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To those of you who currently own and/or gig a vintage black panel Fender, 50s Gibson, etc., is it worth the extra effort of maintenance, weight, fragility, etc.?
To those of you who got rid of your vintage amp, what made you switch?
I have the opportunity to acquire a mid-60s almost all original Princeton Reverb (except some caps, original tubes swapped for NOS tubes, and a 3-prong chord). I would call it player grade due to some tolex and grill cloth wear, so I wouldn’t need to be overly precious taking it out.
This is a good sounding example of the 60s era Fenders. I’m wondering if you can talk me into or out of this based on your experience.
Cheers.
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01-17-2025 10:21 PM
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If the caps are new and the cord has 3 prongs the maintenance is all done.extra effort of maintenance, weight, fragility, etc.?
The weight is the weight, you’re either healthy and 30lbs isn’t bad or you’re injured and can’t lug it around. Which are you?
Fragility is over rated. Don’t drunkenly drop any amp, tubes or not, down the stairs. Carry important things with care.
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First off, who cares what someone on the Internet thinks?
YMMV, but I love my tube amps, and nobody is going to talk me out of them.
That's not to say that I don't find newer technology intriguing. If I were looking for a lightweight gigging rig, I'd certainly investigate newer stuff. For most gigs, close enough is close enough.
But a good, lightweight, ss rig wouldn't make me give up the vintage gear. There are those times when I would really want the tube amp. I've looked long and hard for my handful of amps and guitars and I'm really happy with all of them. I don't shop for gear seriously anymore. I don't need to. My axes and amps deliver the goods reliably.
If you aren't in that space where you are wildly happy with your gear, then you might be more open to change, and that's cool. But I played hundreds of guitars and amps to find the ones I have. I am very certain that they are all keepers. If you don't feel that way about your stable, by all means, continue to shop and experiment. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm sure you'll have no trouble offloading the Princeton if you decide that it's not for you. The fact that you don't view the Princeton as a "must have" might mean something right there.
All of the modelers are basically imitating vintage gear. What will spur adoption is when modelers start doing things that tube amps can't do. I suppose there is some of that already in terms of versatility, but I haven't seen a "killer app" yet.
EFX are where new tech shines. But most of that still sounds better through a tube amp, IMO. Again, YMMV.
Give up my vintage axes? No. Never. Full stop.
UPDATE: Climbing on Allan's wagon, I've not found any of my tube amps to be difficult to maintain or overly "fragile." Yes, you'll need to retube once a year if you play daily, sooner if you push the amp hard frequently. That's the price of entry. I'll pay it for all the tonal goodness. PCB amps are more fragile than hand-wired point-to-point amps; in that respect, the vintage P2P tube amp is a tank that will keep rolling after the more modern PCB amp dies. $0.02 :-)Last edited by starjasmine; 01-18-2025 at 02:18 AM.
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I’m with starjasmine, it took me a lifetime to assemble my guitars and amps, and they will stay with me, until the time where I’m not playing them, and then I might move them on.
OP, if the price is right, and you are intrigued, I say go for it. With new caps and nos tubes, it should be good to go. If you are nervous, pick up a small SS amp for backup. I’ve never had one fail on a gig that I couldn’t quickly remedy. In fact I had all of my vintage amps serviced 8 years ago when I moved to Nocal, and no problems with any of them since.
Having said that, I also have a Little Jazz and like it a lot, it’s great at all volumes, which some vintage amps aren’t. But the tubes sound better. The margin is getting smaller, but still better.
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I sold my last tube amp, a 1964 Princeton. The price had risen to a point where the amp was no longer more important to me than the money. I had not gigged it in years. My Quilter and my Milkman get me close enough tone wise where I no longer miss it at all. But if you want that extra something that only a tube amp gives, I get it. I am glad to not be carrying or maintaining a tube amp myself.
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My attitude to vintage amps goes according to Strinswinger, I would have difficult to own and play and gig something too valuable. And some amps are ridiculously valuable!
So I have made my own versions of Tweed Deluxe and Deluxe Reverb. Old schematics, new parts. Same sound but without the worries of the age.
Still I often take my Quilter to a gig!
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My tube amps have definitlely needed more maintenance than my solid state amps (with the exception of two different Polytone amps that I've owned, none of my solid state amps have needed maintenance over quite a few years other than spraying some contact cleaner into pots which I've had to do with tube amps as well). My tube amps have all needed maintenance work done: solder joints, filter caps gone bad, other capacitors or resistors frying. The Pro Reverb has burned up a cap or resistor a couple of times on a gig. My Deluxe is coming home from the doctor tomorrow after the filter caps went bad. Point to point amps are more easily repairable, but electrical components have a finite lifespan and this is going to be more likely an issue in vintage gear. Despite this I would not call tube amps fragile, but since they do run higher voltages through electrical components and generate more heat, any weaknesses or flaws in those components will be exposed quicker.
