Peavey Classic 20: better than Pro/Blues Junior?

Tokai Forum

Help Support Tokai Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

keir

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 12, 2009
Messages
76
Reaction score
0
Location
Perth, Australia
I think I got a pretty good bargain today. I bought a Peavey Classic 20 and a Chinese Monterey SG copy for a little over AU$300. The guitar obviously is very average (although not as terrible as I'd expected), but the Peavey is completely fantastic.

p1000534.jpg


It seems to be about as big as a Pro Junior but has the same (chickenhead) knobs as the Blues Junior (Master, 3 xEQ, Vol), plus the boost switch.

Apparently they were only made for a little while in the mid 90s. The guy I bought it from basically hardly ever played (he claimed) and it's just been sitting in his garage. It's a little dirty and rusty so it has a nice relic tweed look which I dig.

It sounds great - you get a decently loud clean tone until about 2-3 then it breaks up into some satisfying blues crunch. There is a bit of a rattle/buzz on the low frequencies sometimes though, which approaches the annoying but all in all, it's a really great little amp. My advice is if you see one cheap, grab it. Who knows, they might be worth something.

I may as well ask, does anyone have any advice on what the rattle might be? I can't be sure, but it seems to be coming from the top (where the guts are). I'm not poking around in there though, I'll kill myself.

And lastly, who wants to buy a Monterey SG lookalike? They're um... great.
 
P.S.

From the manual which the guy kindly provided:

Power amp section: Two 6BQ5/EL84'S

Preamp section: Two 12AX7's

Rated power: 15w (not actually 20w apparently)

10 inch speaker
 
Try (with the power off, and the cord out, and having left the amp to discharge for a few hours!) tightening any screws you can find, especially on the reverb unit and speaker. Check the cab screws too and give them a tighten if required.

If that doesn't help, pull the knobs off (fnarr) and give the nuts a tighten (ooer) on those and the other controls. Other than that, you'll have to be brave and open her up - check that all the bits are mounted solidly to the chassis.
 
Just to add, careful if you tighten the screws holding the speaker in. They want to be firm, but not over-tight, you don't want to bend the speaker chassis.
 
Thanks for the advice, but I'm just too scared of turning a small problem into a large one with my incompetent bumbling. I'm thinking about maybe getting an external speaker cab, if I can find a nice tweed one for not much money that would be tops.

After playing for a few days, I'm probably going to sell my genuine but Mexican made Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and keep this fake but USA made Fender Blues slash Pro Junior. Baffling situation.

I'll miss the reverb on the Deluxe though.
 
Good news: I ended up getting over $650 for them separately on eBay (not without some trouble though, I'm going to start a new thread about it).
 
Back
Top