Review taken off Reverb found the info very useful... Welcome one and all, what we have here is an absolutely stunningly built
guitar. Most people know Peavey as the pound-for-pound leader in tough
as nails, hard to kill audio products used by the common man since
atleast the mid-70's. What people don't give Peavey nearly enough
credit for, is what fantastic pieces of American craftsmanship their
guitars are. US-built Peavey guitars have not gotten their due must be solely
due to the fact that no-one out there knows they exist. Let's talk
about quality for a second. This guitar is ENTIRELY US-BUILT, Solid body-solid maple neck (absolutely fantastic neck shape). While 80's
style floating tremelo's may not be your thing, no one can deny that on
MOST guitars of this price point, even vintage or well-loved Japanese
instruments from the 80's, most of the floating trem's were slightly
less expensive versions of their full fledged German or US
counterparts. Not this guitar, this has the granddaddy US-built Kahler
trem, and it's a serious piece of machinery all on it's own (and worth a
penny or two by itself), including the original arm. While most guitar
companies are content with building a good body and neck (and sticking
in whatever single coil or humbucking pickup they can source or
re-brand), Peavey went the extra step and designed a set of pickups
which are singularly fanastic sounding, US-manufactured, and knock-out
fantastic in build quality and tone. Here's the other part, you can't
find them on anything except mid 80's Peavey's. The switches and
potentiometers are all top quality, no imported/cheap/light duty units,
these will take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. The wiring harness is
beautifully and cleanly hand-wired (quite a difference from most guitars
in this price range). Let's talk about the neck pocket, can you say
tight as a snare drum? For those not in the know, cheaper instruments
have sloppy pockets. Now, sloppy pockets, and wood screws do not mix,
and if you want to go the extra mile for a rock solid bolt on joint-you
do what Peavey did with this thing. This guitar uses threaded metal
inserts cleanly imbedded into the neck to make this thing STRIP PROOF.
This guitar also utilizes a neck angle post-adjustment, much like many
other companies (danelectro/fender). The difference (once again
superior engineering) is that they use a fine point and a special detente in the angle plate tozero
in that angle point so it doesn't walk around. CAN YOU SAY OVER
ENGINEERED! the quality of the routing, no spare wood has been removed
anywhere. The single coil pickup routes even minutely have a small
detente for the height adjustment springs (WHAT?!?) The wiring layout
also facilitates any combination of the three pickups your heart could
want, as well as a handy on/off/on(tapped) setup for the bridge
humbucker. The jumbo frets (newly polished) are in great overall shape
and have tons of life left in them. The paint job on this guitar is a
beautifully applied silver metallic gunmetal grey, which when offset
with the solid black hardware makes a much more classy combination than
most guitar from 1987 can hang with. You wouldn't feel cheezy playing
this thing out (as opposed to something overtly pointy, neon, or
airbrushed). This thing is spot on intonated, and setup so easily and
plays so extremely well it's absolutely shocking. So, not only is this
guitar outstanding, but the case is form fit, built like a brick-out
house, has solid tough as nails hardware, and is light but extremely
protective. Let's put it this way, if you built this guitar today, you
could expect to pay WAY OVER $1000 retail, and that's simply the truth.
The designer of this guitar went on to produce the Wolfgang series of
guitars, which seem to be the only Peavey guitars that are getting their
due as of late (why I have absolutely no idea). And for those who love the T-60, as I do as well, this thing is EVERY BIT the guitar thoseare
(in my mind far more giggable). In short, this is a build quality and
components more in line with US G&L, Musicman, Heritage, PRS level
instruments rather than Schecter, Epiphone, or Squier. This guitar will
humble instruments 5 times it's price. You simply cannot go wrong. I
can only surmise that someday these will finally be recognized for being
as absolutely fantastic as they truly are. Don't be a sheep, get
yourself something nice for penny's on the dollar. As a collector
myself, I HAVE to believe that these have simply been overlooked,
because as a luthier I can seriously tell you, these US built higher end
Peavey models from this time period( and not ALL are necessarily the
same) are absolutely top notch. This is one I kind of hope sits around
for a while, I'm almost considering buying a parts version to back
engineer the pickups (they really are that good). Condition of the
finish is beautiful, but it has been played. Has some slight buckle
worming from play on the back, and various small dents and dings. The
hardware is super clean, no stripped hardware ANYWHERE, but as evidenced
by the finger wear on the switches, this thing was gigged but well
taken are of. It's what I like to call perfect Journeyman Used
condition. Finish is bright, clean, small dents and dings and normal
playing wear, but really quite clean overall, hence the VG condition vs.
Excellent. Ugh, before I change my mind......COME AND GET IT!
(please, quickly!)