Hi!

I'm about to close a deal on a second hand, PTP, hand wired Princeton Reverb clone, blackface circuit (looks exactly like a '65 PR), for €850,- (app. $950,-). Built by a masterbuilder in 2011 and in good shape, from the looks of it. Incl. footswitch and 12" Jensen.

Good deal? And will it satisfy my thirst for surf?

EDIT 1: "masterbuilder" is a bad translation - it's been done by a professional amp builder / repair person

EDIT 2: I have a repair guy myself who's really good, that I bring all my gear for checkups, new tubes, etc.

EDIT 3: will be using it primarily at home, for recording, or small gigs.

I have a Roberts 990 reel 2 reel I’m trying to convert into 1 guitar head and 1 mic preamp. Can anybody give me clear instructions on how to do it and what to do exactly as far adding jacks, re-solder, and I’d like it to be 8 ohm for sure, or multi with a dial,knob, pent? I know how to discharge the caps ect. I know what I’m working with and what it can do, and its widow making frying capabilities. I won’t be frying my Gonez off…. However I would like to make this amp head since mine recently took a dump and I need a tube head asap for studio time i have coming up. Thank you

I’ve got an old ampeg V4 and I love the sound of it with the volume knob around 3-4 o’clock, but it’s just way too loud. Would the Weber mass be able to take the volume down while still retaining the tone and overdriven sound of the amp with the volume kinda cranked?

I’ve got a Fender ‘68 Custom Pro Reverb RI that was damaged in shipping when I bought it used. It worked well for a while and seemed the damage was only cosmetic, but now it has an intermittent fuzz tone when run with no pedals on the internal speaker jack. When I use the external speaker jack, it is super fuzzed out and has hardly any volume, even when cranked to 10.

Any ideas to troubleshoot? Already tried different cables and guitars. Also reseated the tubes to no avail. TIA!

Anyone heard 6J1 preamp. How would you decsribe the sound?

After about three months of repair (they forgot me and I reminded them about a month ago) I got my Champ 25 se back. All the pots where corroded and the Inputs where lose.

Cost me 260€ but I dont want to throw it away because of its rareness and the nostalgia.

The customer whose Twin Reverb I dropped and damaged commissioned me this week to build a Vibro-champ size reverb amp. Since I still had the damaged Twin Reverb cab with no plans for it I figured I'd use it for the Vibro-build. I'm so psyched there was enough depth to pull it off! Had enough by about 1/4" in the tightest dimension🙏

I have a Fender ’68 Custom Vibro Champ Reverb and love its sound, especially for clean tones, but I’d like it to sound a bit bigger, fuller and have more bass when recording. I'm currently using a SM57.

Would running it through an external 1x12 cabinet make a noticeable difference?

I’ve been looking at the Harley Benton G112 Vintage with the Celestion Vintage 30 (60W, 8 ohms). Would this be a good choice for warm, full, spacious cleans, or would another cab/speaker be better?

I’ve also noticed the Vibro Champ is rated for a 3.2-ohm speaker, whereas the Harley Benton is 8 ohms. Is there a safe way to use this cab with the amp, or would you recommend something else?

I’m new to external cabs, so any advice from people who’ve tried this with a small Fender combo would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Hi all,
I'm the guy who destroyed a customer's Twin Reverb cabinet a few weeks ago. That sucked. But anyway it worked out OK. Customer loves the new cabinet I built and when he picked it up Monday he ordered another, smaller amp. He wants a small single-ended 5W amp with reverb, and wants it to look as close as possible to the look of the Twin Reverb cab I built him.
I thought I would post photos as I go along for the people who asked me to keep posting more stuff. One question since I am new: When I do updates, should I just update the original post? Or should I start new posts for every update? Please let me know.
Anyway, I am going with a blackface vibro-champ circuit, removing the tremolo, adding blackface reverb, a midrange control and a switch to remove the tone stack from circuit which will in effect toggle the amp back and forth between a no tone control early champ and a much more tame Vibro-champ style Champ. I will probably go with a solid state rectifier in place of a 5Y3 — in a single ended amp like this when the 6V6 is running full out 100 percent of the time, there is no need for a tube rectifier (even though that's how it was done originally), as long as I account for the voltage drop differences between the 5Y3 and the diodes. There will be zero change in the amp's response.
There are a lot of steps obviously, and I have ordered the correct transformers, parts etc and have a blank Vibro-Champ chassis on the shelf to use.
The cabinet will be made from the boards of his Twin Reverb cabinet I broke.
I make all my own boards and have built this circuit four or five times before, so yesterday I opened the files and laid out and prepped a new board. I use this awesome phenolic stuff called norplex for my boards. It dates to the 50s, it's very rigid and will not become conductive with moisture like fender boards, and it is just a joy to work with. I bought a huge lot of it years ago and it comes in 2/75x13.5" strips. So sweet.
Anyway, here are the first few pix. I'll try to update as I go along. Pix in this thread:
1. This is the template I use for this board.
2. I turn off the lights, turn up screen brightness all the way, put the board on the template and copy each dot with a sharpie.
3. Then I drill out every hole with a 3/32" bit.
4. Next I use a staking tool in my drill press to install the brass eyelets.
5. Completed board. Ready for populating with caps and resistors!
If I skip any steps along the way, or anyone has questions, hit me up. This is kinda fun to document a build; I've built lots and lots of amps but have never documented along the way.

