I am quite Sniping that Peavey studio pro model. I am really not familiar with various amps. I am after something above 35 Watts, loud enough to tag along practices. My incredibly varied repertoire includes, Heavy metal music, Heavy metal Music and Heavy metal music. .png "lol")
But that Laney in the GAS section is really tempting with its price and that Celestion speaker.
It was mentioned by one person that he liked the drive on the Peavey Studio Pro. I'm just the opposite. To me, the clean channel on the Peavey solid states is "ok". If you go to
www.harmonycentral.com you can read the reviews for both peavey and laney amps. There's a lot of information there. Overall, consistently peavey solid state amps just get rated as "ok" - nothing spectacular, just "ok". Clean channel overwhelmingly gets the better rating and drive channels on peavey solid state amps pretty much all conclude "it sucks". Remember this is coming from me - who was a dedicated peavey person for years. But truthfully I have never liked the drive or the clean on Peavey solid state amps. Their tube amps have awesome drive, but the solid state Peaveys - I just don't know and the peavey solid states have pretty much a lifeless tone to me. I'm kinda spoiled and like that British Drive sound. Peavey solid states are the reason I switched from being a straight guitar into amp person and started using some pedals. I just never could get that Marshall distortion or that fender clean sound out of a Peavey. Now before I switched to Laney Amps, you could never have drug me away from Peavey tube amps though and I still keep a small peavey tube amp around. But, there is a very big world of difference in the Peavey solid state and peavey tube amps - like night and day.
Some people complain about the drive section on Laney amps. The drive section is awesome but you do have to experiment. Laney amps have incredibly versatile drives. Put the gain on anything from 1 to 7 though and you are only going to get varied states of crunch. One to three is just a dirty clean sound - much like you would have heard from Hendrix. Four to seven is more like the rolling stones type of crunch or what you would hear in classic rock. Howver crank that gain on 8 on a laney amp and something happens - it suddenly just goes over the top.
You might want to remember that what would be considered the very first heavey metal sound, coming from Black Sabbath's Tommy IIomi, was, has been and is still driven by Laney Amps. Laney solid state amps unlike most other brands - pretty much sound just like their tube amps, not a lot of difference in tone, just a lot of difference in power - for example my 15 watt Laney Tube amp is a hell of a lot louder than my LX65R was but the tone is pretty much the same - maybe a little creamier on the drive, but only to the educated ear.
There is a down side to laney amps though - both tube and solid state. I sold one before because I couldn't get used to it, but went back to laney. Laney makes a statement - the harder you drive it, the better it sounds and I have found that to be true. At low volumes, Laney amps suck. If you are gonna use them at low volume then get yourself a zoom 606, 707 or G2.1u, so you can have good tone at lower volume. With that said, to get good tone from a Laney, whether it is tube or solid state, you really have to crank it. My 15 watt laney tube amp sounds like [gooey brown stuff] on anything lower than 6 for volume. However once you hit that 6 mark it sounds great - better than any amp I've ever heard, but it's so friggin loud at 6 that the neigbbors want to start calling the barnagay police. My friend even has one of those Laney LX12's and it's the same way. Crank that little sucker up and it sounds great, but at low volume it sounds dead. So I will admit that for practice in a bedroom in an apartment a laney - even a small one might not be the best choice. However for rehearsals and gigs where you gotta crank an amp loud enough to be heard over an aggressive drummer, you won't be dissapointed. I do use my laneys at home, but that's because I spent years being considerate of my neighbors who complained about the loudness of my amps but still had all night loud parties 3 nights a week. After awhile I just said screw them and now I blast those suckers out of their bedrooms.
