The Steel Guitar Forum

You can rebuild them back to BF spec by throwing away the PCB.

In the near future all these reissues will be up for grabs to us amp builders, can't wait.

Mark


Fowler Valve Amps

I wonder if there's a business opportunity here.....They have the cosmetics down pretty well; it's just the electronics that seem a little dodgy.Hmmm.

If you want the electronics quality to go up, you're gonna be looking at a $3500+ amp

For example, my Milkman 85W costs more than that New Fender retails for in just parts alone - Fender has it so that the amps look good and work reasonably well in a way that makes them a profit. Guys like me and Ken can't do this for profit - we do it out of love.

I've been fixing alot of amps lately, tube and solid state. All have been circuit board types.
I credit the decrease in reliability to the ROHS initiative. About 15 years ago lead was taken out of soldder for health reasons. That's good, but on the other hand it sure made a solid solder joint.

I hesitated to write this because it's the old "old vs new vs hard-wired vs pcb" arguments. But I guess some things bear repeating.

I've played through Fenders since I was 15 years old and I'm pushing 60 now. You can do the math about that. I really have owned and played through every model of tweed, BF, and SF Fender amp there is, except for a Vibroverb. I don't include "new" Fenders which, to me, are anything made from the mid-to-late 70's on. I dunno, still have 15 or so now.

It's a funny memory that years ago we used to quiet or wake up a noisy Fender on stage by turning around and pounding a fist on its top! Brings a smile to my face even now.

Anyway, it's true. Those old Fenders were built like tanks. They all sounded good even (pause for a gasp here) a lot of the silverfaces. Best Fender I ever played through was a SF Super Reverb. 10 years in front of that sweetheart.

The new stuff/models? I've certainly heard them in music stores, on stages, and being used by other guys in bands I've played in. A bunch. But I'm sorry, overall they just don't impress me that much. The reissues? Heck, I've seen this happen several times - when an original is put side-by-side next to a reissue and an A/B test is done. The originals smoke the RI's. So much so that even the RI owners are silent after the shootout.

All that being said, I think some of the "boutique" amps are pretty impressive. I've got a Dr. Z that makes me go "whoa" every time I play through it. Of course, there are others.

I have a reissue Deluxe Reverb. I changed the 5U4 resectifier to a SS and changed the speaker to a Celestion Vintage 30. Big difference and the amp stays in one place and never gets moved. Surf City on steroids.....

Bob Hoffnar wrote: I wonder if those low bid labor fender amp builders have any idea what they are squeezing those gobs of silicon on.

We did when I worked for them.
We also complained, but management didn't want to hear about the problems.
They just wanted us to ship things out as fast as possible.

Example of Fender thought process from 1986-1995 (when I worked for them):

They use to have an over night burn in procedure before amps went out the door.
Too many amps were failing burn in.

What was management's solution?...Cut burn in time to 1 hour!

Please don't blame the workers.


Rick

p.s. - Sometimes they weren't even familiar with some of their most famous clients.
I heard one manager claim to be proud to sponsor Eric Clampton.

What's a "burn in procedure?'

Burn in or test and burn is operating an amp or testing tubes for an extended period of time to isure stability and quality.

Electro Harmonix (Dave Mathews) would charge $2.00 extra for a set of matched tubes or you could save the two bucks and get quad matched set and save $8.00.
I assumed the matched set (not burned in) was put on a meter of some sort for a parameter range and burned in tubes were operated at heated test level for a period of time. I always spent the $8.00.

Burning in an amp for me means running it for a few hours, getting it hot, then cooling it back down. Repeat that process for a few days.

I also do a "torture test" involving a dummy load and pink noise - again all about getting it hot and cold a few times

Plus I try and gig with the amp or use it for a session before shipping it out. That way it rattles around in my car and sees a real life scenario before I ship it.

There's no way Fender can do that and make any money - I know that for a fact because I can't either

Tim:

The quality and workmanship in your products are good old school quality control.

A way of the past that that the new school of knowledge cringes at.

Kudos,

Lenny

FWIW I think the reissue BF '65 Deluxe Reverbs sound good, when they have the Fender/Eminence speakers in them. (I don't care for the treble of the Jensen C12K they put in them now.)
They don't sound like an original Deluxe Reverb to me, but they sound good. Actually louder and punchier than an old one.
Maybe that is how the originals sounded when new, but somehow I doubt it.

