ProSoundWeb Community
Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => The Basement => Topic started by: Bob Leonard on July 30, 2011, 10:44:34 PM
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Thought I might post some pictures of Steve's newest family member.
Steve sent me a link to a listing on Craigs List some time ago asking my thoughts on the purchase of a 1966 Fender Pro Reverb. I told him outright that if he didn't buy the amp I would. The price was stupid low for the amp, so he bought it and sent it to me.
My first impression when I received the amp was that for a 66 the cabinet was in pretty good shape, the chassis was fairly clean, etc.. Steve didn't send any speakers with the amp, and based on my recommendations he had drop shipped a pair of Warehouse 12" to me which had yet to arrive. So, I hooked the amp up to my own Pro which had a pair of Celestion Vintage 30s installed. These are good speakers, just not my #1 choice.
I powered on the amp and low and behold what I heard was 6lbs of crap in a 2lb bag. everything was distorted even at the lowest volumes.
The amp is alive and well now, and based on my past experience blueprinting amps for Steve it should be everything and more than what he wants. This Pro is a monster of tone and headroom. The tone is pristine old school Fender, smooth, articulate highs, no cone cry, very, very loud and slight breakup starting around #5 on the dial with no sag after 2 hours of use.
Additionally because the amp is a 66 it has a smaller but slightly wider cabinet, left and right side speaker shading and weighs about 20 lbs less than my own Pro.
The initial rebuild done by someone not known was fair with the exception many of the components were new Chinese components of marginal quality. All of those have been replaced with NOS carbon comp resistors and high quality caps chosen for their tone in the location they are used. Tubes have been hand selected and the output transformer is a 60 watt transformer from a Fender Bassman. The transformers which came with the amp included this OT but my fear was the PT and OT had been damaged. I based this on the burned screen in the case, new power tube sockets, etc. that I found on initial inspection of the amp. To my surprize it was damaged components that had not been found which caused the low and distorted output and no BIAS voltage. At any rate, pictures from my movie camara are below.
I'll ship next week Steve. Have fun.
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Steve's #1
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Steve's #1
The phase inverter
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The Vibrato section which also feeds the negative feedback
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Channel #2 tone stack.
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More of the same. Please note I did not install the 25mfd Mallorys. The twisting and poor placement belongs to someone else. My goal was to not destroy the components by removing them. The leads were shortened on the tube side as much as possible. I also replaced the grid resistors with a correct 2 watt carbon comp stsyle. Many people fail to do this and these resistors take a lot of voltage, start to break down, and eventually become a source of noise and hiss in the amp.
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The speakers
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what I pulled out.
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Steve's Pro relaxing with the rest of the kids.
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Steve's Pro mates with a Heil PR-30 for 3 hours of abuse before the BL seal of acceptence and final shipping.
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I powered on the amp and low and behold what I heard was 6lbs of crap in a 2lb bag. everything was distorted even at the lowest volumes.
You should have heard it with the speakers that came in it.
Any one want a pair of slightly used crap sounding italian Jensen C12N speakers? cheap?
(you don't!, trust me)
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Steve's Pro mates with a Heil PR-30 for 3 hours of abuse before the BL seal of acceptence and final shipping.
That's some serious QC. I wish I could afford your work ;)
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Wow Bob - amazing work!
Steve - congrats on a great amp and Bob's very capable hands!
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Wait until he opens it up some day and finds "Go Pats" written on the chassis.
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Wait until he opens it up some day and finds "Go Pats" written on the chassis.
As long as you don't put Ocho Cinco in there, I'm okay! :P
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Steve's Pro relaxing with the rest of the kids.
Makes me want to ask you what you would charge me to go through my BF DR.
Deryl Voutila
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Totally dependent on the need for tubes or speaker. If just caps and tune up the cost is pretty cheap.
I really don't want to turn this into a sales thing here, so a PM is best.
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Wait until he opens it up some day and finds "Go Pats" written on the chassis.
As long as you don't put Ocho Cinco in there, I'm okay! :P
You mean Choko Stinko. Oh what have we done. Plus he had to pick up another criminal charity case. When will our coach ever learn.