I played a Peavey Windsor today

[Nitro Express]

Basically a copy of a JCM 800 Marshall with a power drop knob that turns the amp into class A from class A/B. It also has the pressence/ ressonance from a 5150.

It's well built with a steel chassis but the chassis construction is inferior to a real Marshall because it doesn't have the welded, reinforced corners. The case is also made from particle board and not plywood like the 5150.

You can get a VH tone going though. The amp has good harmonics and has and edge to it you can't dial out but that is good for VH. I got the Atomic Punk intro happening with a Phase 90 no problemo.

This amp is loud as shit too!

I had to laugh when I saw the transformers were made by a company called Chuang Meei in Taiwan. I Google searched the company and apparently they have a real good reputation for quality transformers.

I won't buy one. I'm not buying anything from China if I can help it. At least they are selling the thing for a low price. I hate companies that sell the imported crap for a made in USA price.

The amp isn't as well made as a 5150. The vynle covering was done well but that particle board would crack with a good hit and the amp just kind of had that cheap Chinese vibe to it. It smelled like a hot wok when I fired it up. LOL!

[kentuckyklira]

Nice review!

Still sounds like an amp an aspiring kid could get as his first "real" amp, without risking too many $$$$$!

[Nitro Express]

I would have given my left nut to have a Peavey Windsor when I was 15. I wanted a Marshall so bad but they were expensive so I had a Yamaha amp. The Peavey Windsor in today's money would be the cost of a good solid state combo in the early 80's.

The controls were smooth. No pops or farts. The amp is quite with no buzzing or hissing. I like the knob that blends class A to class A/B.

It's got mighty balls in class A/B but if you want to drop the volume you dial it over towards class A. It takes two power tubes out of the signal path and runs the two remaining ones in class A opperation which is putting out around 30 watts and then you dial over to class A/B and get a full 120 watts.

I had it running through a Peavey 6505 cab. I would love to run it through a Marshall cab with some Celesians.

What you are getting is a Peavey Classic 30 that can go to JCM 800 territory. It had more gain than I thought it would.

The thing is the amp didn't clean up very well with guitar's volume knob but I was using the high gain input.

But they are going to sell a lot of these and my mom would have shit her pants if I had one of these monsters when I was a kid. Can you hear me! I think the fucker is louder than a 5150!

[Kilkmaru]

Sounds like im gonna get one.

[ELVIS]

Hmmm...

Interesting...

[Nitro Express]

For the money it looks like a good amp. It's very marshallish and seems well built. It's pure tube distortion with no diodes.

People are giving it good reviews. The list price is $399.

[Coyote]

I think I'm gonna pursue a Laney instead...

[ELVIS]

Every new peavey i've tried has this odd squishy, compressed distortion that I don't like at all...

I wonder if this thing sounds the same...

[Gringo]

Originally posted by Coyote
I think I'm gonna pursue a Laney instead...

Good idea! I have a Laney GH50L head, and it's a damn good amp!
One channel with a switcable gainboost.

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Gringo
Good idea! I have a Laney GH50L head, and it's a damn good amp!
One channel with a switcable gainboost.

Exactly the one I've been drooling over...

[jhale667]

I'm just gonna build a Metro plexi replica, get a Power Brake and be done with it...

[Nitro Express]

All the amps designed by James Brown have that squishy compressed sound but Mr. Brown quit Peavey and is head of design at Kustom now.

The Peavey Windsor was designed by another guy and it's a round Marshall sound with an edge to it. I like it.

My friend bought the one I played and the first thing he did was tear into it. It's got an adjustable bias with a port to plug you multimeter into to. Fuses all over the damn thing so you aren't going to toast the board. The chasis is a solid chunk of steel.

He says it's built well but it's circuit board construstion with three sepparate boards. One for the power amp. One for the preamp, and one for the power supply.

There's even a big resistor that bleeds the power off the the filter caps when you turn the amp off. It looks like theres a relay switch that switches to the resistor when the amp is turned off. That way nobody kills themself dinking with the amp if they don't know what they are doing. Pretty cool safety feature there.

[Nitro Express]

If you want old school Marshall, Metropaulos is better than buying from Marshall. With good THD hotplates available and good cheap EL-34 on the market, you deffinately can go the old Eddie route again.

The Windsor is like a good JCM 800 Silver Jubilee to my ears. It's only got three filter caps like the Jubilee and so it sounds best not cranked out.

The old plexi Marshall had six filter caps and that's why those old amps have that deliciouse midrange cranked. You better live on a farm or use a damn hotplate because you are going to neuter the nieghbors!

To be honest, I think the Metropaulos amps sound better than many plexis.

Let the collectors have their fun. I'm not into the brandname thing. I think it would be fun to build a kit amp and have a logo made that says SHIT and put that on my amp.

[jhale667]

Originally posted by Nitro Express
You better live on a farm or use a damn hotplate because you are going to neuter the nieghbors!

Well, I DO have a long history of annoying neighbors (just moved a few months ago...doncha love the looks on your new neighbor's faces when they see you carting in multiple 4X12s...LOL) ...but yeah, I mentioned I planned on using it with a Power Brake, or Hotplate or something...dunno, my buddy had a Hotplate blow a transformer on his vintage Plexi...needless to say he was PISSED....ended up replacing it with a Mercury Magnetics one for now...

[BrownSound1]

I guarantee you that his transformer would have blown had he not been using the Hotplate. It is no different than a speaker load as far as the amp is concerned. The thing people don't realize is that by using a Hotplate, you are going to want to run the amp at full bore...which will not only speed up power tube wear, but also cause transformers to get hot and fail. That happens with or without an attenuator in the chain. I'll be honest, I don't know many people who run 100 watt Plexis at full volume without some attenuation. Try that shit in a club and they'll be telling you to turn it down or get the hell out. Seriously, I think this is why people say "the attenuator fried my amp," because before they got one, they weren't running everything on '10'.

Oh I have to agree with Nitro on the Metropoulos Amplification stuff. George's stuff shits all over Marshall's HW series stuff....or just about anything else Marshall has released in recent memory. I'll not buy another "new" Marshall ever again.

Metroamp doesn't have any secret circuit or component values that make them sound better...they just use accurate parts based on the original design specs. Marshall on the other hand is using the cheapest kung fu resistors and caps they can get their hands on, and Dagnall is making less than faithful reproductions of their own transformer. It's a damn shame really. Thank God for guys like George, who take the time to investigate why a certain transformer sounds the way it does, and then have it manufactured to that EXACT spec. Or guys like John from Sozo capacitors who knew some of the mojo in a Marshall and Vox amp was due to the Mustard signal caps that were used, and had them faithfully recreated.