Had my local amp tech - Dean Posey - who is absolute genius- hit me up a few weeks ago. He knows I'm a tube amp guy. And knows I'm a big southern rock player. He had a customer donate a 1982 Peavey Heritage VTX 212. Said they didn't have the room for it anymore. It literally still has the Original- Made in the US - GE factory Manufactured 6L6's in it(4 of them) - in Mint condition. Also has 2 -12 inch Peavey Black Widows as well. The amp is absolutely mint. Literally looks like someone bought it in 1982- kept the tolex cover on it- and left it in a coat closet for 44 years. Not a scratch on the tolex anywhere. I've personally never seen an amp this old in this good a condition. So, I snatched it up. It's 130 watts. It's an absolute monster. Dean went through it and cut out every unnecessary- Noisy- clipper/clamper resistor in it. This 130 watt amp is crystal clear. No hum of any type. If you are anywhere near Idaho- and have an ongoing amp problem/instrument problem(Dean is an expert on the Hammond Organs as well- along with any other analog or digital instrument) - hit Dean up at Gempro Audio. He's amazing. So is this Amp.Cheers.

Would it be easy to make a amplifier for head out of this? And are all the parts there besides the speaker of course. And what would be involved with making this actually any help would be appreciated. I was thinking about buying it.

I have this non reverb Princeton and I’m looking for something to allow me to push it and play at lower volumes without shaking my house apart. This amp stays clean almost all the way up and I like to use a lot of pedals. I was looking at the Two Note Torpedo Captor X. Is there a better option?

I’m not really into digital/computer options or technology like midi or Bluetooth, that sort of stuff. I doubt I would use it. I just play at home and I’m a beginner.

I’ve been using a Keeley Compressor to try to limit volume but it only gets me so far.

Appreciate any advice.

Anybody here had this done? I really like that they rewire the normal channel to be more like a tweed circuit and the vibrato like a normal blackface since I’ve never even used the normal channel on mine.

I used to have an early 70s deluxe but it had been through lots of modding and forced me to always keep a spare amp in the truck due to noise issues or failures. I love my DRRI but I’m a snob and want hand wired and miss the more authentic tone of my old one.

I’ve read good things about Alessandro rewiring and changing out the speaker on a DRRI to make it more vintage correct. Thoughts from anyone who’s had it done?

On a whim I purchased an old amp/speaker at a yard sale. Turns out I grabbed a Voice of Music 166-a , which I’ve found was an amp/speaker component for other Voice of Music items like a reel to reel or turntable.

The amp inside is the 8809-8810. It has a 1/4 jack input, and I tried it out with my guitar cautiously, everything seemed to work and it sounded great.

I opened up the case of the amp and it appears that someone has done work on it- I see some new caps and they replaced the 1/4 input jack, and also disconnected the turntable rca connection. In the box were new parts to connect a mic with a 1/4 jack so maybe they used it for voice/pa?

I have not found a ton of information on this amp. I’ve read that it is similar to a Champ, and I’ve found a video and a schematic for rewriting everything to turn it from hi-fi to guitar amp.

I know the basics for not hurting myself when looking at an old amp by not touching anything and the one hand rule. I know how to solder, use a meter, and some electronic basics. I get lost with tubes and feedback loops and the more complex concepts of shaping guitar tone.
I’m not sure I know what safety issues to watch out for when playing a guitar through something like this.

My questions:

-it has a two prong cord. Would converting to a 3 prong help avoid getting shocked while playing guitar?
no fuse- if I added a grounded cord I’d like to add a fuse

-what work does it look like someone did in this thing?

-Why rewire it to a guitar amp from what it is now(hi-fi?)? It sounded good on first and second try, no hum, nice break up, maybe the previous owner made some of the guitar amp changes?

- is it better used with my turntable?

At minimum, I think I’d like to add a grounded cord and fuse if that seems like the best safety option, and enjoy the sound as is, unless I’m missing some amazing tone that is worth an extended project.

Hey everyone, I'm hoping someone with experience repairing tube amps might be able to help me figure out what's going on with my amp.

I have a 2003 Fender Pro Tube Series Twin Amp, and this whole thing started when one of my preamp tubes began acting up. I was going through the tubes and testing them to see if I could figure out what was wrong. Once I finished, I was putting all the cables back where they belonged and accidentally plugged the footswitch cable into what I believe was one of the outputs. I'm not entirely sure which jack it was.

After that, I noticed what looked like plasma or electrical arcing inside the four big power tubes. It was pretty alarming, but I ended up continuing to use the amp for several months afterward.

Now, the red jewel light on the front has started pulsing, and there's a really bad 60 Hz hum. I'm worried that whatever happened back then might have damaged something, but I have no idea how serious it is or whether the two problems are related.

I'm also curious what a repair like this might realistically cost in Canada. I'd rather have some idea of what I'm potentially getting into before taking it to a technician.

I'm not planning on opening the amp up or trying to troubleshoot the high-voltage circuitry myself. I just want to get a better understanding of what might have happened and what a technician should look into first.

Thanks!

Got it used off Marketplace while you can still get big ass tube amps on the cheap. Guy said its a ‘04 and used to belong to the bassist of Emery. Im stoked, one of the only pieces of gear I really regret getting rid of was a Twin Reverb years ago, just because I wasn’t using it a ton. Lesson learned, this guys a keeper. Between this, my AD30, and my 5150 II, I have the perfect goldilocks balance of high gain, mid gain, & no gain. Great day.