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Published on 04/17/11 at 07:52The Peavey Classic 50 is one of the flagship models of Peavey's venerable Classic line of amps. The 50w model is a 2 channel amplifier that is powered by EL84 power tubes. It has two Peavey Blue Marvel speakers as stock and as the name implies, it delivers 50 watts of tube power.
The amp itself has two channels, a clean and a drive channel. The layout is set up like many Peavey amps. The clean channel has a "Normal" volume control, whereas the drive channel has "Pre" (gain) and "Post" (volume) controls. Basically, in simple terms, your clean channel has a volume control, and your drive channel has separate gain and volume controls. There is a single set of bass, middle, treble, and presence controls for your equalization, and to top it off, the amp has a reverb and a master volume to control the overall level being produced by the amp.
The amp also has a decent series effects loop which works well for running delays or other time based effects that may be used. All in all, the features of this amp are fairly typical for an amp such as this, but they just work, simply, and effectively.
UTILIZATION
Because of the fairly simple control layout, I had very little trouble with dialing in a tone that I could use and was happy with (especially compared to my previous amplifier). The amp's nature is supposed to be that of a "workhorse" or "catch all" sort of amp that can play most styles fairly well, and it certainly does live up to the name. The clean channel reacted very well for more country or blues tinged stuff, and it would get a bit of that throaty blues tone when I hit that channel with an overdrive unit. The drive channel reacted much the same way, going from clean to mean with use of the gain and volume controls, as well as the volume and tone controls on my guitar. I had especially good results with my Gibson Les Paul Junior USA straight into the CL-50 for a very straight up, seventies/early eighties hard rock tone that fit my band at the time very well.
The biggest issue I had with the amp was that the tubes were old and it was grimy and dirty, so I partly have to wonder if it could have sounded BETTER, but such is life. I didn't have it long enough to invest in new preamp or power tubes, but as it was it had a great tone, just much quieter than I expected for a 50w amp.
SOUNDS
When I owned/used this amp, my rig was a pair of USA Gibson LPs (Traditional Plus and a Junior), and a USA Peavey Wolfgang archtop. I was using it primarily for rock based stuff at the time, though I did put it through its paces in cleaner settings for jazz, blues and country type things.
The clean channel is a very typical sounding clean to my ears. Fairly bright and responsive to fast passages. It was obviously designed to excel at country (not surprising given Hartley Peavey's musical interests) and it does a bang up job there. Jazzier tones were also easy to get by using the neck pickup on the guitar and rolling the treble back on the amp (or tone on the guitar, whichever works). Also like I stated earlier on in the review, you can get a nice Texas sort of raunch by hitting the front end of the clean channel with a boost (I had great results with a modified BOSS Super Overdrive as well as a BOSS FDR1).
The drive channel is more British voiced than you might expect from a Peavey amp that looks and feels so American. The amp is powered by EL84 power tubes and this channel is where you really start to hear their voice come through. Though the amp doesn't have a whole lot of gain on tap (I found myself maximizing the gain control for the majority of music I'd play), when you turn it up there's a wonderful British raunch. Hitting the front with a boost such as the aforementioned BOSS SD1 kicked it into that snarling tone used by the heavy hitters of the eighties and beyond.
The only caveat I really had with the tones (other than the lack of gain on tap) was the fact that the Blue Marvel speakers sounded fairly closed and one dimensional at lower volumes. I prefer a more open sounding speaker and the Blue Marvels just did not hit the mark for me enough to enjoy the amp fully.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think Peavey's got a really underrated gem in their crown with the Classic line. Most people seem to scoff at these as being very basic and simple amps and pass them up. This may be true but in reality, they are easy to dial in, very versatile, and sound great. A killer thing about Peavey as well is their reliability, so you know you'll get a good amp that will last a while when you grab one of these. Mine had lived a hard life before I got it and was a bit rough around the edges, but despite this (and the old, probably stock power tubes) it continued to work and sound great. I'm sure if I had put more $$$ into it to replace the tubes and speaker it would have sounded much better, but as it was I enjoyed it. The main reason I traded it was because I needed something with more gain on tap for the hard rock project I was in at the time, so it and my archtop Wolfgang went in separate trades and I went with the prerequisite "eighties" rig of a pair of older Ibanez 540R and RG550 guitars and a Mesa Boogie rackmount rig.
