Fender Vintage Reissue Amps

KENNY KRUPNICK · From: Columbus, Ohio

I've been wondering after seeing a few other posts,and reading feedback on these reissue amps, I noticed some folks seem to opinionate that these amps are not as good as the original amps made in the 60's,and 70,s. Why is that? Is it cheaper components,unskilled labor in manufacturing? I would think that with todays newer electronics technology, that these newer amps would be a step ahead of the older ones. The older ones are keepers. But what about the newer amps? "65 Deluxe Reverb, Twin Reverb,Pro Reverb,and Super Reverb?

Bob Carlucci · From: Candor, New York, USA

Kenny... they are not bad amps but thet ARE NOT as reliable as the originals. They use a printed circuit board as opposed to all point to point hand wiring. .. Modern technology you know?? ... They sound pretty good but are not as roadworthy as the originals,nor do they posses that "certain something" that "magic" only old Fenders have.. They are also not cheap and you can buy a clean early 70's Fender and have it gone through by a great tech for about the same money and have the Fender amp of your dreams. Even if you want to go a little older,say 68 or 69 you can still be cheaper buying an original depending on condition.... I would not buy a reissue. They lose thier value,don't sound quite as good, are not as reliable,so why bother. You can buy a clean used old Fender,use it 3 years and then sell it for as much or more than you paid for it... not a bad deal IMHO bob

Jason Lollar · From: Seattle area

More specifically if a new one breaks they are really hard to take apart and work on meaning $$$ and possibly at some point more expensive to service than the amp will be worth, also the input jacks often only last a few years. the old Fender gear is a dream to work on when they rarely need it, the amp pulls right out and all the components are laid out in a line where you can easily reach them -an amazing piece of work.
I predict you wont see any re-issues still working in 60 years, the old stuff can be re-built indefinatly and still be cost effective.
Leos amps are still the best in the world and the easiest to service and the most reliable.

Mike Bagwell · From: Greenville, SC, USA

Ive got one on my bench right now. It has a bad connection somewhere on the curcuit board. Its driving me nuts try to find it. I would avoid the RI and find a good used point to point wired early model.

Mike

KENNY KRUPNICK · From: Columbus, Ohio

Wow!! Now I didn't know that they used circuit boards under the hood as opposed to all hand wired circuitry like the good ole' 60's,and 70,s originals. If that's the case, they shouldn't be called re-issues then huh? It's cheaper to use printed circuit boards,than to actually have someone do all hand wiring.

jim milewski · From: stowe, vermont

I have the RI Twin, it was my first Fender in over twenty years, I got it for $400 used with twenty hours time prior, so the price has a lot to do with if you get one or not, I would not pay the $800 asking price, but with the BW in it, I'm liking it and the sound is good to my ears, but I'm well aware of the hassle with working on them with the circuit board and afixed soldered pots, and the power is not up to my Session LTD 400 amps, I since been given a SF 70's 135 watt Twin, but that needs some work

Joe E · From: Houston Texas

Old Fenders do sound better!!!.....but:

Not to put a damper on the discussion, but there is virtually no sound difference between point to point and a well designed circuit board. Some claim that can hear a difference in the alloys, I can't and I have very trained ears from producing and engineering over the last 15 years.

There is deffinetly a difference in designs and components but not in the traces vs wire. In fact I believe a circuit board is more reliable. Maybe even in 60 years from now.

The biggest difference to old amps and reissues are the quality that went into the design and manufacturing. If a reissue doesn't sound like an original, it is not because of the circit board, but the design or components used or available.

I personally believe that if I made a circuit board and loaded it with all original fender parts, (that practically ?) no one would be able to tell the difference.

I also just read a tech paper from Soldano Amps that agree's with my thoughts. You can read a portion of it from there web site.

I think it is all about the aged components and transformers more than anything.

In defence of the Tech's here, I have not opened up a reissue yet. If they are layed out anything like the mid 90's amps, they are crappy to work on. Especially those plastic input jacks that are mounted directly to the circuit board. This is where I see design deficiencies. Put real jacks in these units and run wire to the circuit board. Also the Fender amps have thin traces and tight designs. This to me is poor execution of a design.

So IMHO the old fender amps do sound better because they are better designed. Not because they are point to point and not Circuit board.

I do think you will se Rivera's and Soldano's around in 50 years. As well you will see the handwired amps like Victoria's too.

Sorry for the long post and rant!
Joe

Joe E · From: Houston Texas

One last thing...I agree with everything everyone else has stated about old fenders being better and being magic and all.

Just struggle with the concept of point to point vs circuit boards, and which is better sounding.

Peace,

Joe

Ricky Davis · From: Bertram, Texas USA

Jerry Van Hoose · From: Wears Valley, Tennessee

Different cabinet construction and material too, don't know what it is but it sure isn't the same.