Originally Posted by starjasmine
But replacing tubes annually? In well over 40 years of owning tube amps, I've had one tube go bad, maybe two; I vaguely remember a preamp tube getting microphonic and I definitely remember a power amp tube doing that. My Pro Reverb has the original preamp tubes in it, still; the power tubes have been replaced but that's only once in 50+ years. If someone is having to replace tubes annually, they're either diming the amp all the time or there is something wrong with the amp such as being biased too hot. Replacing tubes is one of the easiest things to do in an amp so even when you do have to replace one, it's really not that big a deal.
There are a lot of great sounding tube amps and a lot of great sounding SS amps. These days the latter are much more portable.
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Well…eh… isn’t that the whole idea of internet and forums like this? Originally Posted by starjasmine
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I had a 1960 Pro Amp with a JBL D130F speaker for many years. I got it in the early '80s dirt cheap. It was always a bit of a love hate thing with that amp. It was extremely loud and clean. The point where it could get a little warmth/sustain/break-up (which to me is what tube amps are all about) was way too loud for the sorts of playing I did for most of the time I owned the amp (though not at the time I bought it). It weighed around 60 lbs, too, and took up a lot of room (which became an issue once I got married and had a kid). I wound up trading it for a '78 Princeton Reverb in 2011. This was much more useful to me, and IMO sounds better. If I had started out 40 years ago with a PR (or maybe a DR), I would have been a lot happier for a lot longer. Originally Posted by Campbell_jazz
As much as I liked the PR, I wound up selling it a year or so ago and replacing it with a Quilter Aviator Cub. I did this because even a PR (mine weighed around 35 lbs) was impractically heavy for me, and I found that I did run out of clean headroom on some jazz gigs I was doing and wanted some more power.
The Quilter has 3 "voices" - tweed, blond, and blackface (each based on that era's Fender Deluxe/DR). The BF sound is not a 100% perfect emulation of a real BFDR, but it sounds quite good. I mostly use the "tweed" voicing", IMO which sounds great. The tone controls are very useful, and the combination of gain + limiter + MV controls allows me to dial in pretty much any degree of clean vs overdrive I want at any overall volume. It weighs 21 lbs, and is about the same footprint as the PR.
My gigging situation is kind of particular -- I'm in NYC, so am mostly traveling on foot or by mass transit. Schlepping a 35 lb tube amp up and down subway stairs gets old. For a lot of the gigs I do, I'm also bringing a "personal PA" for vocals, mic, mic stand, cables, pedals/accessories, all on one hand cart. Losing 14 lbs of weight in the amp really helps. In addition, I play a range of places (from tiny to medium sized), and the way you can scale the same tone up and down power-wise on the Quilter is very useful (more so than on any tube-amp MV I've used). The icing on the cake was that what I sold the PR for paid for the Quilter, plus a Les Paul I had been hankering for.
Maintenance costs ($300-ish every few years for new tubes, biasing, and service) and fragility were factors for me as well, though not necessarily decisive. I once broke a tube in transit, and didn't realize it until I turned the amp on onstage and it caught fire. All the tube amps I've owned developed various mysterious noises and failures at one time or another that were expensive to fix. Compared to previous generations of SS amps, I do think the extra cost and potential fragility was worth it for the sound. But SS and modeling amps have gotten so good in the last ~decade, that I no longer think this is true.
So for me it was an entirely practical thing. If I were not playing outside my home at all I probably wouldn't have made the switch. But it makes what I do easier and has reduced my total cost of ownership considerably.
You have to consider your own needs and preferences. IMO, a Princeton Reverb is a fantastic amp. If it works for you practically I see no reason not to get one. The only other thing I can really say here is that "originality" in tube amps is mostly BS. Nearly all old ones have had many parts (coupling caps, filter cals, resistors, wires, controls, power cord, etc.) changed and have been re-tubed multiple times. This is a good thing. If a seller says the amp is in fully original condition, most likely that is either not true, or it's a bad thing because the amp needs expensive servicing. I imagine there are exceptions, but I wouldn't count on running into one of those. The only thing that really matters functionally for originality is the transformers. Everything else is a consumable. Originally Posted by Campbell_jazz
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After 5+ decades of tubes, I finally sold the last one - the 1x12 "hunree" EVM loaded Boogie I bought new in about 1978. My first Fender amp was a '63 Pro that I bought new, and I had more Boogie models, a Vibrolux, Princetons, Deluxes, Bassmen, Blues Deluxe, Rivera Fenders, and Twins after that. I also had Ampegs, a huge Magnatone, and a few oddballs along the way. They were all gone by about 2015, and I was a happy owner of the best high end SS (eg GK and Phil Jones) plus a Vox Night Train head and some great cabs. In all that time and through all those amps on 3,000+ gigs, I had one amp fail (blown 6L6 in a B15N) and a few minor temporary issues like a tube that fell out of the original tweed Blues Deluxe in the middle of a tune.
