Peavey Windsor Studio Guitar Combo Amplifier (20 Watts, 1x12")
Use this amp's footswitchable Boost for overdrive or added volume with solos. The Power Sponge provides full distortion characteristics at any volume level.
Overall User Ratings (based on 11 ratings)
Submitted June 10, 2008 by a customer from grimmer.com
"SWEET!"
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This is a relatively new amp, so I've only had it so long. However, I'm happy enough that I'm selling my other amps off!
Sound
Great Marshall-like tone, especially the overdrive.
Features
The "Power Sponge" attenuator is awesome! It lets you crank the amp to satisfying break-ups, then dial down the actual speaker output without changing the tone.
If you do a lot of home recording, this amp is perfect for it. Not only can you get that full-throated tone at bedroom levels, but the balanced D.I. output is something you usually only find on much more costly amps.
Plus, it's built so you can swap out the tubes without doing a full re-bias. Nice!
Ease of Use
Takes a bit of knob-fiddling to "dial in" a good tone, but once you're there, you're golden.
Quality
It's a Peavey. Not a glamorous brand, but one with a long history of being rock-solid. This amp looks and feels like it will outlive me.
Value
You can NOT find this tone with these feature for less. Anywhere.
Manufacturer Support
Never had a complaint about Peavey support
The Wow Factor
Good looking, classic colors, well built, excellent sound, powerful features. What more could you ask?
Musical Background:
Active Musician
Musical Style:
Rock
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Submitted March 4, 2010 by a customer from hotmail.com
"ONe trick pony that rides like a dream."
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I like it for home playing but if playing out would use something else. Though I have thought about getting a tube power amp and running both amps or just running straight into the power amp with my RP1000.
Sound
This amp does the light to medium blues gain perfectly. Does other sounds but this is why you would buy this amp. Late sixties rock and SRV come to mind. The clean is never clean like a Fender but clean enough to call it clean but not a strong point at all!! You can mess with it and if you use an amp modeler you can do more with it and the amp does a good job of warming up effects processors. If you want a living room quiet SRV tone then this is great! If you want a low powered tube amp to warm up your multi effects/amp modeler than this amp is great. If you want a lot of loud clean headroom dont even look at it!
Features
If you want what I described before than being able to change power tubes and having the power soak is great.
Ease of Use
I give it an 8 only becuase it takes some time to tweak the knobs to your guitar. There are sweet spots but you have to find them. usually requires alot of bass a little more than mid for the mids and half or less on the highs. The highs can get brittle quickly.
Quality
No problems with it. I am running it through a 2x12 cabinet as well as with the built in speaker and nothing has happened thus far.
Value
THis amp is priced right and dont see any thing else like it even close.
Manufacturer Support
No experience as I have not needed any.
The Wow Factor
It is what it is.
Musical Background:
hobbyist
Musical Style:
rock
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Submitted April 2, 2012 by Chuck N in Jacksonville, NC
"Peavey Windsor Studio 1x12"
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This is a decent amp at a very reasonable price. I have had to make a few modifications to the amp to make improvements. I repalced the reverb unit with a longer spring unit ($20), I replaced the speaker with a Eminence Texas Heat ($79), and I replaced one preamp tube with a 12au7 ($15). Now it gives the sound I was looking for, somewhere between a Marshall and a Fender. I was looking for a small tube amp I could crank on stage and at rehearsal to ge the nice tube overdrive without blowing away everyone in the band. Then using a OD pedal to really boost it for solos or that extreme distortion sound. Personally i am using one of two Gibson Les Pauls through this amp with an effects board consisting of a BBE Sonic Stomp (necessary for better bass with this amp), noise gate (tames the hiss of the amp at cranked volume), BBE compressor (better sustain), Boss Blues driver (boost extra oomph in distortion), and a Rei Grande Boost pedal (for cleaner boost) with this set up a get a pretty good tone for our band (Classic Rock and newer country). The Les Pauls with this amp sound pretty good stock as compared to my Fender Deluxe 1x12 and my Crate V5212. Bu tmodified this amp is amazing! Perfect balnce of tube saturation at a volume level that will not require you to use ear plugs. I will say this the attenuator really does suck the life right out of this amp. I have not disconnected it yet, but I do not use it at all after trying it a few times.
Musical Background:
30 plus years playing both jamming at home and in a local bar band.
Musical Style:
Classic Rock, newer country, some blues, type of stuff.
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Submitted August 15, 2008 by a customer from palmbeach.k12.fl.us
"don't judge and amp by it's cover"
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Overall I found this amp to fit my needs which include recording and live applications. I am a peavey fan so it has been easy for me to appreciate the features and value. I am extremely satisfied. This amp can stand up to my brother in laws Eggnater and and go toe to toe with it.
Sound
I gave this area an 8 because I needed to mod some things to coax the sound I wanted. I changed the speaker out to a celestion gold12 and I changed the tubes out to 12AU7 in the preamp stage and a Groove tube 6l6 in the power stage. These changes in the tube area gave me much more clean headroom. I use a pedal board so this freed up room for my distortion pedals. The speaker swap got rid of the typical blue marvel "fart" sounds. It has a nice "expensive" marshally sound now.