JB Arnold · From: Longmont,Co,USA (deceased)

Sorry guys, but I love my reissue, although I did go i there and replace all the caps and do some other "Healy" mods to it. Sounds killer-but I' going to replace the speakers eventually, just waiting for the Neodymium 4 ohm speakers to be available.

JB

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Ricky Davis · From: Bertram, Texas USA

Hey the Re-issue is not a bad amp at all.....I recorded the whole "Live in London" CD with Dale Watson through one and you can hear for yourself it's a pretty good amp...>BUT it shouldn't be called a "Reissue".
Ricky

Scott Swartz · From: St. Louis, MO

Board mounted input jacks are a problem for sure but even worse are board mounted power tubes.

Just too much heat and potential energy, and the very real possibility of an arcing socket damaging the PC board. If the board is burned and a conductive path develops the PCB is ruined. The same issue is possible with board mounted screen resistors.

The middle ground of PC board and wires to jacks and tube sockets is a good compromise (as used by Mesa at least the last one I looked in).

I don't think there is an audible difference from the PCB (ie trace vs wire) but reliability can be compromised.

If you have ever seen a PC board from something like a old HP tube oscilloscope, there is no comparison to what is used on guitar amps - 1/8 or 3/16 thick boards, wide and super thick traces - that type of PCB would hold up in a guitar amp.

Joe E · From: Houston Texas

Totally agree Scott.

It's all in the design. Some components are better left off of the PCB while others are probably safer there!

Joe

Tim Whitlock · From: Colorado, USA

I've been fighting with my "Re-issue" Twin since I got it two years ago. It's not bad, but I guess I expected it to be like the older Fender amps I've played through. The highs are very shrill and piercing if you are not careful and the lows were muddy. I replaced the stock speakers with a 15" JBL (probably ruined any chance for re-sale value) and that helped some. I may try some different tubes, but I'm a little miffed that I have to spend money on my $1000 amp to get it to sound great. I A-B'd it with our guitar players '68 Super and there was a huge difference. The Super's tone just had a sparkle and depth that is hard to describe. Everybody's head turned when I picked the first chord through it. The amp seemed to "breathe", for lack of a better word, and had a sort of "sponginess" that you could sink your picks into. Maybe somebody has a better way to describe what I'm trying to say here. Anyway, if I had it to do over I would buy an old silver-face and have a tech clean it up for me. My two cents.

[This message was edited by Tim Whitlock on 12 January 2004 at 04:06 PM.]

Joe E · From: Houston Texas

The spongy-ness is most likey from the tube rectifier. I was reading and article that stated something to the effect, that tubes tend to be spongy but solid-state maintain a tight bottom end. This is due to the fact that solid state is more stable.

Our ears hear the spongy-ness as warm and pleasant, although not so accurate. But the solid state rectifiers are quite a bit more efficient than the old tube units. Thus they maintain a solid bottom that is articulate.

This is not to be confused with the tube input/output section. Which gives the majority of the tone.

Maybe Ken can comment? But I think that was an accurate description. Ken can you help me out here?

By the way an EV speaker would probably tame the shrill! JBLs (to me anyway) are very bright. I use them when the amp sounds dull. I use EV's when the amp sounds to bright.

Joe

KENNY KRUPNICK · From: Columbus, Ohio

I love the good clean,warm tone of my 1980 Fender Vibrosonic Reverb Amp. It's 135 watts.
It come with a EV15L speaker,and I had a JBL E-130 installed after I got it. I had Rick Johnson build me a cabinet last year,and put the EV speaker in it. Looking to get a 1960's model "Showman" amp head to sit on the top of it. By the way, I bought my Vibrosonic brand new back in 1980. Had it serviced once.

Doug Beaumier · From: Northampton, MA

About a year ago I bought a beat up 1967 Fender Vibrolux Reverb and I took the chassis the best amp tech in my area. He resoldered every connection in it! He also installed new caps, filters, tubes, etc. I use this amp for guitar every weekend in my "classic country" band.... and it is the best sounding guitar amp I have ever played through!

The current reissues sound very good, but they are not repairable like the vintage point-to-point wired amps. The music store were I teach stocks most of the Fender reissues (Twin Reverb, Pro Reverb, Deluxe Reverb, etc.), and I have played through all of them and they sound great, like the originals did, but the older tube amps are renewable and will long outlive the reissues.

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John McGann · From: Boston, Massachusetts, USA * R.I.P.

Doug, I am lucky enough to have copped a '69 Vibrolux for $75, needed a new transformer...had it de-CBS'ed and it sounds wonderful, what a great amp for guitar or low/mid-volume E9. ..also have a matching '69 Deluxe...but am giving myself the perpetual dope-slap for ever letting go of the '66 Super Reverb I had...

and 'tho Pete Anderson calls it a "one trick pony", I really love the Matchless- i have a single 12 early issue that sounds amazing.

