp right back to the store and demanded a refund. The store manager sympathized with me and gave me a full refund.

All repairs were handled through the store I bought the amp from so I never dealt with customer service. I think the amp came with a 1yr warranty. I don't know

I don't know about Peavey's other tube amps, but this one REALLY sucks! I've owned Peavey solid state amps before and they never gave me a problem. I guess Peavey's reliability has really gone downhill with their new amps. I would never recommend or buy one again.

30 watts into 16 or 8 ohms, 2 channels (lead and clean), shared passive tone controls, Reverb, easy to carry.

I love this amp. I've been playing 20+ years, tried all kinds of stuff etc. and have to rate this amp a 10. I'm a rocker (evolved classic rock I guess!). The clean channel is clean (until you hit the mid-boost switch!). The lead channel leads. No doubt about it. It's a little rattly sometimes, peavey has a fix should you desire it but I think it helps color things. This thing delivers. Blows away the tone of the Fender Blues Deluxe that I mistakenly bought.

2 years onstage - no failures, blew a tube at the one year mark. that's all.

The support by Leon and Aubrey at Peavey is superb. Every year or so for the last 6 years I've called about something or other and one of these guys has been there. Really good work guys.

I'd buy it again, except that I'm gonna get it's brother the Delta Blues. It's the same amp but with a 15" speaker and vibrato. Cool Deal. Cut's past most 50 watters out there. Get it's extension cab and unless you other guitarist is REAL good his 4x12 is gonna be shamed.

No tremelo or built in FX. Has a (non-switchable) FX loop, which is useful. Channel switching, mid-boost. I like the FX boost and the master volume on the dirty channel, which gets nice distortion at low levels.

I like the distortion, pretty good "edge of distortion" sounds. Clean sound is noticeable inferior to my Deluxe Reverb--not as much give and compression to the sound. You can put in lower gain (12AT7 and 12AY7) tubes on the dirty channel to reduce gain and get more control over the distortion at low levels. This also lets you turn the volume up more and get more power amp tube distortion. Wide range of sounds, most of which are good. But there are specialized amps out there that do some sounds better. Changing the stock (chinese) preamp tubes for Groove tubes improved the sound considerably.

No problems, except for one preamp tube that broke while changing it. Slight rattling on some notes; tightening all the screws helped.

Schematics are available for $2.50; they answered questions before purchase when I phoned.

Good sound for money, versatile. I like the clean sound on my deluxe reverb better, but it can't get distorted sounds at low volume. I use the FX loop for a Quadraverb; I also run a Sansamp PSA-1 into the other channel of the quadraverb and then into the Peavey's output stage and speakers--that gets great heavy sounds, and gives me the flexibility to send either the Sansamp or the peavey preamp into my mixer.
I might try some of the Fender Blues models as well and see which I like better. For me the Peavey had the right mix of features, sound, and low cost. The versatility is why I'm keeping it even though I like the Fender's sound better.

This amp is a nice practice amp- It's loud enough to cover the drummer and bass player I think the reverb goes up too high-it just turns to mud

I use it mostly at school as a practice amp (Jazz combo) It's nice and clean and quiet enough, but I find it has too much treble, and always end up cranking the lows and mids so it sounds better I use a Gibson 135 or Les Paul This amp sounds great as a blues amp with my Strat, though

The exposed tubes in the back are scary-I already had to replace a broken one-be gentle with the tubes, but the rest of the amp is real solid- I once saw someone drop a (solid state) Peavey amp down a flight of stairs, and despite a little cosmetic damage-it still worked fine....

I've never had any problems with getting manuals and stuff but they really can't help you in the tube department

I like this amp, I'd buy it again for it's portability, price, and value

This amp has SOME good sounds, and with an amp of this size, you don't need many more features. It's a BASIC tube amp, which many manufacturers are going back to producing nowadays.

The one I am using, which is on loan, is very noisy when I turn it up. Especially in the gain channel, the thing starts whistling, and there is A LOT of feedback on either channel if the amp is turned up fairly loud and Reverb is on. The sound is OK. Maybe the tubes are bad on this one, but the clean channel isn't all that clean. At least not compared to some of the Fender stuff I've played.

It's reliable, although I REALLY don't like the fact that the tubes in the back aren't protected. I would always have extra tubes on hand JUST in case.

It's on loan, not mine, so what can I say?

For my money, I might buy one of these used as a practice amp, but the sounds aren't good enough to play in my country band at gigs.

I'm well pleased with the features of this amp - the volume rises smoothly, the tone controls provide a really wide range of sounds. I play mainly at Church, using a Yahama acoustic and a strat, both through a Digitech rackmounted effects unit.

Can't fault it, really - it my opinion it blows the Marshall 8080 valvestate out of the water. It makes my strat sound beautiful. This is my first valve amp and I really noticed the difference - it really seems to make the guitar sing, bringing harmonics out beautifully. The only problem I had was that it couldn't handle the extremely high gain on some of my presets - it squealed so much, I couldn't hear the guitar at all! (I'd had no problems using these sounds through a Yamaha tranny head). Once I turned the gain down, it was fine...
The overdrive doesn't really scream, but what the heck - I suppose it's aimed at the blues-y guitarist, and it sounds great.

It's never let me down - my only complaint is that the valves are totally exposed (I suppose they have to be, more or less) and it's easy to knock them or damage them if the amp is in the back of your car. That happened once - a valve dislodged itself and the pins at the base of the valve got bent, but it worked OK once I put it back in.

Never needed backup, but the warranty was only 30 days, which isn't much use...

No complaints - great tone, really versatile. I have a friend who is a music teacher / pro musician, and he says that tonally, it's more or less the same as his boogie amp. He was really impressed.

Extremely versatile little tube combo.No need to repeat the specs that others have already talked about.Effects loop seems well buffered.Quiet channel switching with footswitch.Very loud 30 watts.I use the amp for gigging and practice.The mid boost makes it sound like a different amp.

I play blues/rock/jazz/country/alternative/whatever.This amp excells in everything except for heavy metal and then external effects can be used. Background noise is exceptable compared to everything else out there.Tried everything from ADA to Warwick.This little thing is remarkable for the price and size.Very tasty blues amp when used clean or overdriven.Reverb is among the best I've used lately.Plenty of overdrive unless you need extreme metal.Very warm overdrive.Mid boost makes amp sound completely different. best I've used.

Dependable.Would gig without backup.No problems so far.Tubes other than Chinese would probably add some extra security since they seem a bit flaky in other amps I've owned or tried.

Good support.Never needed repair but have dealt with them for manuals or documentation.Lots of dealers for Peavey everywhere.Have owned Peavey products for years with no problems.

Probably have this amp forever.It's loud enough to gig with a band.Sounds better than most that cost much more.Light and small enough to save your back.Compared it with most Fender,Marshall,Crate,and Mesa products.Choose this amp at the advice of other owners and on sound comparisons.This little amp will fool you.It's built well too.