Billy Smiley & Mark Gersh?

[Jonathan]

I'd wager Billy's responsible for both NeverLost and Innermission. Both were released on Cul de Sac.

I got Gersh's Awakening album for free and it was worth every penny.

[brent]

BSmiley has not had much luck with new artists. Some friends of mine were signed to his label, where they became slaves and made money. That was actually a good deal, because the band broke up and one of the brothers started Stars Go Dim with two members of Pillar. When Billy started pushing Peavey, I knew that he was hitting rock bottom

[brent]

Peavey is what you use going up and coming down. It is not what you use when you are on top. Back when he was endorsing, it was much worse than it is now.

[bakersfieldpethead]

Peavy has always been looked at as a low end product. Behringer is also about there. Companies who market themselves as a cheaper alternative to Mackie and others that cost an arm and leg for great sound.

[brent]

In the MI world, Peavey and Mackie are on the same level price wise. When it comes to reliability, Mackie is nowhere close. They have criminally high failure rates. Behringer is several notches below Peavey and Mackie by design. They are there as THE entry level company. They too have terrible QC (non actually) and poor reliability. The parent company of Behringer bought Midas, the most respected live console manufacturer in the world, and are now using some of their technology and circuit designs to create new budget priced products. I hope that is as far as it goes. We sell all of these brands and know the reality, not just what the sales reps and marketing guys want the public to think.

Honestly, Peavey does make some killer stuff for their market. Their custom shop amps are as good or better as other custom shops. But Hartley knows that he must stay in the in the entry level to stay alive. His old market is not there anymore, because that market does not have a venue in the average USA town anymore. The business is different, and the business model for the average weekend musician is no longer about business.