70's Fender Twin Reverb with a question mark.

[thespacebetweenthings]

A friend of mine is selling his 70's Fender Twin Reverb. It's used. It's beautiful. It's loud as hell. And it has new speakers and new tubes?!?...Call me a purist but i feel like the amp needs to be original. No I don't have a ton of money. It's for home recording and potentially live shows. He paid $900 and selling it to me for $700. He had it made road ready and replaced the speakers with others...couldn't tell me what kind and like i said some tubes. All the components inside and out otherwise are good.

Should scratch the idea that all original means a better sound, or should I buy this one? Thoughts?

[Jeff White]

Should scratch the idea that all original means a better sound, or should I buy this one? Thoughts?

In this case, yes.

Brad, care to chime in?

Jeff

[Randy]

$700 is a steal for a Twin in good condition. Even if the speakers aren't original. Original does not necessarily mean better. I'd give it a listen. If you like how it sounds, think no more. If you think it sounds a little off, buy it and replace the speakers with something comparable to the original (Jensen C12N 's?)

[A-Barr]

Yep. Not all original Fender speakers are really that great, a little counter-intuitive, but new speakers can help out a lot of old Fenders a great deal (at least from the mid-sixties onwards) if they are a good match for the amp. Power tubes can wear out, but if the originals are still testing good, they are most definitely better than new ones in most cases. Preamp tubes are far less likely to wear out (though they can become microphonic) and originals are almost always preferable to new ones.

What did your friend do with all the original parts? Hopefully he still has them ...?

700 is a steal if you can swing it.

[inverseroom]

All original is not better. It's different.

If it sounds great, buy it. Tubes croak and get changed over years, that's part of having an amp. And you can always save up and get a nice vintage speaker on eBay if you must.

[drumsound]

The only true reason to buy gear that is "all original" is because you are collecting to re-sell to rich dudes. If you are buying something for whci to make music, listen to said piece. If the sound is pleasing to you and fills a gap in the equipment that you hve, but it.

[Jeff White]

I have a 1977 Super Reverb that is a brilliant amp. Gorgeous. It is modded to Blackface Specs, and because of this the Master Volume no longer works and the tremelo has the surf-bug modification. The tubes are not all originals, and the speakers are but I plan on replacing them with something that won't fart out as much at higher volumes. But I'll keep them around just in case. Anyway, I paid $650 shipped off of ebay and lucked out. I would have paid more for it if I got to try it out locally and had to offer a price. I have several friends with 1970s Silverface amps, (Twins, Supers, etc) and I know for a fact that theirs are not all original either. All of them sound amazing, but mine is the best.

Anyway, I say try it out and if you like it purchase it. Then find a good tech in case of emergency down the line.

Jeff

[thespacebetweenthings]

thanks for all the info. really appreciate it. i don't know enough about fenders but it does have quite a loud hiss coming from the speakers when i record, and the thing gets hot as hell around the back. like cook an egg, hot. is that standard?

thanks again,
ch

[A-Barr]

the thing gets hot as hell around the back. like cook an egg, hot. is that standard?
ch

Yep! Just as long as the tubes' plates aren't glowing red.

[roygbiv]

I agree with all the collective wisdom above.

In the case of *70's Fender amps, the blue-back speakers are often crappy sounding anyway when distorted, so replacing them may have been an improvement (I say this as I eye my 1970 ProReverb with said speakers - I don't nearly like the sound of them as much as my '68 Princeton through a newer speaker).

As I see it, there are only four main problems with Twins:

1) Heavy.
2) Loud.
3) Really Heavy.
4) Really, Really Loud.

You can solve those problems by:

1) Casters/wheels

2) Turning down. Actually, its monstrous volume potentiality can actually help you make a band behave itself, 'cause you will always win the loudness war with a Twin.

3) Better speakers/good distortion box as a front-end.

Regarding the latter, in my long search (>25 years) for "tone", I have found no better distortion box than the Seymour Duncan SFX-03 Twin Tube Classic distortion box (at least for Fender amps). I bought mine based solely on someones recommendation here on TapeOp. Note to self - I need to hunt that guy down and buy him a beer. Here's his original post: http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopi ... ube#401339

Finally, the best part of non-original older Fender amp (besides their superlative clean sound)- you don't have to freak out when (not if) you spill you beer on it or whatever. You can actually have fun and play it!

At $700, that's a good price if it doesn't need main tubes or a re-cap job. Also very unlikely to go down in value from that (same can't be said for a new amp).

[???????]

.

[ckeene]

$700 didn't seem like a great price to me either. I still see em around here for 600 or so.

[bluesman]

This seems like the perfect time to say Play It! Listen To It! if it sounds good, then its good...If loud & clean is what you are looking for, a twin can certainly do that.

[???????]

thanks for all the info. really appreciate it. i don't know enough about fenders but it does have quite a loud hiss coming from the speakers when i record, and the thing gets hot as hell around the back. like cook an egg, hot. is that standard?

thanks again,
ch

It should not be hissing, that is a sign that it needs servicing (probably plate load resistors going south but it could be any number of things). It should also not be getting terribly hot. I mean it will warm up, but "really hot" is subjective and it's hard to know what you mean.

[roygbiv]

Yeah, I may be biased by the inflated prices "Vintage" or "cool" stuff goes for here in Portland. Shocked me when I first moved here 10 years ago, but I guess I've become numbed.

$700 would not be a good price if it needs any major re-capping, etc., which could easily end up costing a hundred or more.

And as the artist formerly known as Brad most excellently points out, one often sees Twin graveyards at music stores. And that is because Twin's tend to be less desirable (i.e. sell slower) than most other old Fender amps. And it has ever been thus.

So, you may not be able to re-sell it as fast as some other Fender amp, in case you see something else you covet more down the road.

Also, there is the heavy/loud thing to ponder - I mean really, who needs that loud of an amp in todays modern world of good PA's and monitors? And those suckers are heavy.

So, I change my previous recommendation from Buy to Buy/hold. See if you can talk him down a bit without losing your friendship. Since that is unlkely to happen, since he's already got $900 into it, you may just want to wait.

Although, they are good amps. Hmm. not sure what to do, so I will now shut up.