Peavey ValveKing V212 Review

Overall Rating

I have been a little surprised by the quality of the Peavey Valve King amplifier. After seeing mixed reviews (all positive, to be fair, but some less so than others) I figured it was worth a go - an all tube amplifier for £300 doesn't come along every day, so I pretty much had to.

First impressions out of the box were not great - fitted with Ruby tubes as standard the amp really seemed to lack the crispness I expected when playing clean/bright, and sounded muddy and, well, pretty lousy when the drive was cranked up. Nothing I did with the EQs seemed to make a bit of difference to the tone, so I settled back and waited for the valves to 'wear in'. So 3 days later, they prety much 'wore out', as signalled by the simultaneous toasting of 3 of the Rubys.

Faced with the option of being deprived of my amp for some time, only to have it returned with the same horrible valves it shipped with, I decided to decline Peavey's warranty repair and put in a set of JJ Teslas instead - if they shipped these as standard I could see the amps getting 10/10 ratings everywhere!

Like all amps, you have to experiment to get the best out of it, but I'm getting convinced there's no tone I can't dial in on this now - I play a range of guitars and music, and this amp can handle anything I throw at it, from mellow blues tones all the way through to screaming overdrive solos, this sounds great.
Would I buy another? Currently shopping for a head unit - will replace