fender vibrosonic

Larry Jones · Post by **Larry Jones** » 13 Jan 2008 7:47 pm

i just met a guy who has a blackface 70s vibrosonic with a fender15 spk it even has a steel channel he want between 6 and 700.00 for it. anybody know anything about these amps. i had the custom 15 and wasn't happy with it ,no hueavos.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 13 Jan 2008 9:26 pm

If it has a black face and a steel channel, it is the '90s Vibrasonic (with an "a") Custom. You can read about it here. That is a PC-board Twin with a 15" speaker. At 100 watts, it may have a little more power than a Custom 15 (85 watts?). It's not bad for what it is, but not as good as the real deal, the '70s silver-face Vibrosonic (with an "o"), which was handwired and had either 100 or 135 clean watts. You can read about it here.

Jerry Malvern · Post by **Jerry Malvern** » 14 Jan 2008 9:57 am

Larry, I own the Twin Custom 15 and a mid 90's Vibrasonic. The only things in common about these amps is they both use the same size cabinet and both use the same speaker. The Twin is a bit warmer but breaks up too early for steel guitar on gigs. Nice amp for the house or recording. I use the Vibrasonic for gigs and have received many compliments on my tone from other musicians. Yes, it does have a steel switch, and quite frankly I can't hear the diffence and I use the guitar channel with the fat switch anyway. I think one sold here on the forum for $550.

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 14 Jan 2008 10:46 am

Dave,I never knew there was an "A' and an "O"I've got a silverface "O" that's 135 and it's a great amp.Stu

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 14 Jan 2008 12:26 pm

Stu, you've got one of the best combos for pedal steel ever made.

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 14 Jan 2008 1:04 pm

Dave,I bought it years ago for $450.00 and mainly use it for guitar gigs,It's a huge sounding amp with great vibrato,and reverb,Sometimes I'll use it for Steel gigs,I guess that I should be using it more,Thanks for the info.

Jim Sliff · Post by **Jim Sliff** » 14 Jan 2008 2:45 pm

The "O"'s are all '72-81, with the last few being a return to BF-ish cosmetics. As David says, some like the 135-watt version for clean steel...personally, I think they're cold sounding (and the 135 watts is in Fender's dreams - it's a marketing number, not reality as has been thoroughly discussed on amp forums).

If it has a "steel" channel and BF cosmetics it's a 1995-96 model spelled with an "A", which is a printed circuit board amp. It's not a 70's Vibrosonic.

The two are very often confused...and worlds apart in tone AND value. The Custom Vibrasonic, as noted, is going for around $550-600 tops. A good SF Vibrosonic might bring a grand or more.

The links David posted are invaluable - questions like this get posted quite often...those and ones on amp dating... and the Fender Amp Field Guide and Serial Number Dating sites answer all of those.

Stu Schulman · Post by **Stu Schulman** » 14 Jan 2008 5:20 pm

Here's some pics.The grill cloth is put on the going in the wrong direction,Two years ago I played an outdoor gig on New Years Eve at a new skating rink minus 3 degrees ,while I was carrying my amp to my car I walked in front of one of those jet engine looking heaters and it fried the original grill cloth in a matter of seconds,didn't hurt the speaker,And the back has a new masonite board to replace the caved in fender one.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 14 Jan 2008 9:20 pm

Jim's right that the specified wattage of Fenders is used to designate the models, but is not the actual output. In Fender's defense, someone once said on here that spec was printed at the speaker outlet and was meant to describe the maximum handling capacity of the speaker that was needed. Thus, it was conservatively placed somewhat above the actual output. Of course, it did make a good marketing tool also. Whatever the output actually is, a "135 watt" or even a "100 watt" all-tube Fender will keep up with a 200 watt solid-state NV400. And of course Fender's "100 watts" will have more clean headroom than almost any other "100 watt" guitar amp, which of course led to a huge loss of market share when the fashion turned to distortion. It's ironic that CBS-Fender's clueless market strategy gave us all that steel-friendly clean headroom in the silver-face models that are now scorned by guitar players, and so available for half the price of the more sought-after black-face models. It is my fervent hope that as many of these great old silver-face Fenders as possible get in the hands of steelers before guitar players "black-face" all of them.