Thoughts on the reissue Fenders

[MikeyG]

I heard a reissue Super Reverb the other day. Frankly I was pretty blown away. I didn't get to A/B it with a real vintage one, but frankly, I can't imagine improving on that tone enough to spring another grand or more. (Unless you're buying for resale, then I'd buy the real deal, they keep going up).

What's everyone's thoughts on these?? I was pleasantly surprised. I'd like to hear comments on the Twin and Deluxe reissues.

Mike

[Pacomc79]

I tend to agree with you. I like the new Bassman LTD and Tweed Twin quite a bit, though the tweed twin is in to boutique pricing, and frankly for 2400 bucks I'd go with Clark just to support the small builders.

The Super, Deluxe, Vibrolux, and Bassman are my favorite vintage fenders. If I had a ton of money I'd love to have an original, but for the cost, most of those reissues are done very very well, or can be upgraded with speakers and tubes what have you.

I still like supporting, Clark, Victoria, Allen, Kendrick, Dr Z and etc etc whenever I can because those guys have a passion for what they do and it shows in thier amps, but I still believe that the DRRI is one of the best done reissues and cost effective gigging amps for working musicians ever. For the record, I hate using "working mans" because technically as a former sales person "working mans" in the music industry is slang for piece of shit that blows up when gigged (ask SWR... and special reward to the Johnson Millenium which aside from fender dyna touch owns the record for most returned DOA POS ever created)

I would have loved to hang out and talk to Leo Fender, he was just an amazing guy.

Maybe you have to just generally like the tones of those amps anyway. Occasionally they are a bit bright to me, but sound better when the speakers break in. But yeah, as an aspiring blues player, I mean really, does it get better than a super or a pine cabinet bassman? For the extra grand, you can do a few custom personal tweaks and not really give a damn about value because 10 years from now, buying a super or LTD now at say 1250 and keeping it in decent shape won't lose you more than maybe 300 bucks. That's pretty good on the depreciation front.

I like em. Boy that was a lot of effort, just to agree.... :D

[mutley]

Hey MikeyG, I have had a '64 VibroVerb Custom for about a year and am very happy with it. It has an Emminence 15" speaker and the Diaz mods. The amp is 40 -50 watts switchable. The speaker has a nice tight bottom end and crisp highs. None of the flubby bottom you'd expect from a 15. I tried the Tweed Twin when I bought and thought it was muffled/muted sounding next to the VV and the Bassman LTD. The LTD was killer, but too much for what I wanted.

The Diaz mods help the VV sound great at low volumes and when you crank it they add some upper mid sizzle to it that is nice. Good with either single coils or HBs. Really good with a Strat or Tele, though. Great reverb as you would expect. Still it's 50lbs. Pretty loud and you get some nice power tube overdrive when it's cranked, but also sounds good with pedals. I have used the Hotcake, Keeley BD2 and Keeley Tube Screamer and all sound good, but I really like the BD2 with it. It's very open sounding.

Price is a little high, though, but have had no problems with it in moderate use for the last year. It's a nice amp that doesn't get talked about too much.

Hope you and the Mrs. are good up in NC.

[Fender]

My dad's had a Fender 65 Twin Reverb since 1996 or so and it still sounds like new. It's a beast! Sound is just so warm I can't really picture playing a different amp if I had the choice.

[erksin]

I had a '63 Vibroverb Reissue for a few years in the mid '90s (brown 2-10" model) - just okay, IMO.

[mutley]

I agree, the '63 VV reissue is ok. The '64 Custom is a different amp. Bigger transformers, 1X15" instead of the 10s. Stays clean longer and nice defined mids and highs.

[carlygtr56]

I've tried both the Bassman LTD and Tweed Twin.
Both excellent.
There is something about Clapton's tone, using the CS Tweed Twin on the Cream shows, I really like. so much so, I may go try to trade something for one at GC.

[Nickcha]

I'd like to try a Tweed Twin. I've played Denis Cornell's Clapton amps (the 40w and the 80w) and the tweed stops at the covering. Those things are monsters under the hoods, with over-sized trannies. They sound great.

[carlygtr56]

I demo'd both these amps at GC 2 days ago....w/ a John Mayer Strat.
Both IMO were excellent.
The Bassman had more headroom...was nice and punchy due to the 4 Tens....very rich bass response.

the 57 Tweed Twin had its own magic. Broke up faster....alot of mids....not as much low end as the bassman or as rich tone. Id say the 57 was rawer, wanted to rock!

[reverber8]

I picked up a used 65 DRRI in minty fresh condition back in February for a really good price. I'm genuinely impressed with the DRRI so far. I did some forum research and was planning on doing the bright cap mod to tame the reverb channel. I also intended on replacing the stock Jensen speaker and tubes but I'm really happy with the stock tone of this amp. Perhaps more so since the speaker was broken in before I got it. I'll replace the tubes sometime soon with some new ones from Bob at Eurotubes (great guy!) but for now I'm happy.


I use the DRRI as the other half of my 2 amp rig along with a Korg Vox AC15TB. The amps are small enuf for an easy schlep and compliment each other very well. They are exactly the same dimensions except the Vox has a slightly deeper cabinet. I've been a 2 amp live rig guy for many years and dig the sonic spread 2 amps give plus it's nice to have a back up amp in case one goes down. Tube amps can certainly be tempermental.