I think they sound good too, John. The Princeton RI I had sounded really good, after I put an Emi Red Fang in there. Sold it to get my first pedal steel.
One of my favorite amps I had was a '73 SF Twin with Emi Legends in there, but I also used a couple Twin RI, and those didn't sound as good to my ear as the Deluxes or Princeton RI. But I've never had a PCB amp from Fender go out on me.
I think these amps could use better speakers in them coming off the line, but I will be interested to see how the new SilverFaces Twin sound like, especially with the Celestions, Bassman Tone stack channel, and Baltic Birch cab. I've had old and new Fenders, they are different beasts, but I've used some pretty good stuff from their Ensenada factory and FMIC's electronic designs have improved quite a bit in the last 5 years. I think they are doing some interesting things and I can still afford them.

I appreciate Fender for trying their best at a tough task. People always remember the products they like in the best light. The old ones had problems too!

I have noticed the Princeton RI does sound really good to my ear (I would say this is the best model of the RI line to my ear). But they cost the same as the pristine SF Princeton's that I see around town in the vintage shops and on CL (in the $750 range), so I'd probably go with a SF if I were to buy one.
I will probably check out some of the new SF reissues when they come to GC, just for the fun of it.

If I had the cash in my pocket for one these 'reissues' I could walk around any good music town (Chicago, Memphis, etc) for a few hours and find probably fifty other old amps I would buy instead.

Not directly applicable to the thread but I just returned from vacation in the San Diego area. On Thursday my wife and I drove up to Corona and took the Fender factory tour.

We didn't go through the amp building facility as our tour guide David, who has been with Fender for 13 years and has built guitars for 35, concentrated on the guitar plant. I was very impressed and we really enjoyed the tour. I really like my 2006 American Deluxe Tele and it seems that Fender USA is making outstanding guitars in the modern era, particularly in the Custom Shop where we were able to hang out for awhile. We met a lady named Josefina who is sort of the "head winder" of pickups for the custom shop, and she worked along side the legendary Abigail "Abby" Ybarra who retired last year after being with Fender as a teenaged girl since 1956. We watched Josefina winding a pickup and it was thing of beauty.

I've played through newer Fender amps and they don't seem like "crap" to me for the most part, but then I'm not a touring musician either. As long as the amps hold up to abuse the quality seems decent, but then I haven't been in a situation to A/B a vintage Fender amp next to a modern reissue.

Interesting thread.

I'm a Fender/Dr Z guy. 8 or 9 Fenders from "52 thru SF. I have one reissue. A Deluxe Reverb. '93 I think. Blonde with Brown cloth. Put good tubes in it, Telefunken, Amperex, but just matched GTubes for power. An old Jensen C-12 N. It's a great-sounding amp. Fender was trying to entice a friend into endorsing them, so they gave him the amp and a nice Strat. I don't use it though, so soon to be for sale.

+1 on Mark's comment about current production US-built Fender six-strings.I have four,including two AVRI's and for my money their quality is as good as pre CBS-and for just about the same price,adjusted for inflation.But that's American production ...I do know that the Hot Rod amps now come from Ensenada.Anybody know where the RI Twin Reverbs(BF,SF,and Custom 15") are built?

Mexico, I think

Tim Marcus wrote:Burning in an amp for me means running it for a few hours, getting it hot, then cooling it back down. Repeat that process for a few days.

I also do a "torture test" involving a dummy load and pink noise - again all about getting it hot and cold a few times

Plus I try and gig with the amp or use it for a session before shipping it out. That way it rattles around in my car and sees a real life scenario before I ship it.

There's no way Fender can do that and make any money - I know that for a fact because I can't either

No, they probably can't perform the burn in procedure that you described and still make money.
But a one hour burn in time is ridiculous.

When I worked for Fender, burn in for tube amps was done by placing an 8 ohm dummy load at the output of each amp.
Then a 1khz signal was applied into the input with all of the amp settings set wide open for one hour.


The solid state power amps that they manufactured were tested with pink noise turning off and on for 8 hours.



Rick

Dave Hopping wrote:.Anybody know where the RI Twin Reverbs(BF,SF,and Custom 15") are built?

They use to be built in Lake Oswego, Oregon (after they bought Sunn amplifiers).
After they left Oregon (1996) they set up shop in Corona, California, and it looks like as of 2011 they were still there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54sNv1Ck6dc


Rick

So, when did they move to Mexico?

Allen Peterson

Allen Peterson wrote:So, when did they move to Mexico?

Allen Peterson

I don't know the exact year that they opened up a facility in Mexico.
Maybe somebody else can chime in here.

I do know that for the entire time that I worked for them, only the amp cabinets were built in Mexico. Not the amps. We had many problems wih the Mexican cabinets.
Tube amps were built in Oregon as well as some solid state amps like the M80.
I seem to remember the Mexican guitars beginning production sometime in the late 80's or maybe early 90's.

Rick

I'm pretty sure that all of Fender's PCB production and some amp assembly production moved to Mexico in 2006.