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Post by EmRR on Jul 12, 2021 12:20:33 GMT -6
Agree there’s a while lot to the speaker you have in a fender. My 64 Super Reverb has a pair of 66 and pair of 68 ceramics in it instead of the alnico it came with, and it can be brittle. Twins with those heavy ass EV are a different beast than the rest. And the orange JBL’s. Etc.
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Post by Guitar on Jul 12, 2021 12:26:51 GMT -6
Some speakers that work well with Fenders I've had: Vintage 30s, Weber 12F150, Eminence Cannabis Rex
Yes, they are picky. Ice picky, in fact, if you get the wrong combination.
With the champs the Weber Signature Series are fantastic and not expensive
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Post by srb on Jul 12, 2021 14:18:06 GMT -6
If going for the Princeton, reissue or vintage, I have found that the Celestion Gold 10" is a fine speaker indeed. It's rated 40 watts and it handles the low end well while giving an overall greater dimensionality to the output. Adds a notable amount of touch sensitivity, too.
I like it so much that I just got another one to put in my reissue Princeton.
Current vintage Fender roster here includes 2 Deluxe Reverbs ('65, '74), 2 Vibrolux Reverbs ('66, '72), a '62 Bandmaster head/cab, a '67 Bassman head/cab, 2 early 70's Vibro Champs (one is a Bronco), and a '72 Princeton Reverb.
The Vibroluxes are the only two I kept the original speakers in. All the others have been used to experiment with speakers, because that's always where you'll affect the biggest change in sound.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Jul 12, 2021 21:04:33 GMT -6
As a non player who came up in the world of silver face Fenders I really have to ask those who know Guitar Amps better than me, how much of the bad rep the silver face amps got was the tubes? This was the heart of the trashy new tube era, Russian tubes hadn’t hit yet.
If you can find something them 67 with the words “CBS” are still cheaper than non CBS, but CBS had yet to really make any changes. Hey in 86 I bought a 67 Bassman for $150! Just because it was labeled CBS!
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Post by srb on Jul 12, 2021 21:54:42 GMT -6
As a non player who came up in the world of silver face Fenders I really have to ask those who know Guitar Amps better than me, how much of the bad rep the silver face amps got was the tubes? This was the heart of the trashy new tube era, Russian tubes hadn’t hit yet. If you can find something them 67 with the words “CBS” are still cheaper than non CBS, but CBS had yet to really make any changes. Hey in 86 I bought a 67 Bassman for $150! Just because it was labeled CBS! I don't think it was so much tubes per se. We're still in late 60's with the advent of silverface amps. I think it rather more, as we moved into the 70's that in the larger amps most especially, it was circuit design changes; especially the addition of the much maligned master volume circuit. I've read numerous times that CBS engineers wanted to create more headroom in the silverface line. Most guitarists didn't really want that. Lead dress got sloppy, too; and noise, including parasitic oscillation, became more commonplace. Instead of taking more time to wire the circuit better, a new capacitor was added here and there, and some resistance value changes were made. In my experience, silverface amps sound just fine before the MV changes. My silverface Vibrolux actually has a bit better tone than my blackface.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,936
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Post by ericn on Jul 12, 2021 22:07:04 GMT -6
As a non player who came up in the world of silver face Fenders I really have to ask those who know Guitar Amps better than me, how much of the bad rep the silver face amps got was the tubes? This was the heart of the trashy new tube era, Russian tubes hadn’t hit yet. If you can find something them 67 with the words “CBS” are still cheaper than non CBS, but CBS had yet to really make any changes. Hey in 86 I bought a 67 Bassman for $150! Just because it was labeled CBS! I don't think it was so much tubes per se. We're still in late 60's with the advent of silverface amps. I think it rather more, as we moved into the 70's that in the larger amps most especially, it was circuit design changes; especially the addition of the much maligned master volume circuit. I've read numerous times that CBS engineers wanted to create more headroom in the silverface line. Most guitarists didn't really want that. Lead dress got sloppy, too; and noise, including parasitic oscillation, became more commonplace. Instead of taking more time to wire the circuit better, a new capacitor was added here and there, and some resistance value changes were made. In my experience, silverface amps sound just fine before the MV changes. My silverface Vibrolux actually has a bit better tone than my blackface. . See I think Silverface I think early 70’s ! I mean Blackface was through mid 68 so we only have part of 68, 69, 70 as the 60’s. I remember trying to find decent tubes in 70’s when 6L6 picked up more than a 635a!
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Post by srb on Jul 12, 2021 22:18:18 GMT -6
I don't think it was so much tubes per se. We're still in late 60's with the advent of silverface amps. I think it rather more, as we moved into the 70's that in the larger amps most especially, it was circuit design changes; especially the addition of the much maligned master volume circuit. I've read numerous times that CBS engineers wanted to create more headroom in the silverface line. Most guitarists didn't really want that. Lead dress got sloppy, too; and noise, including parasitic oscillation, became more commonplace. Instead of taking more time to wire the circuit better, a new capacitor was added here and there, and some resistance value changes were made. In my experience, silverface amps sound just fine before the MV changes. My silverface Vibrolux actually has a bit better tone than my blackface. . See I think Silverface I think early 70’s ! I mean Blackface was through mid 68 so we only have part of 68, 69, 70 as the 60’s. I remember trying to find decent tubes in 70’s when 6L6 picked up more than a 635a! Still some really good black plate RCA 6L6's made in that time period, IIRC. They fetch a price today. But, I will concede that tube quality in some cases was on the decline. I have certainly never been a big fan of the coin/wafer base tubes, especially the 6L6. GE made some.
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Post by Guitar on Jul 13, 2021 5:41:50 GMT -6
ericn what SRB said, circuit revisions. A lot of the amps got "louder and cleaner" with ultralinear power stages and so on. More output power and less tone. Some of the early silverface amps have blackface circuits, those are the ones I tend to seek out.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jul 13, 2021 7:47:25 GMT -6
Funny thing Ragan, I had the same response as you did. I fully expected to like the Blackface reissue, but surprisingly preferred the Silverface. This has happened more than once to me.
My favorite Fender was always the original 66' Super Reverb, but I've leaned toward the Deluxe lately. My buddy has an original Princeton and original Harvard and a vintage Deluxe. We did an outdoor show last weekend. The Harvard sounded great, but the Deluxe was better.
My Bassbreaker was really good too, but my buddy gave me his Supro to use and it killed them all, yikes.
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Post by robschnapf on Jul 13, 2021 7:49:06 GMT -6
There are definitely great silverface amps it just really depends on circuit revision. I have a silverface super that’s a great amp and I love me some Bassman AB165 for it’s raw rocking tone, more so then classic the blackface AA 864 circuit. I usually stay away from Fenders w/pull distortion master volumes. That’s indicative of later circuit revision that I’m not as much a fan of. Also fender seemed to start adding snubber caps to reduce oscillation potential. Rather then addressing lead dress. These are a bummer as this marks the start of the tone neutering. Also they switched to the brown turd caps from the blue molded.. I’m not a fan of the ultra linear power supply versions. Brighter and cleaner is not what I want from a twin.. As far as the new re issues go, at the very least rebias as they usually leave the factory biased cold I’ve had good success with re tubing them w/better tubes and then yanking the new Italian jensen speaker outta there. I am not a fan, and there are some great speaker options to replace em with .
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