Welcome to Solid State Guitar Amp Forum | DIY Guitar Amplifiers. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 06:52:14 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Recent Posts

 

Fender red knob amps -

Started by alotawatts, September 07, 2010, 06:23:38 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

alotawatts

  I've often heard about Fender red knob amps not 'taking' pedals e.g. TubeScreamers very well.

So after getting a bargain on one (Fender Deluxe 85) 65 watts RMS from a friend I promptly replaced some bad jacks....swapped out the original 12 in speaker with an Eminence Legend GB and disguised it with some black RocPro knobs.
 I like tube amps but it's a shame these Fender SS amps don't get more credit/hype.
If you run on to one of these "Red Knobbers' at least try it. All of my pedals sound great ...to my ears.



Enzo

Well, no WONDER it sounds OK.  You replaced all the red knobs with black ones.  Of COURSE it sounds good now.

bry melvin

shoulda used cream ones and recovered with brown tolex  would've worked even better. :lmao:

J M Fahey

Or go all the way, cut a slot on the back for the preamp and cover it in Tweed.
No kidding, once I got to repair an amp which looked tweeder than a 5E3, (fake Tweed of course).
Searching for some data on it, I found it was Korean made, and also existed the exact same version with top front "modern" chassis, black tolex, chromed hardware, etc.
I searched for reviews, and the "Modern" one was praised for its modern, heavy agressive sound ... and the "tweed" one for its "sweet, warm, Bluesy" sound.
Oh well.
PS: it used an LM3886 chip, FWIW.

bry melvin

actually some of these "junk" amps sound pretty good when used in the right way for the right type of music. I have a relative that never understands that...he keeps buying things like a vintage twin reverb and "boutique" (Bassman/early Marshall circuit type) to play metal, and of course is unhappy!

OTOH I have had some surprises with SS Fenders particularly some of the cheap ones!  I had bought a couple of broken Frontman 15gs for my grandkids and fixed them. When testing I plugged one of them into my old Sound City 2X10 Cabinet (alnico 10s) It had a really sweet clean sound with those speakers. Reminded me of my Princeton Reverb (my first new amp) back in '64.

One thing about these amps (Fender SS) is all of them have quite good clean tone. This means that although they were unhappy with some old analogue effects they all should do quite well with Digital effects.

J M Fahey

Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Well, I guess I have a strong opinion on that. :grr
I find crazy that people spend $14 on a capacitor (a capacitor !!! , for God's sake !!!) or $250 on an "upgrade" output transformer, and do not buy a couple Jensen Mods and mount them *anywhere*.
Sound will be night and day.
Why do I speak of Jensen Mods? Because they are very inexpensive and blow many original speakers out of the water.
Of course you can spend more and get even better results.
Personally that's why I spent so much time , $ and effort into making my own speakers.
Just now i'm in the middle of a batch of 63 "Twin speakers", fighting with the lathe guy, who's taking much more time to finish than was promised. Oh well.
Next batch will be some 50 "G12H100" clones.

alotawatts

Quote from: Enzo on September 07, 2010, 08:21:46 PM
Well, no WONDER it sounds OK.  You replaced all the red knobs with black ones.  Of COURSE it sounds good now.

I tried chicken-head knobs first.........like all of the boutique amps.. but it would only cluck and lay eggs.


[/quote]

J M Fahey

*LOVED* your "Silverface" pedals !!!!
Please tell us something about them.
PS: the red square buttons still give you away, paint them black, he he.

Zipslack

#8
I actually own one of these (picked it up used about 15 years ago...)  Mine is 1987 model, USA made, never had to do any work to it or the footpedal.  Clean channel is sort of sterile and over-trebly, but blending with channel 2 is where this amp becomes worthwile.  It's a well-built workhorse that can get some decent sounds (but stay away from the high-gain settings) and is extremely loud (in part due to Fender having a screwy reverse-taper volume pot) -- 65 Watts RMS.  It will never pass as a tube amp, but can come close with proper tweaking.  Try putting a valvecaster in front of it or in the effects loop and it goes from being an "okay" amp to being a "decent" amp.  Oh yeah, it's got a full spring-reverb tank that sounds great.  FWIW, I still have the original red knobs on mine, so there :P

Jack1962

Yeah they sound alot better once you change out the red knobs  :lmao:
I heard that rumor about them when they came out , and that's all it was and is. if you setup you amp correctly , 90%   it will sound fine.

                                             Rock On

Moby

Quote from: J M Fahey on September 09, 2010, 10:21:27 AM
Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Speakers are important ...
Well, I guess I have a strong opinion on that. :grr
I find crazy that people spend $14 on a capacitor (a capacitor !!! , for God's sake !!!) or $250 on an "upgrade" output transformer, and do not buy a couple Jensen Mods and mount them *anywhere*.
Sound will be night and day.
Why do I speak of Jensen Mods? Because they are very inexpensive and blow many original speakers out of the water.
Of course you can spend more and get even better results.
Personally that's why I spent so much time , $ and effort into making my own speakers.
Just now i'm in the middle of a batch of 63 "Twin speakers", fighting with the lathe guy, who's taking much more time to finish than was promised. Oh well.
Next batch will be some 50 "G12H100" clones.
Ditto on the speakers.  And I've used jensen mods also.  They may not the best but for the money they're good enough for my 50 year old ears.

Polak

Hi alotawatts, I have a Fender Deluxe 85 amp and I ll need your amp settings, because Ive been just using the clean channel, and I heard that the best sound cames from mixing both channels. Thanx a lot and keep rocking.
Polak

aentresz

I've got a Pro 185 (2x12 red knob SS), and I really like it. It is voiced a tad too trebly on the cleans for my liking, but if you keep the treble under about '4' on the knob, it sounds really nice. Great round jazz tone (think Johnny Smith). Above '4' on treble then it gets a little harsh. There is TONS of bass available too...... can really thump. These amps have what Fender call a 'tube emulating' power amp.... which basically means when you turn up the amp really loud it is not going to clip as harshly (i think it employs a limiter of some sort). Drive channel is a bit fizzy , but with enough tweaking, totally useable. Still 1000 x better than the distortion on my JC 120 I had before...

The red knob SS amps are really nice, especially now that they can be picked up for super cheap...!