Peavey Royal 8 review

[beachjammer]

Hey guys,
I tried one of the new Peavey Valveking Royal 8 Class A amps about a week ago. I ended up going back to the store and buying one yesterday. I think that they're a way better bang for the buck than the Epiphone valve junior. Which is saying alot because I love the Epi. The Royal 8 has alot more tonal variations and controls. It's also got the chimey presence sound that I was looking for where the valve junior is warmer with more mids. I was wanting something that would make my strat spank :O) They are also built like a tank. Very good craftsman ship. I accepts pedals very well also. With the 8" speaker it won't get ultra thick crunch but I bet that after I add a speaker jack and plug it into my 2x12 it'll chunk all I want with my Metalzone pedal. What I really like though is just hooking up my strat, wah and reverb pedal. I can make it cry all day like that! Anyway, I thought some of you may be thinking of these. Feel free to ask any questions and I'll try my best to answer. Sorry but I'm not setup to record any sound clips right now.

[thebisch]

To each his own...I owned a VJ and played a R8. I like the VJ better, but ultimately didn't like the VJ either. The new Fender Champ 600 spanks both IMO.

[jclogston]

I'm wondering how it would compare to the classic 20? I had that amp a long time ago and miss it, but it goes for like $300 on ebay these days.
The royal is missing the typical eq controls (tone knob instead) but would you rate it in terms of handling clean and ditorted sounds?

Thanks

Jeff

[beachjammer]

Well, I'm not familiar with the Classic 20 but here's my opinion on the tones. The cleans are nice and bright. The dirty tones are blues dirt. If you turn the gain all the way to 10 it can get a little fizzy or flabby. The tone control is very responsive. I really like that feature. It also has a high and low input. If you use both inputs at the same time then they default to a low input. This lets me use my Petrucci model EBMM guitar by plugging my piezo side in one input and running my magnetic side through a Metalzone and into the other input. It's like having a channel switching amp! It's working really well for what I wanted although I know that some won't like it. The only thing I can knock about it thus far is that I wish it had an external speaker output jack.