The Steel Guitar Forum

Are there any steel players using a Peavey Classic 50/212 Amp?

Most people feel that the Classic 50 preamp overdrives earlier than the Classic 30 for some reason. I have an old warhorse Classic 30 head I've run into Black Widows & Eminence 12's, and it takes a bit of work to keep the overdrive, umm, underdriven. The power amp section is fine, but I needed to attenuate the hot PSG pickup output with a stomp and keep the gain around 2... it can work, but it's not the easiest or my preference. If it's what you already have, it'll kick the can along, but for a live band I wouldn't go get one.

My Classic 50 is running 2 12' speakers I forget what brand, but there is a switch for normal and an input for normal which is supposed to bypass the overdrive. Do you think it would work ok by bypassing the overdrive?

Thankk
You
HL Hannah

I got a new one a couple years ago and I had no luck at playing PSG through it. I had it run through, new cooler preamp tubes, tried using both gain settings. It sounded like it had a midrange "rattle" and it didn't have the clean headroom of my Blues Jr with 15 watts.

I dumped it for 2/3s of what I paid for it to the store I bought it from, and walked away.

JME.



EJL

The old Classic from late 70's through the 80's with 2-12" Scorpions wasn't too bad in a pinch.

Doug Earnest wrote:The old Classic from late 70's through the 80's with 2-12" Scorpions wasn't too bad in a pinch.

Those were hybrid amps (solid state pre-amp, tube power section). The Classics with the Scorpion speakers were introduced in the early 1980s.

From what I remember about the all tube 'tweed' covered Classic 50 amp when it first came out, it sounded more like a Vox AC30 than a Fender Twin.

I pulled my Classic 50 out of storage last weekend to use at a little club. It is one of the black ones with the aluminum side rails, not a tweed version. These days I play about 75% on guitar and 25% on steel so sometimes I'll just bring 1 amp, glad I had a backup this time.

The first 2 sets it was fine for guitar but way way too tinny for steel. Then it seemed to morph into something else. All the highs got rolled off and it was way too bassy for anything. So I switched over to my trusty Yamaha G-112 and finished out the night.

I'll admit I don't take very good care of the old girl, It sits in the garage getting dusty most of the time so I suppose it was my fault.

B

The Classic 30 was, according to Bill Lawrence, one of the best amp designs ever. I once asked him how come the Classic 50 seemed so different than the 30, and after he explained it to me for an hour my eyes stayed crossed for a week. Anybody who's ever asked him an "electronics question" knows what I mean....

a friend of mine who is one of the best here in germany uses two of em, stereo,
one is a 2/12 the other a 1/15 speakers
sounds really good!!!