OK, here are my ol' favorites, and I do mean OLD, in some cases...
Sorry for the genric pics - I'll have pictures of my actual stuff up soon...
Peavey Special 130
This was THE AMP for me, for the past twenty years. I bought this one brand new when I worked at a Peavey dealer (now Warehouse Sound and Lights) back in the mid-eighties. As a 112 combo, rated at 130 watts at 4 ohms, it has MORE than enough power for just about any gig/style you can imagine. It has two switchable preamp channels: one totally clean and one that can be overdriven a couple of ways. I gigged countless casuals with this ol' guy playing rock, R&B, and country, and it even did a stint as a bass head when I joined a country band as a bassist in the late eighties. A few years ago, I got a wild hare and bought a second one! Now I play them as a "stereo pair," with a stereo-chorus pedal last in the stomp-box chain, feeding them from the chorus left and right outputs. Cool!
For speakers, I've had 8 and 4 ohm Scorpions, 8 and 4 ohm Black Widows, and even 16 ohm Vintage 30s loaded. Currently they both have Celestion G12T-100 4 ohm speakers loaded, and I think those are gonna stay a while.
The unique feature of this year/model Special is that it was the only Special model that had the parametric mid-range control, which for me is the control that MAKES this amp. All the models before - and since - have just had the ol' single knob midrange, cut or boost. These have a dual-concentric pair of knobs, with the the outside ring the frequency selector, and the inside knob the cut and boost. My best guess as to why this fabulous feature was only used for this one run is that they must have come to realized that it was just too much control for some people - hey, a lot of players just want to dime everything and expect it to sound good! Not so with these amps - but with a little finesse you can dial up some pretty yummy tones, IMHO. Don't think so? With the bass at 3 o'clock, and the high and presence knobs straight up, try running the "shift" ring at around 2 o'clock and the "mid" knob at about 8 o'clock. Dontcha ya like that tone? Oh well, that's why my nickname stuck...
Peavey Deuce
I bought this amp many years ago from the ASB at the high school where I now work - they had been using it as a portable PA system! It's a mid-seveties hybrid combo - solid state preamp feeding four 6L6 tubes, hitting the two 12" speakers with 120 watts. Can you say, "Southern Rock?"
This amp has really been through them changes - I sold it to my nephew around ten or fifteen years ago, and then traded it back for a 412 cab. Then I pulled the amp chassis out, built a new box and made a head out of it; sealed up the cabinet and loaded it with a pair of Celestion G12T-60 8 ohm speakers. I re-worked the jacks and channel switching scheme on the back of the amp because the pedal was missing or non-functional, I don't recall - but, now you can run it with a regular two-button stereo footswitch. For the Jalms in '06, I put it back together as a 212 combo, and left the Celestions loaded - it's pretty sweet, for an old beater!
The unique thing about this amp is that it was built at the time when everybody was going crazy for preamp overdrive - so this amp has preamp channels designed so that they can be played parallel or SERIES - yup, preamps in SERIES! Now, that's some serious crunch! The problem that I had with that idea was that the preamps-in-series setting (with all the groovey crunch!) was a great tone for solos, but it was invariably not as loud as the "regular" (clean single-preamp) setting. So, you'd stomp on the footswitch for the good crunchy solo, and the volume would be a drop off from the clean rhythm tone. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Heck, I could gig with this old guy, if I had too...
Peavey Transtube Supreme
Now, here's a head I really thought would be THE ANSWER - whatever the question was at that time. It's really a great sounding amp, the Transtube technology works well, and to me it really does sound like a tube amp, even on the clean channel. Great control on the overdrive channel, too, with the "thrash" button - it yanks all the mids out with the touch of a button. Looks good, too, now that I've removed the silly-looking art-deco "PEAVEY" logo - I think all their amps look better without it!
However, after all these years of finding Peavey amps to be LOUDER than reading the specs would lead you to believe, sadly, this one wasn't. In fact, this head could be the quietest 100 watt head I've ever heard. And, it's not just this particular one - that's a knock I have heard elsewhere against this model. It's a shame, too, because I really do like the tones I can get out of it. It used to sit proudly atop the Avatar 412 cab, but sadly, it now just sits in the corner, having been replaced by the Marshall 8200.
I think I could STILL gig with this one, but I'm not sure it has the balls for the jalms... Ah, Atlantis!