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King Loudness « Cool high gainer »
Published on 10/26/11 at 07:36The Peavey JSX is a 120 watt all tube head that was designed in collaboration with famed rock guitarist Joe Satriani and the engineers at Peavey. It is a three channel amplifier with clean, crunch and ultra channels which allows for great versatility overall. Each channel has its own controls for gain, volume and EQ adjustment. There's also a separate section that contains a master volume, an onboard noise gate and additional EQ controls. It's powered by a quad of 6L6s giving a nice variety of different tones.
UTILIZATION
Getting a good tone out of this rig is pretty easy for sure. Like many other Peavey amps it has a very easy to use and great interface. I particularly like how the controls react to one another. Most Peavey amps don't contain too much of one particular frequency which comes in handy for dialing in a wide variety of pleasing tones. It has a nice low end heft that works well for modern music, balanced and true midrange and a nice sparkly top end that sits very well in a mix by itself or with other musicians.
SOUNDS
This amp is a reasonably versatile amp for being touted as a more modern high gain head. The clean channel has a nice and natural sound that is very tight and percussive. It can be a little flat at times but that's a fairly minor issue if the amp is dialed in right. The crunch channel goes for classic and clear hot tossed type rock tones that work well for everything from classic rock to more modern crunch tones. Channel three or ultra goes for those higher octane and more compressed type of tones that have been steadily more popular in modern rock and metal music as of late. This channel can do really extreme rhythm tones well and sustained and high gain lead tones too.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think the Peavey JSX is a great and surprisingly versatile head. They aren't made any more but you can pick them up for about $700 on average which definitely is a great deal for this amp. If you are looking for a high gain and versatile head for under a grand, give one of these a serious look.
UTILIZATION
Getting a good tone out of this rig is pretty easy for sure. Like many other Peavey amps it has a very easy to use and great interface. I particularly like how the controls react to one another. Most Peavey amps don't contain too much of one particular frequency which comes in handy for dialing in a wide variety of pleasing tones. It has a nice low end heft that works well for modern music, balanced and true midrange and a nice sparkly top end that sits very well in a mix by itself or with other musicians.
SOUNDS
This amp is a reasonably versatile amp for being touted as a more modern high gain head. The clean channel has a nice and natural sound that is very tight and percussive. It can be a little flat at times but that's a fairly minor issue if the amp is dialed in right. The crunch channel goes for classic and clear hot tossed type rock tones that work well for everything from classic rock to more modern crunch tones. Channel three or ultra goes for those higher octane and more compressed type of tones that have been steadily more popular in modern rock and metal music as of late. This channel can do really extreme rhythm tones well and sustained and high gain lead tones too.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think the Peavey JSX is a great and surprisingly versatile head. They aren't made any more but you can pick them up for about $700 on average which definitely is a great deal for this amp. If you are looking for a high gain and versatile head for under a grand, give one of these a serious look.