I retired my 80's Roland JC120 (which was too big and too heavy to lug around) for the DRRI and I'm very pleased and the happiest I've ever been with my tone!

[Ratty]

I'm not convinced the reissues with PC boards will have the reliability long-term that the point t0 point wired models do.

[Leftee]

I don't see why they wouldn't. We've been living with PCB's for a long time know and they've generally worked out to be a pretty reliable. They're just a little harder to work on.

[frankenstrat2]

I think the RI hi-power Tweed Twin is stiff and harsh. It may have to do with the speakers and breaking in, etc, and perhaps the tubes too. I've had the pleasure of playing real mid-50's tweedt wins, and they are the grail in that category, thus the reason why Gatton, KR, and others played and collected them so avidly.
Mikey- I don't know if you got to play Shea Moxon's hand built TT, but that one was hands-down the best clone I've ever laid hands on- equal or better than the original for tone, break-up, response- the whole enchilada. Unfortunately, those old ones, like many others were an uneven bunch-some great, some not. And now so many have swapped out parts, replaced transformers, replaced or reconed speakers, etc etc.
I imagine the RI is a good jumping off point for a great tech to tweak it to the next level, but out of the box, I considered it unplayable, from a very jaded viewpoint.

[VacuumVoodoo]

On PCBs:

I did some repairs on reissues and majority of them were caused by improper assembly of the PCBs. Component leads were cut too long and bent over on the solder side causing arcing and short circuits.

A few design changes are implemented in the reissues to make them compliant with current electrical safety regulations. These changes don't seem to be fully thought through. There's one component in the bias circuit that can cause the power transformer to blow its thermal fuse. Funnily enough it's there to prevent just that. It's a small fusible resistor in series with the rectifier diode in the bias circuit. It is supposed to blow open if the bias filter cap shorts. This would cause bias winding to short and overheat the transformer. What happened in this particular case is following: The filter cap went short circuit -> fusible resistor blew open-> bias voltage went to zero->output tubes drew full current and red plated like hell. The amp still produced sound and the guy kept on playing. Power transformer overheated and blew the thermal fuse. Amp's fuse did not blow. The guy did not notice any change in sound (!?!?) untill the amp went dead.

Summary: A fuse in B+ line would have prevented this but apparently the cost is too high. Statistically that cap in the bias circuit can go short circuit maybe 1 in 50.000 so it's cheaper to replace a blown power transformer if this happens. But who am I to know what they were thinking...

[bluesboy77]

I love my SRRI, it's about 5 years old, nice and broken in, sounds great.

[Budman2k]

I'm not convinced the reissues with PC boards will have the reliability long-term that the point t0 point wired models do.

I don't neccesarily agree since PC boards have been proven in every other area of technology! I think it's going to be fairly common from the major manufacturers due to cost savings over point to point.

That being said, I think it's a huge differentiator for the small builders.

What's nice is you can pick up a very good sounding amp for less bucks or spend the extra cash and go with the boutique builders.

Budman

[Chris63]

I own a BMRI LTD that I got for Christmas last year. If there is a better sounding amp on the planet then I have not heard it. Mine is stock except for the 2 ohm Hotplate I use to take a little off the top. Nothing like feeling the air that 4 10s push.

[sliding-tom]

I own a BMRI LTD that I got for Christmas last year. If there is a better sounding amp on the planet then I have not heard it. Mine is stock except for the 2 ohm Hotplate I use to take a little off the top. Nothing like feeling the air that 4 10s push.

I have one of the first BM RIs and while it's fabulous sounding it was way too loud for my needs. Even reducing the output power to ca. 15 - 18 watts per TAD Tonebones it was/is still too loud. I'm using it only for rehearsals now with a Sansamp Classic (a Trademark 30 combo, in fact) stuck in the front. Happy now with a CVR and a DRRI.

[Chris63]

I have one of the first BM RIs and while it's fabulous sounding it was way too loud for my needs. Even reducing the output power to ca. 15 - 18 watts per TAD Tonebones it was/is still too loud. I'm using it only for rehearsals now with a Sansamp Classic (a Trademark 30 combo, in fact) stuck in the front. Happy now with a CVR and a DRRI.

How does the DRRI equate tone wise with the BM? Fortuantely I have a dedicated space in my basement apart from where the family hangs out plus I have a very understanding wife!

[sliding-tom]

Bassman and Deluxe Reverb (be it vintage originals or reissues) are two very different circuits. Without going into technical details, the tone stacks are very different from each other, for example, resulting in a different response in each amp. Then you have the fact of 4-10s vs. 1-12. You have reverb on the second channel in blackface circuits - that's more gain stages than a tweed amp. Remember that the '59 BM was the template Jim Marshall built his amps on.
I'd say that a tweed is a little more rougher sounding when it comes to its breakup point (and a BM is VERY loud at breakup point). I find the cleans on the DRRI not as piercing as on the BM and the overdriven tone a lttle fatter and warmer sounding.

[Tomo]

I demo'd both these amps at GC 2 days ago....w/ a John Mayer Strat.
Both IMO were excellent.
The Bassman had more headroom...was nice and punchy due to the 4 Tens....very rich bass response.

the 57 Tweed Twin had its own magic. Broke up faster....alot of mids....not as much low end as the bassman or as rich tone. Id say the 57 was rawer, wanted to rock!

I had a chance to play the Tweed Twin. Raw tone! Liked it too. John Mayer strat is really cool too. I am enjoying it.

Tomo