The amp itself has two channels, a clean and a drive channel. The layout is set up like many Peavey amps. The clean channel has a "Normal" volume control, whereas the drive channel has "Pre" (gain) and "Post" (volume) controls. Basically, in simple terms, your clean channel has a volume control, and your drive channel has separate gain and volume controls. There is a single set of bass, middle, treble, and presence controls for your equalization, and to top it off, the amp has a reverb and a master volume to control the overall level being produced by the amp.
The amp also has a decent series effects loop which works well for running delays or other time based effects that may be used. All in all, the features of this amp are fairly typical for an amp such as this, but they just work, simply, and effectively.
UTILIZATION
Because of the fairly simple control layout, I had very little trouble with dialing in a tone that I could use and was happy with (especially compared to my previous amplifier). The amp's nature is supposed to be that of a "workhorse" or "catch all" sort of amp that can play most styles fairly well, and it certainly does live up to the name. The clean channel reacted very well for more country or blues tinged stuff, and it would get a bit of that throaty blues tone when I hit that channel with an overdrive unit. The drive channel reacted much the same way, going from clean to mean with use of the gain and volume controls, as well as the volume and tone controls on my guitar. I had especially good results with my Gibson Les Paul Junior USA straight into the CL-50 for a very straight up, seventies/early eighties hard rock tone that fit my band at the time very well.
The biggest issue I had with the amp was that the tubes were old and it was grimy and dirty, so I partly have to wonder if it could have sounded BETTER, but such is life. I didn't have it long enough to invest in new preamp or power tubes, but as it was it had a great tone, just much quieter than I expected for a 50w amp.
SOUNDS
When I owned/used this amp, my rig was a pair of USA Gibson LPs (Traditional Plus and a Junior), and a USA Peavey Wolfgang archtop. I was using it primarily for rock based stuff at the time, though I did put it through its paces in cleaner settings for jazz, blues and country type things.
The clean channel is a very typical sounding clean to my ears. Fairly bright and responsive to fast passages. It was obviously designed to excel at country (not surprising given Hartley Peavey's musical interests) and it does a bang up job there. Jazzier tones were also easy to get by using the neck pickup on the guitar and rolling the treble back on the amp (or tone on the guitar, whichever works). Also like I stated earlier on in the review, you can get a nice Texas sort of raunch by hitting the front end of the clean channel with a boost (I had great results with a modified BOSS Super Overdrive as well as a BOSS FDR1).
The drive channel is more British voiced than you might expect from a Peavey amp that looks and feels so American. The amp is powered by EL84 power tubes and this channel is where you really start to hear their voice come through. Though the amp doesn't have a whole lot of gain on tap (I found myself maximizing the gain control for the majority of music I'd play), when you turn it up there's a wonderful British raunch. Hitting the front with a boost such as the aforementioned BOSS SD1 kicked it into that snarling tone used by the heavy hitters of the eighties and beyond.
The only caveat I really had with the tones (other than the lack of gain on tap) was the fact that the Blue Marvel speakers sounded fairly closed and one dimensional at lower volumes. I prefer a more open sounding speaker and the Blue Marvels just did not hit the mark for me enough to enjoy the amp fully.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think Peavey's got a really underrated gem in their crown with the Classic line. Most people seem to scoff at these as being very basic and simple amps and pass them up. This may be true but in reality, they are easy to dial in, very versatile, and sound great. A killer thing about Peavey as well is their reliability, so you know you'll get a good amp that will last a while when you grab one of these. Mine had lived a hard life before I got it and was a bit rough around the edges, but despite this (and the old, probably stock power tubes) it continued to work and sound great. I'm sure if I had put more $$$ into it to replace the tubes and speaker it would have sounded much better, but as it was I enjoyed it. The main reason I traded it was because I needed something with more gain on tap for the hard rock project I was in at the time, so it and my archtop Wolfgang went in separate trades and I went with the prerequisite "eighties" rig of a pair of older Ibanez 540R and RG550 guitars and a Mesa Boogie rackmount rig.