This prince among Princetons was brought fully to life with everything from a broken-in Jensen C12Q speaker to black-panel-style grille cloth and shoe polish.
It’s also fun sharing experiences with other tone hunters. So, I’d like to share the three amps that I most regret having sold. These memories bring me both pain and joy, and I hope they are useful in helping you to avoid similar mistakes.
There are two main reasons why I regret selling amps. Either I did not have the knowledge to understand or appreciate them, or I needed new sounds and did not have the know-how to achieve them. In the first category, I have to mention a 1968 Super Reverb, which was my second Fender tube amp after my No. 1 Super Reverb, which I talked about in my March 2021 column titled “Meet My 1965 Super Reverb—The Greatest Amp I’ve Ever Played.” The ’68 was a drip-edge transition model with a silver faceplate and black-panel innards, in very good condition. It was an AB763 circuit with cloth wiring and blue Mallory caps. It even had four well-performing, original CTS alnico speakers with square magnets mounted on the excellent, vertically floating baffle. My 1965 Super with CTS ceramic speakers was louder, punchier, heavier. It had the black faceplate and was almost twice as expensive. Altogether, this led me to sell the ’68 and keep the ’65. Fifteen years later I came across several other transition-era Super Reverbs and started learning to appreciate the mesmerizing clean tone, transparency, and excellent dynamics of lightly driven low-powered CTS alnicos. With the bright switch off, they deliver superior cranked tones as well. In fact, transition-era Super Reverbs probably have the best Fender clean tone I can think of. It hurts knowing that I had a very good one, when they were available for a lot less money. If you see a transition-era or early ’70s silver-panel Super with CTS alnicos, go for it.
"I miss having a portable and punchy amp that I am not afraid to lend out or haul around on gigs without a flight case."
Another example is a mid-’70s, beaten-looking Princeton Reverb that I bought for $700 in 2005. It was my main gig amp for years, and I did many modifications to make it fuller and louder. I plucked out the stapled and glued-in particle baffle board and inserted a floating plywood baffle with a broken-in 12" Jensen C12Q speaker. I installed a 25k mid-boost pot, to alter between clean, scooped tones and a British growl. I also installed a larger, Deluxe output transformer and a smaller coupling capacitor to prevent the flabby bass frequencies from entering the power amp section and the somewhat inefficient split-phase inverter. The firmer lower end and improved attack allowed hard picking-hand playing, which I appreciated as a die-hard SRV fan in my 20s. I remember replacing the bias resistor and finding the right pair of 6V6s for the deepest possible tremolo effect, too.
I also put on a black-panel-style grille cloth and faceplate, and treated the Tolex with black shoe cream for a shiny and healthy look, hiding the many ticks and scars. I sold it because someone offered me good money, even though I had spent more than I got in return. Now, I miss having a portable and punchy amp that I am not afraid to lend out or haul around on gigs without a flight case. My happiest memory of this amp was a blues cruise on a large, motorized sailboat on the Oslofjord. We had to tie ropes around the drum kit, and I secured the amp against the sail mast when the waves and wind increased. This warrior amp could do everything—much more than my current mint black-panel ’66 Princeton Reverb, which cost the same as a car.
Finally, there was a practice amp I sold because I didn’t use it often enough. In my previous column, “All Hail the Champ!,” I talked about my favorite travel amp—my ’66 Fender Champ, which only can deliver clean tones. Well, I used to have another small amp with even better clean tones and some of the best tube-driven preamp crunch you’ll find. It was a 5E3-circuit narrow-panel tweed Deluxe-style, built from a point-to-point amp kit, with high quality components. I experimented with several 12" speakers and found a surprisingly good pairing with an inefficient, modest Oxford speaker from a silver-panel Deluxe Reverb. The tone was fat and creamy and worked incredibly well as a vintage rock voice. It, too, now is gone.
I’d love to hear stories about your “lost” amps. Share them on PG’s social media feeds, or drop a letter!
This 1964 Vibrolux Reverb arrived in all-original condition, right down to a two-prong power cord and a death cap wired to the ground switch. The author’s well-worn Strat is the perfect companion.
