Peavey RP-500 (c. 1996–1997)

Name: Peavey RP-500
Brand: Peavey

Documentation on the Peavey RP-500 is thin, and nearly all of it sits in Peavey's own magazine advertising rather than in independent reviews. The archive has no manual, no schematics, and no confirmed production figures. All it has is an ad campaign that ran in pro audio trade magazines from roughly May 1996 through April 1997.

Peavey's ad in Mix (May 1996, p.225) called the RP-500 a MOSFET studio reference power amplifier. It claimed 250 W RMS per channel at 8 ohms, response within +0/-0.3 dB from DC to 50 kHz, convection cooling, gold input and output connections, and an excellent signal-to-noise ratio. All of that was credited to an all-discrete MOSFET design. A later ad in EQ (April 1997, p.61) aimed the same amplifier at studio owners with demanding monitors. It argued that heavy woofers, and the back-EMF they generate through unconventional passive crossovers, can be too much for most power amps. Its answer was audiophile-grade lateral MOSFET output devices. An EQ ad from January 1997 (p.5) also names a larger sibling, the RP-1500, so the RP-500 was evidently part of a short-lived studio-reference amplifier line.

Beyond those advertisements, the record goes quiet. There are no independent reviews, no service data, and no confirmed production dates in the archive. Treat the headline figures as the manufacturer's own claims. They are credible for a serious MOSFET power amplifier of the mid-1990s, but as far as the archive shows, no independent test bench ever verified them.