Peavey Special 150 112 Combo

i guess this amp would date back to the late 80's/early 90's. it is a 150 watt solid state combo amp, with a single 12" speaker, i am a solo act and play mostly hard rock and a bit of country. it has two channels, clean and overdrive and these are footswithchable. it has a reverb and fx loop. for the kind of music i play the inbuilt distortion is fine, the reverb is good and the clean channel is really nice and clean. i use this amp for practice and gigs, it has heaps of power, usually does not get turned up past 5 on the dial. probably a bit too much grunt for the single 12" speaker, i dont know how long it would last at constant high volumes

i play with a yamaha rgx 112 ?"(mid 80's vintage) single humbucker and twin single coil pickups, a GTX (les paul copy) or a yamaha electic/ acoustic. suits my style of playing fine. it is a tad noisy, ie hums a bit on the overdrive channel, the clean channel is great, clean and loud all the way. the distortion is fine for me, but may not be suitable for real heavy metal styles. i should emphasise, this amp is LOUD, LOUD if i turn it up past about 4 or 5 on the dial it drowns out my vocal amp (100 watt Jade 100ke keyboard amp)

i gig with a smaller ross amp as a backup, but havnt yet needed it. this peavey amp is made in usa, and appears to be excellent build quality, i have seen newer, smaller model peavey amps made elsewhere (in china?) not usa built anyway, and their quality was crap. my advise buy one of the ones that says "made in usa" on the front. its never let me down

never dealt with them, but they have a great website, manuals for this old amp were available to download free.

been playing since 1988, i would definitley buy this amp again, things i love, its power, sound quality, reliabilty, reasonably portable, dont hate anything about it, bought it because of price and reputation.

I don't remember what I payed for this amp back in 1988 when it was new. It has 2 channels(clean and dist.)Reverb,effects loop.

I use one guitar most of the time(a fender jazzmaster) or a Peavey T-60. I can dial in some very nice tones on this amp. The distortion sounds best with the single coils in my opinion. The clean sounds great in all styles. If I need help in this dept.,I use a parametric EQ in the effects loop and the amp turns into a Twin reverb quikly! I play a lot of vintage music so the sounds are very good for my aplication. One thing too remember, don't ever turn the amp towards the audience. This amp along with the special 130 has a throw like a lazer beam. It may sound great on stage but 60 feet away the people's ears are bleeding! Its not a high end tone but think more,"get the job done"sound.

You can not find another amp with this kind of super human reliability. I have played this amp since 1988 on a lot of stadges frome bars too large auditoriums and never a speck of trouble.

Peavey has been the best are far as I am concerned. I wish Fender was a s supportive. I think only Rickenbacker comes a close secound.

If it was stollen,I would look for another. I understand Vince Gill has more then 30 special 130s which is an amp like this. I like this better and I own a special 130. My special 150 is a rock that I have relied on fo almost 20 years. Like I said its a get the job done type of amp. Loud,and warm sounding. I wouldent change a thing on this amp. If your a session player, you probably would be better off with a boutique tube amp. But, if your a player who plays a lot of public performances and needs a relieable amp,this is custom taylored for you. And now that you can pick these up for peanuts, they are the best deal in profesional grade guitar amps on the market.

I've had this amp for about 6 years now and have utilized it for a wide variety of music formats (gothic infused rock, electroclash, heavy tribalistic bombast, experimental electronic ambience and Death/Black metal); the amp has been a workhorse and I've never had any problems whatsoever with it. The only effects on board is a wonderful reverb, otherwise no bells or whistles. The one drawback? It's heavy as f**k! Great for intimate settings, but if you're a larger scale show, not quite enough power...but that can easily be remidied with an additional cabinet.

I'm using an ESP Viper 400 Ltd (active pickups). Sounds fantastic with some distortion added to the mix(old skool Rat pedal). No buzzing or anything like that.

Fantastic reliability.

I bought the amp used and have never taken it to an authorized dealer.

Great, inexpensive amp that chugs along like the Energizer bunny...recommended!

Amp has all necessary outputs and inputs except for extension speaker. I added that so I can get a fuller sound from this overpowered 1X12. Other reviews have covered the stock features.

I play with lots of different guitars and they all sound pretty good through this amp. I have a Westone with a straty, chimey tone that sounds great. I've got a ballsey Les Paul copy and a cort neck-thru guitar with strong humbuckers that shake the house. I agree with those who like the sound of this inexpensive, solid state amp. Not the best sound you can get, but warm, with lots of tone variety. Beats my Laney 50watt electro/acoustic here easily.

I've had a couple hickups recently. Well, it is a 20 something year old amp. I haven't gigged with it recently, but would with a backup.

??? Never needed it.

It's heavy. Has a solid cabinet. Plenty of power that can easily push a 4 X 12 cab (if you add a speaker out). Warm vibe for a solid state amp. Great practice amp, and versatile performance amp. I only use the clean channel, though. I never liked the distortion channel. But the sound doesn't suck. I hear some great clean and distorted harmonics through it. Feedsback nicely. Makes lots of different guitars sound good. I recommend it.

