| Author |
Topic: Fender Twin Reverb II? |
Marc Jenkins
From:
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
|
Posted 27 Apr 2009 1:32 pm |
|
There's one of these for sale locally, and I'm not familiar with this:
This model is from the early 1980s Fender "Riviera era." Hand wired, built in the USA. This model is hard to find and quite collectible. All tube, 100Watt, four power tubes; seven preamp tubes. Spring reverb. Two channels (clean and distortion) and master volume. Comes with original fender footswitch with channel select and reverb control. The amp's original 12" Celestions have been upgraded with 2 12" EV 12L Electrovoice speakers. These speakers have fantastic sound and projection.
There's also a Deluxe Reverb II in these parts. Any thoughts would be appreicated! |
|
|
 |
Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
|
Posted 27 Apr 2009 4:55 pm
|
|
These "II" series amps are typical Rivera-era Fender - "New and Improved Blue Cheer", gotta "fix" all them problems with the old Fenders (right). The clean channel on any of these amps is, to my tastes, pretty bright and squeaky clean - generally fine for jazz guitar and probably OK for clean pedal steel at the rated power. The distortion channels don't sound good at all to my ears - very buzzy, brittle, and annoying. For this they sacrifice tremelo, which I think is a bad tradefoff. So - I don't understand the "collectibility" thing about these at all, but these days, all kinds of things are "collectible", so it may be true.
I've never seen Celestions "original" in these, but EVs were available as an upgrade. Usually I've seen Fender-labeled EV Force speakers in those, and regular blue-label Fender speakers as the standard ones. But if this amp has EVM-12L speakers, I think those are great. If this is reasonable and the EVs are in good shape, I personally would grab it, cannibalize the EVM-12L's and sell the amp to a Rivera-era "collector" with some regular Fender speakers from that period. I think most guitar players would be happier with some speakers that broke up. But I would never pay a "collector" price for one of these. I see later silverface Twin Reverbs from for $400-500, and earlier ones for $700-800, and I prefer either of these, and much prefer the latter. Just my opinion.
btw - info here: http://www.thevintagesound.com/ffg/twin_reverb_II.html |
|
|
|
David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
|
Posted 27 Apr 2009 8:34 pm
|
|
The II series (went all the way down to a Champ II) was the last of the vintage hand-wired Fenders. As Dave says, they dropped the tremolo and added a bunch of bells and whistles - pull features on some of the knobs. Here's a description (Amp Guide) - doesn't say anything about a distortion feature; maybe that was only in the Super Twin Reverb. There was also a 75 and a 140 head, which were an ultralinear Pro and Twin, respectively, with 5-band EQ sliders.
I don't think anyone collects these for their tone or any of their features. But because they were only made for a couple of years, they are rare. So they may have a collector following just for that reason. They all seem to have some nice clean tube tone for jazz and steel, and for those purposes the ones with the upgrade to the EVM-L speakers are the best. They are all heavy as anvils. |
|
|
|
