BossAreaForum

Cool score.

I've watched the price of those old Peavey Bandit amps climb as people discover how good they sound. It used to be that those amps could be had for $50 all day long. A lot of them still sit on Craigslist for $100, although I've seen more and more ads asking for $150US.

I scored this Peavey amp a few years ago for $60US, a VSS-20. VSS stands for vertical stereo stack. It is a true stereo amp two preamp outs and two 10-watt output sections. The stereo chorus is too noisy to be useful. It sounds surprisingly good for a 10wpc practice amp, though. One thing I've been meaning to try is to run the preamp output into an FX processor and then into a power amp. As a bonus it sounds pretty good plugged into an recording interface using plugins and IRs.

Nice find. I remember years ago when I was a member of a certain Metallica forum, there was
a guy who had a similar amp. He made wicked Metallica covers, he had a very good sound with that amp.

It is a REALLY nice amp. If I didn't already have my Dr Z I'd be tempted to keep it.

OK... so this can't keep happening.

Went to Goodwill again yesterday and picked up a vintage RAM amplifier there for CAD$35. RAM is Canadian and is made by Garnet… This one is vintage 1970. Garnet is a very sought after Canadian brand. If you don't know it ... garnetamps.com

I did a few minor repairs and cleaned it up. It is nearly perfect, and probably worth a couple of hundred dollars.
.

Niiiice!

But why the ultra-sized case for this tiny speaker?

Pepe wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 26, 2020 8:04 pm

But why the ultra-sized case for this tiny speaker?

Back in the 1970's here in Canada there was a bunch of companies selling amps this size/shape/power. It was just "what everyone did". You could buy one similar to this from the Sears catalogue.

Those bandit 112s were a popular low-power pedal steel amp

I think the "Nashville 112s" are the steelers Peavey of choice these days

I do love the 80s era Bandits. I have owned around 8 Bandits, Bandit 65, and 90s era Silver Stripe Transtube Bandits. Never paid more than $65 for any of them, and all punched way above their weight class. I would pass them on to a friend who needed an amp and then wait until another came around for adoption, which usually took less than a month, haha. They are great with pedals and require no baby sitting at a gig as no one would steal it!

The Transtube Bandits are really versatile. My old band would keep one on the bus for any time we needed a backup amp or another amp for a guest. It can do cleans, Stones-y edge of breakup, classic rock dirt, 80s to 90s metal, no problem.

I landed on a really clean 1982 Peavey Special 130 for $100 and was blown away. It's essentially a Bandit 65 with a sweepable mid control and double the power--130 watts. It's not as boxy sounding as the Bandits (which I find wild as it's the same cabinet and Scorpion speaker and virtually identical preamp) and has even more clean headroom. It's great as a country picker's amp, a low power steel amp or stacked with a Thiele 1x12" cab for Bass VI or baritone guitar. The Special 130 rendered my 1983 Bandit 65 redundant, so I flipped it for $100. Win-Win!

What I find remarkable is that every Bandit (and Special 130) I have owned had/has all original parts and still worked perfectly. Not bad at all for amps that were anywhere from 20-38 years old at the time!