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Published on 11/25/12 at 15:57The Peavey Vypyr 15 is a 15-watt solid-state modeling combo amp with an 8" speaker on-board and a variety of different amps, channels, stomp box effects, and other features. Being only 15 watts, the functionality of this amp is somewhat limited. There is no jack to connect to an external speaker and there is no effects loop or any of the other advanced stomp box functionality that comes with some of the bigger (30-watt plus) Vypyr series amplifiers. Peavey incorporates a lot of the functionality by making the knobs on the front panel push/push knobs that activate different modes or different amp channel models. Each amp model has a low-gain and a high-gain channel, and can be incorporated with one of the stomp box modelers and fed into the equalization and output stages. The amp also has an 1/8" jack so you can hook up an external music player so you can jam along to your favorite tunes. It also has a recording out jack that you can connect directly to a DAW for direct recording.
UTILIZATION
It's not difficult to make this amp sound good. It's apparent that Peavey took the time to research the amps and try to emulate them as closely as possible. The amp is very touch-responsive, most likely due to Peavey's Patented TransTube technology. Being a Peavey product, many of the modeled amplifiers are Peavey models such as the 6505, JSX, and XXX amplifiers, but it also includes everything else you would expect such as Fender cleans, Marshall Crunch, boutique amps, and even some metal amps such as Diezel and Krank made the cut.
The only gotcha with this amp is that if you don't have a 1/4" guitar cable plugged into the input when powered up, it goes into a "light show" mode to save the LEDs and won't exit until you plug in a guitar, then power-cycle the amp. It makes sense from a component-saving point of view, but it's slightly impractical. Also, one of the prevalent issues with the amp is that, at times, if you turn of the amp it will not turn back on unless you let the amp sit for ten minutes.
SOUNDS
I play most of my standard Dimarzio-equipped Neal Moser guitars, Ibanez, and Gibson guitars thought this amp and it really excels in the space of a practice amp. You might be able to get some good recorded tones with it but I never tried. The EQ is fairly wide and there are LEDs that track with the position of the knobs so you can see where everything it set easily. Mostly, I use the Fender Deluxe cleans with a slight chorus and the Krank overdrive with a Tube Screamer up front. With the gain dialed up very high it can get a bit "fizzy" but one must have realistic expectations from a $99 15-watt solid-state amp.
OVERALL OPINION
The Vypyr 15 is a fairly simple and easy to use practice amp. I happened to pick one up second-hand for an extremely low price. If you're in need of a practice amp and don't need other features like a graphical interface so you can edit presets via a computer GUI, this is a great-sounding little practice amp.
UTILIZATION
It's not difficult to make this amp sound good. It's apparent that Peavey took the time to research the amps and try to emulate them as closely as possible. The amp is very touch-responsive, most likely due to Peavey's Patented TransTube technology. Being a Peavey product, many of the modeled amplifiers are Peavey models such as the 6505, JSX, and XXX amplifiers, but it also includes everything else you would expect such as Fender cleans, Marshall Crunch, boutique amps, and even some metal amps such as Diezel and Krank made the cut.
The only gotcha with this amp is that if you don't have a 1/4" guitar cable plugged into the input when powered up, it goes into a "light show" mode to save the LEDs and won't exit until you plug in a guitar, then power-cycle the amp. It makes sense from a component-saving point of view, but it's slightly impractical. Also, one of the prevalent issues with the amp is that, at times, if you turn of the amp it will not turn back on unless you let the amp sit for ten minutes.
SOUNDS
I play most of my standard Dimarzio-equipped Neal Moser guitars, Ibanez, and Gibson guitars thought this amp and it really excels in the space of a practice amp. You might be able to get some good recorded tones with it but I never tried. The EQ is fairly wide and there are LEDs that track with the position of the knobs so you can see where everything it set easily. Mostly, I use the Fender Deluxe cleans with a slight chorus and the Krank overdrive with a Tube Screamer up front. With the gain dialed up very high it can get a bit "fizzy" but one must have realistic expectations from a $99 15-watt solid-state amp.
OVERALL OPINION
The Vypyr 15 is a fairly simple and easy to use practice amp. I happened to pick one up second-hand for an extremely low price. If you're in need of a practice amp and don't need other features like a graphical interface so you can edit presets via a computer GUI, this is a great-sounding little practice amp.