I bought this amp new in 1987 -- two footswitchable channels ("clean" and "gained out"); 1x12" monsterously heavy PV speaker (most likely a Scorpion model); master reverb (footswitchable); master EQ; ext. speaker out; power amp in (nice feature); one huge, back-breakin' heat sink; 150 watts of solid state power; basic FX loop --- very heavy amp for a 1x12" combi!! It would've been nice to have a master volume that controlled the power amp output section.

I play a Lonestar Strat w/Budda BudWah and Budda Phatman Tube Distortion pedal with a Roland GP-8 (for chorus and delay only) and GuyaTone VT-X tremolo. The Special 150 on its own doesn't cut it -- clean channel would not produce Strat-like tone from my Strat (I'm talkin' about Robert Cray-style clean tones - this amp just wouldn't do it.) The gain channel was buzzy and was hardly suitable for even bedroom metal -- just not much utility. The FX loop was noisy, also. Chincey little 2 spring Accutronix reverb, cold and clanky, but well-installed. Where this amp worked well was with a separate preamp (I used either the GP-8 or a Marshall 9001 tube preamp w/GP-8 in the Marshall's FX-loop and Phatman at front-end of the Marshall) running into the "Power amp in" input. I gigged for two years with this setup, but needed to mic the speaker because the power amp, though rated at 150 watts, just didn't kick out enough db w/out the PV preamp section pushing it -- would've liked to have had a master volume on it. It was a good "bang-for-the-buck" set up, though.

The preamp was so unpredictably noisy at times that I never used it to gig with, but the power amp was rock solid. The footswitch still works fine, and I use it as a back-up for my current rig. I've cannibalized the rest of the amp --- if anyone's interested in buying the preamp/power amp section, e-mail me with an offer -- I'll let it go cheap!

Never had to deal with them, but they've got a great web site.

I've played off and on since 1972 -- from a professional standpoint, I found this amp only useful when driving the power amp with a seperate, quality pre-amp, effectively bypassing the PV preamp section. Although I read others that rave about these solid state Specials, I belive this amp is essentially obsolete, from a features and sound standpoint, and I won't be looking for another one.

-2 chanels: Clean and lead
-Reverb
-High and Low Gain inputs
-Power Amp in/Pre Amp out jacks

I use a guitar with 2 humbuckers and usually play on the bridge humbucker. The clean chanel on this amp is amazing, but the lead chanel is somewhat disapointing as this is an older amp with the older style distortion. I use an effects pedal for distortion anyway and that works perfectly for this amp. The clean chanel is clean even at high volumes.

its been working perfectly and hasn't broken down yet!

n/a

THis is a great little amp with a lot of power. Besides the poor distortion its a good bang for the buck.

The amp has 2 channels (clean and overdrive). Impossible to set the tones so they sound good with both channels simultaneously (like every other amp that has one set of tone controls!).The overdrive is fairly smooth but when you get crankin' the tone dials do absolutely nothing! The clean channel sounds pretty fat to my ears but limited. It has a pre amp in/out which is handy for patching in an EQ stomp box. Built in reverb is handy occassionally and sounds pretty good.

I play fender guitars. The single coils are really hard to smooth out. You can set a decent solo tone but do little else with it. Same with the mellower chord sounds. You can set one good tone at a time. The clean channel is very warm for a solid state amp.

I have used this amp for over 5 years. Nothing has ever gone wrong with it, that is, it has never failed to turn on and perform! Once, while playing outdoors, my group got caught in a torrential downpour. We scrambled to bring the equipment indoors (expensive PA speakers, racks, etc.). Because I paid practically nothing for the amp, it was the last thing to be brought in out of the rain. It still worked perfectly!

I have never needed to repair the amplifier.

I have been playing music for almost 40 years. Like all guitarists, I have my giant, perfect rig. Mine uses a couple of black-faced showman heads, custom speaker cabinets, a huge effects rack and pedalboard. You know... to get MY sound! This little peavey is very LOUD. I find myself more and more leaving the house with my guitar in one hand and the peavey amp in the other. I even accept more small gigs because I know the peavey will do the job and setup will take about 3 minutes! I got this amp for peanuts ($65). It's loud enough for big gigs, physically small enough for small gigs, great for rehearsals, easy to cart around and no tubes to blow out! It makes playing a gig so easy that you even start to like the sound of it after awhile. I don't know what it costs new, but if somebody wants to sell one used because they need cash to make the first of many payments on a Mesa Boogie, I'd seriously check it out if you're a working musician.

2 channel, eq, bright, hi/low gain inputs, solid state

This was my first amp and it was defidently a step up from using a karoke machine. This amp has a ok distortion but the clean doesn't have much tone. The thing i love about this amp though is that its LOUD!!!! For my 4 piece band I used this amp to power my guitar and the vocals and it sounded great. Great begginer amp if you grab for under 200$.

My band blasted this thing for about half a year until i needed one repair. After that not a problem

Peavey good company

Good loud amp! Doesn;t sound like a good fender or marshal but its loud!