I had more SS failures over fewer gigs and fewer years. I liked the small GK amps because they were light and sounded great. I've had 5, all bought used. Two MB150s failed dramatically with smoke and sparks, one at Hard Hat Studios during a recording session and one on stage at the legendary Philly dive bar South Street Blues. An MB250 died in its sleep. A Crate Powerblock turned itself off permanently 30 seconds after being powered up on its first gig. A first gen orange Roland Cube 60 slowly went south on me over about 6 months, getting quieter and quieter until it just shut down.
So......bought new and treated well, old school tube amps were more reliable than old school SS amps. They sounded better and were easier to maintain and repair. They were big and heavy, but they lasted many years before the heat and vibration made rehab necessary.
Today's SS amps are much better in every way than the early ones. Quilter, Henriksen, Milkman, D V Mark etc are excellent - reliable, portable, versatile amps that sound great. I love mine and can't imagine going back. But I also have years of experience with current and reissue Fender amps (SF "custom" Vibrolux, Blues Deluxe, CS Princeton) in the backline at the club in which I was the house band leader). We had multiple failures in the middle of multiple shows, and I would not buy a current production Fender amp. If I wanted to gig with a tube amp today, I'd buy a new boutique amp like a Victoria, Carr, or Little Dog.
Although I never expected to have them, I ended up with a '70 Twin, a '76 PR, and a custom built 2x10 clone of a blond Pro when my friend (and many of yours) Jazzkritter died of a rare disease. The Twin and Princeton have been maintained well, but I had to replace caps on both (PS and signal path on the Twin). The Princeton is now quiet and sounds great - but it came to me with multiple mods and Mercury transformers, and I had to tweak it a fair amount.
The Twin also has replacement transformers and many mods. It sounds great, but it has a baseline noise level that makes close miked recording at home impossible. I have to replace several resistors and clean up / resolder a few joints, and I hope that quiets it down. If not, I'll probably have to redo much of the circuitry. The clone he built is noisy as hell and channel 1 is very weak. JK's daughter told me he was never able to get it to work well - and so far, neither have I.
Draw your own conclusions.
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Check out the YT channel of Psionic Audio for expert opinion about the vintage amps you might be interested in. A well-maintained late ‘60s Fender amp can be a thing of joy and be more reliable than a new one. As with all gear, and especially vintage gear, the emphasis is on “well maintained”. How well was earlier work carried out? Is the amp safe? Were the correct replacement parts used? If the amp is a mess then it’s going to cost serious money to get it to where it needs to be, but it might still be worth it.
Personally, I admire vintage gear from a distance. I’m not good enough as a player to deserve precious vintage guitars and amps. There are good-quality modern tube amps to be had out there, for a good price, and I prefer to use those.
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Ive been working on/playing tube amps since the early '60s. I had to part with my '68 twin (bought new) cause I couldnt lift it anymore. I still have a 65 deluxe and an HR deluxe which sound great but...no one has mentioned the tubes themselves. What made most of the old amps sound great were the tubes which are no longer available. I would disagree with having to change tubes every "year" if you do somethings wrong. Ive got tubes that have been in service since the '50s that still test new. As an example I swapped the input tube on the HRD from the stock JJ or whatever they used to a '60s Sylvania, the tone/ noise was like a different amp and it now sounds great. Ive rolled and tested a ton of tubes. Chinese tubes are hit and miss, Ive had a few good ones but not reliable, Russian tubes used to be but the great Sovtek and Svetlana are gone. So the problem with tub amps for me now (Im in my 70s) is weight and if I didnt have a stash of old tubes I wouldnt bother. Lately Ive been playing through my Quilter and Roland very happy. I dont think anything will ever sound as good to me as my '68 twin. (I still have the original 6L6s testing good!) I should to be fair point out that Im playing chord melody and standards so not overdriving but the Quilter and Roland get me pretty close to that rich liquid sound of a great tube amp for jazz. My point to the OP is make sure the amp is giving you the sound you want, a princeton can be kickass or not depending on tube condition etc, a solid state can sound just as good with less weight and no tube replacement concerns but it wont have that subtle "tube glow" of a good princeton
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Same here, but I will say that from what I've heard, new tubes are nowhere near as durable as the old ones, which most of my amps still have in them. In fact when they are worked on I ask my tech not to change them unless they're bad. Many techs just yank things out wholesale, which I really hate. Originally Posted by Cunamara
I can see how not having a good amp tech nearby is almost a dealbreaker in owning a vintage amp, though. I've been very lucky with that.
