The way I understand it and I stand to be corrected is ,the bloke from trace left with his partner and started ashdown, gibson brought trace, trace dissapeared till peavey brought it the blokes at ashdown split up one went back to work for peavey and relaunch the trace brand, nor exactly wikipedia but the best I can do lol, so it should have some good pedigree and even with peavey owning it should not be sniffed at!
But ive only been playing 16 months so perhaps im not the best person to judge but it sounds good to me hence why ive upgraded to the ah1000-12.