Peavey can be a good amp, I discount the newer stuff (they all sound like crates or valvestates to me), but the old stuff (metal knob) can be real cool, peavey had it right when they made the hybrid amps of the 60's and 70's with a tube power amp and solid state pre amp, then sadly everyone went to a tube pre amp and solid state power amp and messed up the sound, good tube distortion come from the power tubs not the pre tubes and the original mace and deuce had 6 power tubes in them. to me the best sounding peaveys are the old MACE, DEUCE, BUTCHER,and the old 4x10 classics (al metal knob era) are reall cool especially for blues/ southern rock, hey Skynyrd and Hatchet used Peavey Maces exclusively.