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One last thing OP, look for any sides of damage from moisture. A lot of folks leave these amps in damp cellars of gauges for years. That has a corrosive, literally, affect on so many of the parts, as well as the circuit boards, which can warp and crack. Just a heads up if you are new to these amps.
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They don't necessarily fail, but the sonics degrade (less clarity, microphonics, reduced power output.) You can hear the difference between the old set and the new, if you are particular about that sort of thing. Originally Posted by Cunamara
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When GE closed their USA Sylvania plant decades ago, that was a gut punch to Boogie amps. I stocked up on some European Phillips 6L6 matched quad sets at that time. They are close, but not quite the same as the USA-made Sylvania 6L6 that those amps were designed around. Originally Posted by Rickco
Boogie released a mod (IIRC a resistor to reduce the plate current across one power tube) that allowed use of more common 6L6s without burning up the filament in <1 minute due to high plate current, but I've never installed it.
Granted, I use my MKIIC+ a lot less than other amps these days, which is why I've still got some mileage left on the NOS 6L6s I have on hand.
Nowadays, there are online sellers that have the original USA-made GE 6L6s for a whopping US $149.98 each!
TubeDepot.com | GE 6L6GC U.S.A. Made
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I've had great luck with JJs in my Fender tweed amps. Haven't tried any of the boutique tubes that seem to be all over the place for premium prices. Originally Posted by bluejaybill
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I have half a dozen vintage Fender amps from tweed to silverface, Princeton to Pro Reverb. They all run fine if I do maintenance over the years.
The absolutes are:
They weigh more than SS or modeling counterparts. Especially if they are made with particleboard cabinets, like later silverface ones.
They cost more, if they're considered vintage.
They're harder to replace--can't just order online and have the latest model on sale shipped to your door.
They have fewer options typically.
Variable are, how good they sound to you. And are they good enough.
I have an original, bone stock 66 Deluxe Reverb, down to the original 2-prong cord. I also have a Mustang III modelling amp. My fave sound on it, unsurprisingly, is the Blackface Deluxe Reverb, with cabinet emulation turned off. That way it doesn't sound or react like a recording of a Deluxe Reverb, but one played live.
They are fairly similar sounds.
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If you know a good tech it's well worth it.
If you don't know a good tech then at some point you will need to know a good tech regardless of whether you buy tubes, solid state, new, or used. If you know a good tech he can mod and customize your amp to your tastes, hopefully for not too much money.
There are a couple problems with buying the princeton. Do you know a good tech? IMO to save a lot of headaches later, the entire amp should be gone through. ALL caps, not just power caps, should be replaced and a 3 prong plug installed. All solder joints should probably be re-flowed. Every component should have a visual inspection. Every area of the circuit should be tapped on with a wood dowel while the amp is on to determine if there are any hidden loose connections or other noisy components. All the tube sockets should have the pin receptacles cleaned and tightened. It should probably get new tubes throughout because you really don't know what you have until you buy it and put it in there.
An amp that has had some components replaced often needs some burn in time. 2-3 hours. So it sounds like sterile crap for a while before sounding glorious again. Part of the cost of ownership.
If you skip some of those things you might get away with it for a while. You might get away with it for a long while. If you run your gear hard you will not get away with parsing your amp's maintenance routine for very long. If you skip some of those maintenance things then your princeton will be more collectible but less reliable. Do you want reliability or collectability?
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If it sounds good, buy it. Don't waste your time tapping things with wooden dowels. If something goes wrong later, have it fixed.
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I would disagree with the Dawg, none to replace all the caps, and most folks would say that replacing the blue (Ajax?) caps will damage the sound. Originally Posted by DawgBone
You can check the tubes, but no need to pull them out automatically. Even if they're old they might still be fine.
Remember, the Dawg plays his twins dimed every week. I doubt that your Princeton has been abused, er, used, that way! And yes, I used to use them that way too!
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Perhaps the most important factor was that I stopped thinking about what amp sounded "best" and, instead, just thought about which amps could give me my sound.
