PeaveyClassic 20 MH Mini Amp Head

Bought the Classic 20MH after reading a few reviews and listening to more than a few demos. I do home recording mostly and liked the idea of being able to attenuate the power without severely compromising tone. I've had the C20MH for over a week and must say I am very pleased so far. I have had a couple Peavey amps in the past, and always liked the Classic 30 & 50's versatility. IMHO the C20MH is even more versatile, especially for studio or small venues. I play mainly classic rock and country style music. I love the clean channel tones and the various tones you can get out of the overdrive channel by tweaking the pre and post gains. Sounds fantastic with single coils and just as good with humbuckers. Being able to run the amp at 5 watts and not wake the neighbors late a night while still getting that hot-tube creamy tones is fantastic.Haven't used the MSDI silent record feature much. Tried it once and it worked, although seemed a bit dull/dark. I married the head to a Egnater Rebel 1x12 cab and it sounds full with a lot of headroom, sparkling cleans, and full bass response. My Vox AC 15 and Tweed Fender Blues Jr are sitting there in silence, for now.

I did a lot of reading and a lot of watching Youtube video demo's of this amp before I ordered one. What worried me was some of the videos didn't sound good at all, harsh tones. But knowing Amazon's great return policy, I decided to take a chance. First of all, don't buy this for doing gigs, on the clean channel even with volume boost, its not all that loud. My Blues Junior is a lot louder, for comparison. So, the foot pedal was confusing at first and the manual doesn't really say what the lights are for. Turns out the red light is for channel switching, and the green light side is for volume boost. Pretty simple. On the clean channel I'm not getting any real harsh tones at all, you do have to fiddle with the EQ to find the sweet spot, so its great it has bass, mids, and treble for fine tuning. I'm able to really nice crunchy tones mostly clean with some distortion, which is where I thought it might fail, but its got great sound there, bravo. With the gain channel you now have PRE and POST controls to dial in how much gain you want, and it can all the way up to near heavy metal sounds, and this is where the amp gets loudest. I'm playing thru a single 12" Greenback in a pine cab, so really great classic tones from early blues, to 80's "hair bands." This is exactly what I was looking for, as all my many amps are vintage or vintage replicas and don't have master volume or gain channels, so this great little amp fit the bill perfectly and RECORDS GREAT! Now, here's the BAD thing about this amp, the DIGITAL reverb truly sucks. Its ok for practice, but the more gain you dial in the more "noise" you get; the noise from the reverb is like someone sliding brushes on a snare drum, really really annoying. But, I am keeping the amp, and just using the reverb or plate reverb effect on my little Yamaha mixer which has a super real and smooth sound with no digital garbage. I have yet to swap in some good tubes, JJ's for instance to see how that effects the amp, but it can only improve it, as I assume it uses cheap Chinese tubes, even so, the amp still sounds great. For reference, I've been playing guitar since 1965 and currently make my living doing high-end pickups for very picky musicians, so I KNOW tone. GET ONE, you won't regret, but don't expect it to hold its own on stage, but its not designed for that anyway...

I read a lot of reviews, and listened to every video review that I could find before I bought this amp. As most reviews said, the clean channel sounds pretty good for a little amp (I played this amp through a 1x12 cab loaded with a Celestian G12 Greenback). However. channel 2 is really thin sounding. I mean really thin. The test of a really good dirt channel is if you can reduce the gain and get a nice bell like tone. Then when you crank it you can get a thick tone if desired or adjust the EQ to your liking. With this amp, it was thin to the point of being fizzy, even with a 94 Les Paul Standard fitted with Bare Knuckle Mule PAF pickups. Increasing the EQ mid and bass simple made it sound dull and lifeless, and still didn't thicken it. I played for a long time with the pre and post knobs on channel 2 as well; no luck. Channel 1 took an O/D pedal nicely, but with channel 2 it did nothing for the tone.My main amp is a Mesa Boogie Lone Star Special, also an EL84 amp. Of course it isn't fair to compare a $500 amp to a $2000 amp, but as far as I am concerned, channel 2 on this amp doesn't represent the sound of the guitar at all, so I cannot recommend it for those who really care about tone.

Mostly used for direct in feed to my recording console so noise level is important and this jewel is silent. I use it for both guitar and bass, adding effects and EQ in post production, and this amp gives a wonderful range of tonality. I have retired all of my other amps when it comes to recording.

Bought this as a gift for my son who makes and plays guitars. He loves it. Added on the speaker cabinet and it is a great combination.

This review is for the Classic 20 MH. Well first of all I didn't buy it from amazon, but I was so disappointed when I got this head. I don't know if my amp was a lemon (I bought it open box) but the sound was terrible. Not vintage not classic at all. I watched reviews online, heard it on YouTube and my peavey was not even close to the sound on those reviews. I did my research and this amp was very high rated by reviewers but I just can't agree with those reviews, mine was dull, not crunchy, not even close to a classic sound. No zeppelin no acdc no hard rock at all. Crancked up distortion and the sound becomes muddy, not even close to a real tube amp. So I don't know if my amp was a lemon, if it was because of its open box gear or every peavey classic is supposed to sound the same but based on my personal experience I can not recommend this amp.

I ended up selling mine, but it really is a great amp for the price. I was just looking for a different tone.

I have had my Peavey classic 20 head since they came out. This thing is great. No problems so far. Lots of features.This amp cannot be rebiased for6l6 tubes as it has tube sockets for el84's. Someone put that down here and their fulla hooey.

I have a Peavey classic 50 212 that I absolutely love. When I found out about a micro head version I had to get it. Couldn't find any near me but saw one on Amazon for the same price.. After sitting on the fence for a long time about buying it online I decided to pull the trigger.. Glad I did. I'm very happy with this amp. For the at home guitar playing hobbyist, I think this amp is perfect. Small, light weight, quiet, etc. I have a 5 year old and newborn twins. I like that I can plug in headphones and not worry about disturbing the entire household.. Just a tip, set the amp to 1 watt if using headphones... My home studio is currently a storage room as our house is slowly being renovated. I can't wait to get everything set up and use this amp in a recording environment.

Mississippi Marshall! This amp is super flexible. Wide range of tones and many many features make this a stand out mini head.