Features
This are got an 8 from me beacuse I added a 10 band "EQ" to my pedals because the on board eq is a little to passive for my tastes. Otherwise the features are exactly what I wanted, a one channel class A tube amp. The XLR D.I. does color tone when recording through it, that is an easy fix, I now mic the amp. The power attenuator is great I can scream at low volumes and maintain pleasurable tones. Just a note I closed the back of my amp and that boosted the bottom end nicely and with the eq I use I can adjust my frequencies to taste.
Ease of Use
So easy a "caveman could do it"
Quality
It's a PEAVEY can't get any tougher than that. I like the peavey tone so that was easy. But I think they did a nice job on the cosmetics and the electical components. As I mentioned before I neede to swap and mod. That was a bit pricey, but worth it.
Value
Short of doing some mods this amp is a great value. I am happy I bought it.
Manufacturer Support
I called to ask some questions and they were very helpful.
The Wow Factor
One of the features that stuck out to me was the "look" of thei amp I found it attractive witht the black and tan combination.
Musical Background:
Active musician, Recording engineer
Musical Style:
Blues, Rock
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Submitted December 7, 2012 by Bob P in Manchester, NH
"A Marshall for less than half the price"
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Though I will admit a few minor upgrades like a V30 for the speaker, removing the power sponge, and putting a TS9 in front of it do make it a beast; this amp can be tweaked to sound great out of the box. If you know how to tweak an amp and are looking for an amp that fits into a band mix real well you just can't beat this amp at this price if your deal is rock n roll and(with a Tubescreamer) old school metal. If you are a bedroom player that's into Djent and/or newish metal this isn't the amp you are looking for. This amp can go from cleanish to balls to the wall distortion. No crystal cleans to be had but if you want crystal cleans you are not going to buy a Class A amp period. With a compressor in the loop you can get kind of close but you will still never get clean clean if you catch my drift. Overall a tremendous amp and if I test drove this amp with a blind fold on I would have paid 800 for it.
Musical Background:
I am a working musician who has been playing for 30 years or so.
Musical Style:
Rock. Old School metal, Blues
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Submitted May 19, 2009 by a customer from att.net
"I guess I have a $400 table."
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I will never be satisfied with this amp. I bought a VOX AC15 and a Fender Blues Junior. Both have Celestion Blues in them and they are my choice for a good sounding low wattage amp. By the way, I put the Celestion Blue in the Peavey as well and it made no difference at all in the amps bottom end nor did it clean up the sound.
Sound
With all due respect to the other people doing reviews I just can not agree with them on this amps sound.
This amp has no bottom to it. It is certainly not an amp that could be used for small venues without going through a pa for bottom end. It also does not have a rich clean sound. I was hoping to have something close to a Fender Blues Junior or Vox AC15 sound but it does even come close to that. With an eq stomp box you can get a little more bass but, even with this helping the bottom end there is not a box made that can give this amp a clean rich sound.
Features
These have already been identified by the other raters. I did not find the features any more or less useful than any other amp. If I did a lot of recording, the XLR output would be useful. I don't have much use for the sponge.
Ease of Use
To me, this amp just does not have any great sounds.
Quality
Every Peavey I have owned since the 1970 have been great work horses. They have always been dependable. I had a Classic 50 212 that was probably one of the best amps I have ever owned. Problem with it was I am getting to old to carry around a 70 lb. amp.
Manufacturer Support
Surprisingly enough, the one time that I ever tried to get help from Peavey in over 30 years, they did not get back to me about this amp.
The Wow Factor
I wish I could return it but I traded our local music store my Classic 50 212 for this amp and they would not take it back because the Classic 50 was sold.
Musical Background:
Active Musician
Musical Style:
Rock, Easy Listening, Blues
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Submitted August 7, 2010 by a customer from eircom.net
"The best value in Tube amps anywhere for those who can't afford the botique price tags but wich they had the sound here is an ve"
Sound
This amp has all the beautiful tone of a 60's valve amp without the price tag. The clean sound is beautiful real rich and natural. The power sponge allows you to get that real valve overdrive sound that is not metal more classic rock. I play blues and rock to folk. I use a strat, tele, an Epiphone Les Paul and a Gretsch Powerjet through this all of which sound like new guitars to me now, excellent. The spring reverb is really responsive the trick is to put the moddle back a bit to get the real echo. The power booste is a beautiful extra feature.
Features
the power sponge is a really brilliant extra it means you can get that overdriven tone at low levels. I havn't used the amp for recording yet so I cant comment on the direct line features.
Ease of Use
Very simple amp to use tone is beautiful and I find it very easy to get my tone. I just tried it out in the shop and found every sounf I wamted from Jazzy to overdrive.It also has a stand by switch which allos you to heat up the valves before playing
Quality
Beautifully built and the finish is really tasteful. It is also very robust
Value
I can see no other amp in this price range that has the features or the sound of this product
Manufacturer Support
Don't need it yet I hope never. Peavey has a good reputation so there should be no worries there.
The Wow Factor
Very sexy amp soundwise and looks
Musical Background:
Hobbyiast
Musical Style:
Rock/Blues Jazz
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