Peavey Pacer

I bought this amp about 20 yeas ago when I started playing again after a number of years of not playing. To this day I have no idea why I bought this AMP. I recommend that new players begin with decent equipment. It may be possible to make a good amp sound bad, but you can never make a bad amp sound good (except under the conditions listed below). The most striking feature of this amp is its bad sound.

I have top of the line Fender and Guild electric guitars (and a Martin acoustic) as well as high end amps (Mesa and Peavey). The only condition where I think this amp might sound good is if one sets up a mic on a sidewalk and records the sound of this thing hitting the ground from at least a five story drop. I think, if an extension cord is utilized, the amp is powered, there might be an interesting (although short) reverb ring as it hits the ground.

It always seems to power up whenever I turn it on (perhaps maybe once a year). It has a 60 cycle hum, the pots sound like they have sand in them and it pops if I try to change the settings (I'm not certain why I ever turn this thing on). It is out the door at my next garage sale/or maybe I'll give it to my bass player for a white elephant gift/or perhaps drop it off a five story building.

Peavey makes some decent amps (this isn't one of them). I've gotten good customer support from them on some of my other amps.

If you want your music to sound good- never buy bad equipment.

the pacer was my first amp. i bought it new in 1980 for $200. i ggged with it for 10 years. at the time i didn't think much of the distortion (although i think i could work with it after 25 yrs of playing) so i got a ts 808 in front. berkely students used to come to me on breaks an feed me free beer to find out how i was gittin' that tube tone outta that amp. yeah, it was more pedal, but that pacer was a totally dependable, no back up needed, clean as a whistle workhorse.

used it for all styles, and with every kinda pickup configuration. it was a nice, loud, clean amp, with decent tone control, good reverb, and a nasty overdrive that was only useful to grind pedal savvy, "experienced" musicians. see, here's the prob w/ the peavey amp distortion........it was designed for experienced players, but marketed to amateurs..........remember, boys and gurlz......"jus' cuz it go to 10, don't mean you gotsta put it dere". i'm giving it a 10, because for what it is.....it cain't be no betta!

broke down once, when i let my freinds hook up a speaker array to it w/ an unknown load value...........just a burnt out wire.......fixed under warranty.

i've had several different peavey amps, and some needed work (matter o' fact....i've got an old classic vt in shop right now) the cicuits are simple enuf, and schematics are available, so, usually the work can get done locally. had a gig in meridian MISS. one week.(hometown of peavey). an amp broke down, we took it to the factory, and they gave us a loaner while they (quickly) fixed the broken one.

i wouldn't go out of my way to get another one. but if the price were right.......i would use one again. nice cheap, dependable backup it would be....just put your pedals up front.....

made in the mid 70's or so, it doesnt have alot of options just your basic tone, plus reverb no channel switching,

currently using a Kramer stagemaster deluxe II with SD pup's. sound is somewhat ok, clean channel is somewhat muddy, distortion , forget about it, BUY A PEDAL! the distortion on this thing is useless, not bad for loudness,

owned this beast for oh,, prolly 6 or 7 years so far, its moved 3 times with me, and this thing just WONT DIE!!!! NEVER had a bit of problem with it, and I dont treat it like gold either, it's sat in the garage for days, in a closet, and when time to play all Ive ever done is flick it on and bingo your good to go. If this is how peavey makes there amps, just the reliability factor would make it worth purchasing

Never had to deal with them, never had a problem yet with the amp

If this thing came up stolen I prolly wouldnt buy it again, I want bigger and louder, with better effects (more) but for what I payed for it I dont think I'll ever get a better dependable amp just wish it sounded better

Has basic tone controls, reverb and overdrive

Clean sound is ok but definately lacks character. Distortion sounds grainy and not too powerful

I have just picked up the amp again after a few years off and have noticed a very annoying problem. It seems to intermitantly cut out. Also not just cut out but after playing a note it just kills itself off immdeiately. Apert from that it has been sitting doing nothing for about 5 years but as soon as I turned it on, it sparked up straight away, with no problem

I bought this from a friend in 1977. So it was out before 1980, as someone else here guessed. I was 16, had just learned barre chords, and had just discovered The Ramones, so I wanted a "realer" amp than the Sanger Harris .03-watt amp I had. I also had this weird distortion device which wasn't a pedal; it plugged into your guitar's input, then you plugged your cord in! Bizarre. What WERE those things?? Gamme a pretty heavy Black Sabbath, end-of-the-world, leaden grunge that just lent itself to adolescent depression. DEFINITELY better than the distortion on this amp! I didn't realize how lousy this amp was until I heard other people's amps--see, back then, and especially in suburban Dallas, tx, everybody and their dad didn't play guitar and gear wasn't as butt-common as it is now. I mean I'm talking about, when I told people at school that I had "an electric guitar", I mean, people were IMPRESSED. And some people didn't even believe me; they thought I was just bragging. It was just too far-fetched that anyone YOU KNEW would actually have "an electric guitar". So wot I'm sayin is there was no gear around back then.

