Peavey KB 3 Keyboard Amp

Wish I could provide some

I purchased a Peavey KB3 in 2008. I have used it for acoustic guitar, electric upright bass, electric guitar and keyboards. With all of the previous instruments I have used preamps with effects into the KB3 except the keyboards had built-in effects. This is a drawback of this amp; no effects. The other drawback is only 60 watts as a standalone and 80 watts with an external cabinet. But I must say the amp is pretty loud, very clean and the eq works well on each channel (3 channels). It also has an XLR out you could use to FOH PA systems. The amp is very versatile, transparent and a great tool for a home studio or live gigs.

I have had this amp for about a year now, and it has been great for me. I play guitar through a separate dedicated amp, and my sons use the KB3 to play bass guitar and e-drums. The amp handles both instruments at the same time very well. This amp was made for e-drums! Perfect balance between highs and lows for a full sounding kit. And the eq works great to mix to taste. I was worried that the lows would not be good enough, but I beleive this thing has some serious punch. When I crank it up, the house shakes. Bass guitar is just okay. My son is only 9, so we are working on finess, but when he starts waking away it creates more rattle then a regular bass amp. As he has been getting better with the finess, the sound is much better. If you plan to use this with multiple instruments, to include a bass, I think you will be happy with the versatility. I would not want this if the only I instrument i used on it was a bass guitar though. Additionally, I have played mp3s through it, and have used it as a studio monitor with my computer and DAW. And it has been great. Again, very impressed with the low end on this thing. Now, on to volume. I did expect this amp to be louder. If you are playing a small venue, or using it as a practice amp with full band, you will be at the bare minimum volume levels needed to do that. It does have a line out that you can connect to a PA for a boost, and then use the KB3 as a monitor, which would probably work quite well. I use this only at home, and at low volumes since we use e-drums. As far as versatility and sound quality, I absolutely love this amp. Last warning. It boasts 4 channels. There are 2 instrument channels, and then one mic channel and a monitor input channel (from the PA). There is no gain control on the mic channel, so unfortunately you can pretty much only use it as a mic. I also tried playing mp3s through the monitor channel, but the quality of it does not match the two instrument channels. Not sure why?

At this price you know you're not getting the quality of one of the big boys of keyboard amps. I have a space where I need to cover 125 seats theatre style. It works fine for that. One of the channels has a 3-band EQ which was a pleasant surprise (the ad says all three channels are 2-band EQ). If this is your budget, it will work fine. If you need a bigger sound, expand your budget and get something different. You get what you pay for.

It has great features and looks fantastic; everything I wanted (on paper). BUT reality hit the moment we tried it out... this is about the weakest amp I've ever heard. For it's size and fairly heavy weight I was expecting something more than a bedroom amp. Even just using it as a personal keyboard monitor, on an amp stand right next to the keyboard player, I was pretty disappointed. Forget about trying to cover an audience, keeping up with a band or using it as any kind of practical PA. If you get both volume knobs turned WAY UP, 8+, you will get a bit of volume but by that point the floor hiss has pretty much taken over. So you'd better not stop playing for a second or else be ready to pull back the volume the instant you do. Sound wise the reproduction for keys is pretty nice. For voice, using a OM2, I thought it was a bit bassy/muddy. Unfortunatley GC does not stock this locally so I could not test beforehand or compare to another one to see if maybe mine was just a dog. Not one of Peavey's better efforts. Even tempts one to consider looking into a Behringer (shutter) keyboard amp.

I was a little worried because I bought my KB 3 used from GC so i had it delivered to the store and the guys at the store were very nice about me havin them test it in the store before i took it home the amp is very clean and a good volume to it not as loud as i was hoping but over all am very happy with the way my Yamaha MM6 Mini Mo sounda on it.