When you mention a Peavey guitar, if it isn't a Wolfgang or T model its easy to dismiss it as an average 'international series' model but these are quite different.
I stumbled across the Predator at my local guitar shop last year, the owner passed it to me as a repair. It looked surf green in the dim light and i instantly joked i'd give him £50 for it. He accepted. When i got it home i could not believe how good the neck was on it, to the point of researching as to why i knew nothing about these models, they are effortless to play. I found several threads on various forums and other reviews were people are banging on about the Predator neck, also suggesting that with a pup upgrade and a maybe machine heads change these are a Strat that is as good as some more expensive models by other brands.
Not so sure about that for everybody though, the fretboard is quite flat with jumbo frets and the headstock shape isn't pretty. All things that dont generally appeal to usual Strat users.
I picked both of these up for £50 each. The black one is a standard model;
The blue one (that sometimes looks surf green) is a higher end AX model;
These pictures were taken before i modified them. Reasons being i'm not keen on the Strat volume knob directly below the bridge pickup and the s/s/s configuration is not need in my Punk band. As standard they are along the same lines as a decent Squier as far as sounds go. The tremolo system is of similar quality too, i block mine off anyway.
This is how they look now;
The good thing about modifying these guitars is a standard Strat guard will fit directly onto the body and also, the body is factory routed to take a humbucker in the bridge position (if that's what you wish to do).
After doing a bit of research i found out the body is made from Poplar, which is quite light. One of the interesting things with the maple neck model is Peavey used a bi-laminated method that stops any twist or warping. You can see the joint here;
These guitars also have the neck micro-tilt adjustment;
The machine heads hold up quite well although the ones on the AX model (top) are better quality;
Understandably the deal breaker here is the headstock shape, it doesn't personally bother me but i know some folk will hate it;
If anyone is interested in finding one of these models some of the International Series look identical, but the way to tell the difference is the US Patent on the back of the headstock;
All in all two great Strats that cost me very little
