Peavey Renown 400 - Good deal in Atlanta?

Going to get it when they open in the morning.
Thanks.

 

Those amps will peel OLD paint off the wall!
Twang for days.

 

Heck, those things will properly dispose of lead paint and asbestos. What a find for $99. Great find.

 

I had one of these in the late 80's and they are great amps , loud as H E double toothpicks.

 

Had one also still kickin' myself for getting rid of it!!Tons of headroom and twang and will make some ears bleed lol!!!

 

The clean channel is CLEAN, the distortion channel sounds like a solid state attempt at a poor man's Marshall. I only found one good setting on that channel for country. It is, as noted, very loud. Overall they're useable and very durable amps. I used one for several years on the road in the '80s. It even survived being dropped down a flight of stairs with no problems at all. If the pots aren't too scratchy it's a steal.

 

I know this is an old thread, but I just picked another Renown 400 up on CL, after regretting the sale of my first one several years ago. These are excellent amps. Easy to set up and control. This amp is warm, punchy and sparkly...all at the same time. It articulates beautifully what is being played and is very sensitive to how the guitar is being played as well This amp just does it all for me. I run an Am Std Tele thru it, and it twangs beautifully. It's as controllable and comfortable in my studio or on an outside gig cranked up to a very loud 3. Mine is completely stock. It had spent its entire life in a recording studio before I bought it. It's just one great, very nice amplifier. I own lots of amps....mostly old Fender and Peavey tubers, but if I could have only one amp, this would be it. Seriously!

 

See the other recently revived zombie thread on the Scorpion speakers. While I don't use my Renown anymore, I did replace the old speaker in my SFDR with one from my Renown. It sounds great as I suspected. The Renown is a lot of amp for what I suspect nowadays is not much money.

 

I wish I got as lucky with the condition of mine. I recently got a 1986 Renown 400 off GC Used and mostly it's dirty. The 3 pots on the lead channel need cleaning and 3 pots on the clean channel's EQ need cleaning. And the usual jack stuff. If you ever pulled the chassis out it looks like a well organized community of electronic components. Tons of room between everything. Almost like a work of art, or at least planning. Whoever designed this had style as well as design. All the components that could heat up are away from most everything else.

I got my Renown a few days ago off of GC Used. I scan that site about once ever other day for deals. This one came up and the listing said one of the channels didn't work. It had a pair of Scorpion speakers in it and I was going to buy it just for the speakers, one to put into my Peavey Bandit 112 red stripe. When I got the Renown, yes, only one channel worked because the dummies didn't realize the footswitch it came with was broken. The amp was fine. Without a footswitch plugged in you get both channels on. Works for me. I thought it was fine. Peavey makes amps like tanks.

And the drum roll please.... the price I got my Renown was $49. Yes. You heard me right. $49 with the (not) broken channel and all. Plus the broken foot switch which can be fixed or replaced. When the amp came in I wasn't sure I'd like it at all. If I didn't at least I'd have some killer speakers. Those Scorpions are rated at 200 watts rms and 101 db 1 watt 1 meter. Wow! Louder than a Celestion and more watts too!

I play blues and with some EQ tweaking, I got both channels to sound pretty incredible at clean settings. On the clean channel I dimed the pre-gain and got some nice mild overdrive out of it. The lead channel can go into some heavy rock but you've got to know how to EQ it. There are pull for bright, pull mid-boost and other eq gizmos that Hartley Peavey threw in for fun. Plus this amp has 2 different parametric eq's in it. Don't tell me is sounds like crap! You've got to spend some tweaking time with it and your guitar to pull the magic out of it. This amp is very touchy on the eq. The lead channel is passive and the clean channel is active. So people who say it sounds like crap never spent at least 1 hour dinking with the eq.

Once I got a good clean-ish tone dialed in, I thought 'why not see how loud it can go?'. In the GC loud room they have a door on it. I don't think I got either channel's volume past 3 before the windows were shaking along with my ear drums. Now I know it can 'peel the paint off the walls' as one poster here said. Plus, Peavey wires the Scorpions in parallel so with the 8 ohm speakers they get 4 ohms which means you get ALL 210 watts rms at your finger tips. And it has a full length reverb tank. Sounds pretty good but not past 4 or 5. After that it gets too 'verby.

I'm in love with that amp only because I played my Les Paul Deluxe through it with those mini humbuckers (no midrange hump) and it just sounded incredible. Like a guitar should sound through a good amp, with all the tone and articulation your fingers are creating now pumping through those speakers. I was seriously impressed by this 28 year old amp.

I recently returned a Peavey Studio Pro red stripe back to GC (30 day return policy). It just didn't have the great eq and toneability of its big brother the Bandit 112 red strip. I did that before I got the Renown. Having 5 combo amps (1 all tube) is a lot of mouths to feed. (I don't want to mention all the tube 1/2 stacks I own). And I really liked the Bandit at 42lbs. For clean and slightly gritty blues overdrive it's great! But the Renown just ate the Bandit for lunch and came back asking to chomp on my other amps. I told it to settle down and finish what's on its plate. Never the less, the Renown sounded so incredible on the clean settings, both channels, I took the Bandit back to GC since it was within my 30 day return period. I'm not really a gear addict, I only play one on TV. I really didn't want to like the Renown because it's such an 'old' amp and not really stylish like the Bandit. But dang! This thing will mow down the front row of people sitting near the stage and still sound like magic at gigging volumes or bedroom soft. There's no way I can deny what I heard and experienced.

I doubt I'll ever find one again for $49 but I scan GC Used all the time for specific amps and who knows. I might get lucky again. The Renown has set the bar higher for any used amp I might buy in the future. I do know that even though the Renown is about 30 lbs heavier than the Bandit, the quality and sound are worth the extra tonnage. First thing I'm going to do when I get to Home Depot is buy caster for that beast. I did that for my Crate Vintage Club 50 (2x12). I think they call it a '50' because it weighs over 50 lbs. Go figure.

 

Very cool to see these old Renown 400 amps are still shaking the stages and moving the audiences. Here's a link to my Renown 400 being played with my Tele in an outdoor show. Thanks for looking.