I have a 64 Ampeg Reverberocket that I bought new (yes, 61 years ago) but, in fact, it doesn't sound better than my Little Jazz. In fact, they don't sound as different as I would have expected. The LJ sounds warm on lead and a little clearer on chords. The Ampeg sounds terrific on lead (best reverb I've ever heard) but not quite clear enough on chords. I don't remember thinking that when it had its original tubes.
I recently played a Blues Jr. which I thought sounded great. But, not great enough to make me want to deal with the weight. And, a Quilter Micropro 2 which sound pretty good. I could probably live with that one if I could avoid being distracted by all those knobs.
In my practice room, my LJ and JC55 sound fine to me. In the kind of (usually) noisy places that I get gigs in there's an argument that a quality tube amp is too good for them. Lately, I've been bringing the JC55 for a little extra clarity on chords. I played some of those gigs with the LJ before, but I thought my comping sounded better with the JC55.
In a lot of playing situations, the challenge, it seems, is dialing in the EQ that works for the venue. So, it's not an issue of which amp, rather, it's an issue of which settings.
And, after decades of flawless service from the original Ampeg tubes, I had them replaced (based on a misdiagnosis - long story I've told before on here) and have had one or two (can't recall which) break. Which the originals never did. So, at this point, I'd have to have a backup amp if I was to bring the Ampeg and I don't feel that way with the LJ or the JC55.
I still have an inner voice that suggests that I should think about a tube amp again, but I don't have roadies.
For some time, when I was a lot younger, I gigged with a Mesa Boogie Mark III, Red Stripe. That amp, when dialed in, sounded like a chorus of angels. But, heaven forbid that it needed an EQ adjustment as the room filled up with people. A little more treble? Get ready to tweak every knob on the amp.
I just played a rock gig. I don't remember who was President when I played my last one. I got a patch on my ME70 that sounded like I remembered the Boogie sounding. Played it through a complicated signal chain, but basically the JC55 and the PA, with the LJ being used as a preamp on the PA side of things. Got the sound I needed and didn't sustain a back injury.
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Right as Rain! As I've said here before, my only tube failure in a lifetime of gigs was a 6L6 in a 6 month old Ampeg B15N in the summer of 1964. It let go in the middle of a tune at the Golden Inn in Avalon, NJ where my trio played the opening season every night for 74 straight nights. I don't remember the brand, but it was OE in a new Ampeg. These were whatever good old American tubes Ampeg used back in the days when neither amps nor beers were light. Originally Posted by bluejaybill
I've never replaced the tubes in any of the many tube amps I've had since then, at least half of which were bought used. I did replace all of the tubes in my '78 Boogie in about '95 because I thought I should, which in retrospect was a total waste of $. I still have the spare set I bought when I put in my spare set. I've replaced 2 tubes in the dozens of tube audio preamps and amps I've had, which included stock and modified heavy hitters like Mac MX110 / 275 / 60, Dyna & Eico peamps and Stereo 70s, HK CItation 2, Marantz 7 & 8, etc etc. One of the 2 tubes I had to replace was an output tube in an MC275 that was cracked when I got the amp. The other was a very noisy preamp tube. I still have the original tubes in the 2012 Prima Luna power amp I bought new.
You just have to check the voltages and bias to make sue your tubes are running properly. Inspect them for visible signs of impending failure, eg white or milky coating inside the glass, flashing or sparking inside, cherry red plates, one tube in a set (eg output) glowing brighter than the rest. Most failures have no visible signs, but these are common enough to warrant glancing at your tubes at least every once in a while.
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Your advice could be the right choice for OP's situation but just my experience that if they are original caps it's only a matter of time before they fail. Things have a way of failing at the most critical point i.e gigs and session work. Regular usage will expose their age. If you're just playing at home it's fine until it's not, but it's still fine cause it didn't fail at a gig causing problems and potential lost $$$. I will take reliable over collectible any day, that's my mindset, utilitarian i.e what works best in a working situation, so those are the things I advised. A lot of techs have the collector mindset so I have to get on their case about pre-emptive maintenance. I have some brown caps left in my '69 that are going to be replaced preemptively next. I had the 72 completely recapped. Originally Posted by bluejaybill
Show me someone who can pick the vintage cap vs a new cap out in a blind test with a couple different brands of newer caps. For all intents and purposes it's snake oil and even if it isn't it's irrelevant anyways when old caps fail because all electrical components eventually do.
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Minority Report here: It's not an amp I would want to own unless I played a ton in recording studios. Originally Posted by Campbell_jazz
Onstage, 12W is underpowered for many ensembles and 1x10 open cabinets with 15W speakers lack bottom.
I'll take a 30W 1x12 6L6-powered Princetoid any day. Every day, actually.
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