My experiences with the Fender reissues is that they LOOK really good, but I suspect they might need to be played in like the older puppies to really get their potential goin'...there is something to the cabinet getting to resonate for years that will burnish the tone, I think...

Steve Stallings · From: Houston/Cypress, Texas

I've got a fairly recent Vibrolux Custom Reverb which is not really a reissue. I love this amp for guitar. As a matter of fact, it is my favorite guitar amp out of the following amps I own.
Vibrolux Custom Reverb
Marshall DSL 100 watt stack
Kendrick 118
Peavey Classic 50-212
Evans FET 500
Peavey Transtube 112

I've really had no issues with it at all. It has that Fender sparkle till the cows come home.

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Steve Stallings

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Mark Herrick · From: Bakersfield, CA

I have been following this thread for a couple of days and in my efforts to learn more about biasing my amps I have encountered quite a bit of information out there on the web.

Here is something I found interesting. It's long and somewhat technical, so if you're not inclined to read the whole thing, skip down to the very end:
http://www.geofex.com/Article_Folders/pt-to-pt/pt-to-pt.htm

Note the comment: "Leo Fender was a businessman, not a guitarist."

Maybe the old ones are better than the new ones; maybe not. As far as the sentiment that "they don't make them like they used to", well, D'uh!

Rich Young · From: Georgetown, TX, USA

I agree with Ricky, not bad. Not as good as a 60's ones, but a good usable amp. I played guitar thru a deluxe reissue on a coupel gigs, liked it enough to go buy a silver face one and have Bill Webb go through. The reissue sounded good, the silver face one sounds great.

And Doug - Vibrolux Reverb - I was working in a music store in CA back in the early 90's, they had a 59 tele and a 64 Vibrolux Reverb. Was THE best tele sound I have ever heard - I got to sit there and play it for about an hour - it sounded so good, they didn't make me work for a while Winking

. Great amp!

C Dixon · From: Duluth, GA USA

Since most of this thread has been about the pros of the original Fender amps; and since I have never played thru, or worked on a RI amp, I will tell you some cons that I obsevered working on the originals for many years when I was a tech.

The component boards would warp badly due to heat (often very quickly) and I have seen ground wires (and other lead wires) actually pop out of the solder joints because the stress was soooo strong. I fixed many a Fender amp where this was the entire cause of the problem.

Wires too close to tube sockets would get soooooo hot from the heat of power tubes that they would "anneal", then turn brittle and actually break off. This used to happen often on "heater" leads. Heaters are the things that get hot in a tube.

Silicon rectifiers in the power supplies would blow apart often even when brand new. I was never able to ascertain why, Replacing them with 1000PIV military type of silicon rectifiers netted NO call-backs. I could only assume that the currents were just too great when the amps were pushed beyond distortion, that the normally designed ones would not hold up.

I presented this to Fender on a number of ocassions but it simply fell on deaf ears. This was back in the 50's and 60's. They just paid me to repair them and were not really interested in knowing of my findings. But I had hundreds of them fail that way.

Reverb transduscers breaking right at their connections. This of course was not Fender's fault directly; because they were made by Hammond Organ company at the time. But they were not built, IMO, to take heavy road use. While not all broke, I had a number of them that did.

Microphonics were a bear in the input stages. This used to be a major problem in trying to run down the cause. I spent countless and untold hours trying to remedy it; and often had to try dozens of tubes trying to get one that had the least microphonics.

Ironically, the best 7025's I ever used were made by Sylvania. There were times that I had to discard entire gross cases of RCA brand tubes when it came to microphonics. I finally stopped using them even though I worked for RCA at the time and my cost was less than distributor cost.

Noisy pots were a constant hassle. And while spraying them got them out of the shop, it often did not survive a call back period which was 30 days at the time.

But in reading all the threads I was taken back and recall that the complaints I have read in this thread I heard from players back then. Such terms as "muddy", "thin", "glassy" "loss of highs", "no mids", "no power", etc, etc were the exact complaints I took down when many a player would bring me his amp in for repair back in those days.

Again, I have not played or worked on one of the RI's. But it does occur to me that not much has changed. Pro OR Con.

carl

[This message was edited by C Dixon on 14 January 2004 at 04:51 PM.]

Mike Neer · From: NJ

There were times that I had to discard entire gross cases of RCA brand tubes when it came to microphonics. I finally stopped using them even though I worked for RCA at the time.

When I was a kid, I grew up near an RCA factory (which, incidentally, many of my relatives worked in) and would often find cases of 9-pin tubes, like 12ax7, etc. I would take the cases home and methodically smash them to bits. I wish I knew better! But then again, I threw all my baseball cards, too.

I love old Fender amps--in fact, I love most old amps, but I'd guess the reliability of today's amps on the road are much higher. Note: I said reliability, not fixability.

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