In October 2011, a black-panel Vibrolux Reverb appeared on eBay with a short bid time. It was poorly described with miserable pictures and barely any details or description of condition and origin. Normally I walk away from such auctions, but there was something that caught my eye. First, some red on the speaker labels led me to believe they were perhaps OEM Jensens. And while the amp’s faceplate was unreadable, I thought I saw a long pattern of four words with a very short last word, as in “Fender Electrical Instruments Co.,” and not the more common “Fender Musical Instruments.” What if this was a 1964–65 pre-CBS amp and no one else recognized it? In the automated eBay watch-and-bid sniper tool I used back then, I set up a $2,500 max bid to be placed 10 seconds before the auction ended. When I woke up the next morning, I had bought it for $1,860. I felt both happiness and regret. What had I gotten into?
When the amp arrived in Oslo several weeks later, I was thrilled to see an all-original 1964 Vibrolux Reverb with Jensen C10N speakers—highly desirable among Fender amp players and collectors. I pulled out the chassis and noticed a well-preserved circuit board, with the death cap wired to the ground switch and a non-grounded two-prong power cord. The brown electrolytic Mallory DC and filter caps looked surprisingly nice and were not leaking. The resistors on the power tube sockets also seemed to be in good shape. It even had factory-original RCA tubes.
When I woke up the next morning, I had bought it for $1,860. I felt both happiness and regret. What had I gotten into?
If you see a leak on a 30-year-old electrolytic capacitor, I strongly recommend replacing it. Old electrolytic caps can mean little clean headroom and farty bass, since they can’t hold the required DC voltage when you strike a chord and the massive current starts flowing through the power circuitry to the tube plates. But I decided to not replace any tubes, caps, or resistors before testing the amp. And the grille? Wow! I don’t think I have ever seen such a dark brown—and nice—piece of cloth, with just minor rifts.
I uninstalled the speakers and noticed the cones were marinated with a thick layer of dirt, dust, and smoke particles, probably from a long life in smoky clubs and bars. I screwed them back on the baffle without cleaning them. The wood was still whole and robust, but the Tolex had many scars and cigarette burns, and the faceplate and knobs indicated heavy but not rough usage. Surprisingly, the pots rotated very smoothly. All this indicates that an amp has been played on a regular basis. It looked like a true warrior.
I found a 230/110V step-down transformer and flipped power and standby on for a 15-second interval. Without proper grounding, I was careful to not touch any other electrical equipment in the room, since you don’t know what voltage guitar strings might carry when connected to a non-grounded amp. I expected the regular background noise—scratchy pots and pop and crackle from bad tubes—but the amp was dead quiet! I stroked a heavy E chord and got a loud, mellow, and very dark and midrange-y tone. I flipped the bright switch on and increased the treble to 5, which is normally an extremely bright setting on Fender amps.
The dusty speaker cones on these old and inefficient speakers filter out the sharp treble—a truly desirable feature in vintage amps. They really make your guitar and pedals sound smoother and creamier, and this was the darkest sounding Fender amp I have ever come upon. What makes the Vibrolux Reverb so good is the balance between the attack and responsiveness of the lightly driven 10" speakers, and the compression from the smaller power and output transformers. I think Fender nailed it with the size, weight, and power of this 35-watt, dual-6L6GC creation.
Later, I installed a grounded power cord and disabled the death cap and ground switch. I got a 230V high-quality power transformer from Mercury Magnetics. It’s 10 years later, and the amp has, incredibly, never failed me. I play it at carefully selected gigs with the original speakers, tubes, and caps still in place. Someday I might consider installing a 25k mid switch or pot on the back in the ground switch slot. This is a must-have and easily reversible mod for Fender amps lacking a mid-pot. It makes them break up much sooner, with a crunch outside the clean Fender tone borderline.
An important point of this story is that we can’t typically expect this kind of luck with vintage amps. Some maintenance is usually required and will make an amp more reliable and durable. Be sure the electrolytic caps are in good condition, and always bring spare tubes to gigs and practices, or bring a backup amp.
64 Fender Vibrolux Reverb vs 65 Super Reverb speakers
Hear Jens Mosbergvik compare his ’64 Vibrolux’s Jensen C10NS speakers against the CTS ceramic speakers found in a ’65 Super Reverb.