I used it w/ a Fender Mustang, for which I paid $100. This is 15 years before Kurt Cobain made them cool. This amp sounded much better with this guitar than it did with the Kroger guitar(or whatever it was) I had previously. After I heard this friend of mine's Fender Twin Reverb, I ended up trading this one on a 1977 Twin Reverb. I thot the distortion on the Twin was better! Whadduzat say about the distortion on the Pacer :[ ! The clean sound was the deadest, most sterile gtr sound anyone could ever suffer. Then when you turned up the gain, you got a MUDDY, DISTORTED dead, sterile sound. In fact, before Peavey got to where they knew how to voice transistor amps, I always noticed their amps were the sterilest. Totally, like, flat and dead.

Now this is what even prompted me to write this review. Perhaps I just had a dud, but I wanted to take issue with you all about the reliability issue, how this amp was supposed to be so reliable. Yeah, it was about as reliable as a relationship between a Texas woman and a 5'7", 140-pound guy who can't benchpress 400 pounds and has an I.Q. higher than that of a toilet handle. I did NOT gig with this, all I did was keep it in the bedroom of my parent's house. I turned it on one day, and instead of the satisfying "pop" followed by that edifying 60-cycle hum I was used to, all I got was this turnipy-sounding zipper-like sound and nothing else. And I had never turned it up past about 3!!
I'm still undergoing therapy today because of this amp.

Today I've got several amps. A 5150 halfstack, A Marshall combo, and a new Vox Cambridge 2x10. Plus I've got a Boss Gt-5, gx-700, and a SansAmp psa-1 rack effect, so now I can get any tone I want. Gear has come a LONG, LONG, way since the 70's. Hey kids, you think the 70's were so great? They weren't. They sucked. Gear was lousy, unreliable, and expensive as an hour with Britney Spears. The one or two music stores within a two-day's drive from me had lousy selections and were staffed by rude, brain-dead marijuana hippies with winged-back hair and Sonny Bono moustaches. I'd run outta there screaming from the torture of being exposed to so much Al Dimeola.

I bought this amp in 1980, for $200. I've been told that this model of amp was sold from the mid 1970's thru early 1980's. Has basic tone knobs and reverb.

I play a variety of styles. I've used this amp in clubs since the early 1980's. It is a reasonable sounding amp, but it lacks in the high end. I used a signal generator and an ocilloscope to determine it's -3dB points (the generally accepted measurement for bandwith, a.k.a. frequency response), it clocked in at a top end of 4 kHz, not too impressive. The high end is lacking. But for traditional bebop jazz sound, it will do.

Peavy had a problem with this models output transformer (transformer hooked to the final transistors output) The leads on these had funky solder joints and wound cause the sound to go on and off (not too cool in the middle of a recording session or a gig) I had this happen. It would only go intermitten occationally. Drove me nuts finding the problem. I finally replaced all electrolitic caps, semiconductors, and resistors (the inexpesive stuff) before replacing the transformer. Since I rebuilt this amp, it has performed flawlessly. It's a tank. If I know that I am playing in 106 degree weather, and I want reliablilty, I take my Pacer. It's is extremely reliable now!....and it has reasonable sound. (in addition to reabuilding this amp, I mounted two fans: one on the final transistors and one on the AC transformer. I also drilled a hole in the back of the chassis and remounted the fuse. It now has a fuse holder where I can get to it immediately.) I replaced the original speaker in 1982. I put a JBL k120 in it's place!

I don't know how Peavy is now, but they used to be great. BECAUSE OF THIS SUPPORT and the fact that their amps are built in the U.S.A. (giving local people jobs), I plan to buy more Peavy products.

Good, basic, inexpensive amp. Needs a better high end.

1X12 speaker, 45 watts rms(yeah right), tone controls(treble,mid,bass), has overdrive, reverb & master volume. My first amp(didn't know any better), not too bad just amplified my guitar. Actually used it gigging out for about 5 years. Wish it were louder then! Very basic, is outdated now.

Played a 79 strat at that time nothing fancy, only a wah pedal for affects. The amp did not give nor take away from my sound, only amplified it. Wish the distortion was better but I could have bought a distortion pedal if I was that concerned. It served it's purpose!

For what I put this amp thru it performed very well. Replaced the tone pots but other than that-nothing went wrong. I used to like to drop it with the reverb & master volume on 10 and listen to the echo!

Never delt with Peavey.

I been playing now for about 32 years and will admit that for a starter/beginer amp it was great. It's been knocked over, pucked on, had many a beer spilled on it, cigarette burns on the top and even had a Pittsburg Steelers emblem on it for 5 years(and I live in Cleveland) Now a tube man-Fender. I probably will keep it forever-Just for the memories!!

My first amp. Transistor. One 12" speaker. Master volume and reverb, along with volume, treble, mid and bass.
I bought it in 1977, as I remember. On the bottom of the reverb tank is printed something like "Hand made by beautiful women in Meridien, Mississippi," or something close to that. Crazy stuff, but this was an early Peavey. Two inputs, one channel. Actually had enough features for me for a long time.

I used it with a single coil Melody Maker for years and the occasional humbucker-equipped Gibson.
It wasn't amazing, but for a first amp when I was young, I was thrilled. It made enough noise to piss off the neighbors and, with a few old stompboxes, it was fine for the punk I used to play then.
Amps and guitars are important, but the sound is much more in how you play. I've never had audiences notice the differences in pickups or amps NEARLY as much as in whether I'd been practicing or not.

This amp continues to soldier on. I spent over ten years doing nothing, when I'd gotten out of music. Then it was recalled to duty, like an old warrior, and it took me long enough to the point where my hands came back. Now, of course, I'm a tube man, but that's just the way it goes. For years, I used to brag about how I liked transistor amps and, if I had to in a pinch, there's no reason I couldn't use this for an emergency.
It just so happens to make a great monitor amp for my band's keyboardist, though. It's still working perfectly and still delivers accurate, clean sound. I need to replace the plug cause it's been abused, but that's about it. I don't know if Peavey is still that reliable, but that company used to be known for it's solid construction. I'm now a Fender man.

Never had to call them.

Been playing about 25 years. Own electrics (mainly teles), acoustics (mainly Gibson), and amps (mainly Fender).
I don't need it like I used to, so I wouldn't buy another, even if they still made them.
A nice old amp, though, for certain things. Certainly great for beginners.

Single-channel, 1 12-inch speaker, pre-gain, bass, mid, high, master gain, reverb and overdrive. 45 watts. Very simple striaght-forward amp. I got this amp about 1980 and I believe that's when they were first produced.

When I played this amp I used a Hagstrom Swede with humbuckers. It was noisy at first until I figured out to use the low-gain input. It was quiet as a church-mouse after that. The only effect I used was a phase-shifter with just enough input to stretch out the sustain and mellow the tone a bit. Not a huge distortion in overdrive, but I wasn't looking for that. Depressing the overdrive footswitch gave me just enough extra volume and smooth distortion to let the leads break through the drums and bass. This was with a 3-piece band, so having a fuller sound during the breaks was important.

This is where my experience differs from the other responders. I gigged this amp seriously for over three years without a single failure. I always miked it through the PA no matter what size venue. Stone cold reliable. My oldest son still has it and it's still going strong. Granted I wasn't trying to play metal or anything, and I probably only pushed it to 3/4 max but it never let me down.

As reliable as this amp was, I never had to talk with Peavey. My local dealer was great, but I never had to have it repaired or worked on once.

I've been playing 35 years. Haven't been gigging in about 15, but hope to start again. I play a combination of classic rock, country, country rock, usually always with 3 pieces. Since my oldest son has my Hag and Pacer I just purchased a Rick 620 and a Peavey Studio Pro 112. The reason I bought the Studio Pro was because I called Peavey and asked which amp currently being produced was the closest to the Pacer. That's how much respect I had for it's reliability. It did everything I wanted it to do and I could carry it without grunting and groaning. That's the main reason I got rid of the Deuce. It wasn't perfect (no amp is) but it gave me 95 per cent of what I was looking for. During the winter months it sat in the trailer in a cold garage all week, got taken out on the weekends, set up, turned on,used hard and put back in the cold trailer in the cold garage for over three years and never once did it let me down. Yes, I liked this amp. I hope I like the Studio Pro half as much.

This is a single channel 1x12 transistor amp w/ a full set of tone controls, master volume (on a transistor amp-so you can get that fully cranked transistor sound at low volume...???), and overdrive (footswitchable) and a short-tank reverb. It's a weak 45 watts compared to a tube amp, but can be heard above a loud drum kit. It's best feature is that it weighs little and has a handle.

This amp is prety lifeless and dull. If you crank the reverb, master, and overdrive you can begin to sound like Neil Young, but other than that, it's pretty unexciting. It does excel, however, in being a good cheap, reliable "knock-around" amp for practice, jamming, etc. It doesn't take up alot of space, and makes a useable noise. It makes a fabulous beginner amp. If you've never owned a guitar amp it's a good choice, cuz of it's price/reliability, a few nifty features, and the fact that you wouldn't know what yer missing by having a real amp like a (place favorite amp name here).

There is no limiting circuitry on this amp, plus it's stock speaker was pretty cheesy. Once I got into a band that was gigging, but had no money for a bigger/better one, I cooked the speaker a few times before moving up to a Peavey Scorpion (which theoretically could handle more wattage than the amp could provide). It took me another year to cook that one-but in all fairness i was trying to be Johnny Ramone in a live situation with this little booger. The amp itself never gave me any problems, and it can be hooked up to an external speaker cab.

Never tried.

I can't recommend this as a pro-level amp, but i don't really think it was meant to be one. It doesn't sound especially great, but it can make useable noise. For a "utility" amp where sound doesn't matter, just fun, I'd definitely recommend it. These sold for less than $200. when new-consider that when paying for it.