Fender Princeton Tweed vs Brown vs Black

[gggomez]

Am considering an amp upgrade from my PC Fender Princeton. Have tried various upgrades (speaker, old valves etc) that have improved but not got me where I want. I am craving more mids.

Played a handwired Princeton Blackface clone and wow the clarity was so much better.

I am considering various hand wired clones (all around the same price) but can't check them all out:

- Princeton black face hand wired (the most expensive)
- Princeton Brown Face 6G2 (a bit suped up, 22w and something that the old ones had that was no good apparently in the signal chain eliminated plus 12 inch speaker)
- Deluxe 63 Brown Face
- Deluxe 5E3 Tweed (slight mod for extra head room, or not).

Does anyone have recordings of these style amps with a hollowbody and humbucker guitar?

[nick1994]

Have you looked into Achilles or Lucas miles Princeton clones? I've heard great things about the Achilles Princeton reverbs but they're over $2,000. There's some reviews on YouTube

[Gitfiddler]

There are plenty of expensive clones and boutique amps to get you where you describe.

However, since you mentioned the desire for more mids in your tone stack, you might consider checking out one of the Fender '80's Rivera-era amps (e.g. 20 watt Princeton Reverb II, 22 watt Deluxe Reverb II or 60 watt Concert II). Each has a unique and slightly thicker tone than anything Fender has ever produced before or since. They are all hand-wired, point to point tube amps, and most any qualified amp tech can keep them sounding great.

I've found them excellent jazz, rock, pop and RnB amps. Unlike other current boutique amps, you won't lose much if you decide to sell them.

[gggomez]

Yes exactly what I am looking ar Archillies, played the Miles awesome and Rola.

I don't think Riviera are imported into Australia.

I guess what worries me re these amps is no mid control. Played through a Twin recently oh my I had movement ....


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[Herbie]

I struggled with my SF PR for years for the same problem. Then I added a mid pot and a 12" baffle in it (with WGS G12G/C speaker). Perrfect amp! For jazz and anything. Save a lot of money, put (or ask Your tech put) a mid pot in it.

BF/SF Princeton Reverb | fenderguru.com

[gggomez]

This is the brown deluxe

and for those who have not heard a modern day tweed with a 175

[gggomez]

I asked the tech to do a mid pot on my reissue Princeton and he flat out said no the amp is crap buy a hand wired one.


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[ptchristopher3]

I asked the tech to do a mid pot on my reissue Princeton and he flat out said no the amp is crap buy a hand wired one.


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Remerkably enough, a midrange adjustment to the tone stack (via a larger fixed resistor, or far better - a pot) and speaker change work absurdly well in this amp. If you and your tech do not feel this is so, then it is maybe possible you are looking for an experience beyond the actual sound.

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For someone putting in a mid pot, I suggest a larger pot than the standard 10K linear. The extra resistance at the bottom of the tone stack can give some really useful fatness for clean jazz. It is also pretty good for your closet I-IV-V rock outbursts should you be given to such a thing.

A 25K linear pot works great: From 0 to around 4 you have a normal BF midrange control. (The existing fixed resistor is 6.8 K). From 4 to around 6 you get a midrange increase beyond typical BF. 6 to 10 gives a bit more midrange but also an overall boost as you lift the tone stack farther from ground overall - not just in the mids.

My 0 to 10 numbers are very approximate.

The classic place for a midrange pot in a PR is in the external speaker jack hole in back.

On the PRRI, the tone stack components are not on the main board but on the small board on which the pots are mounted. Pretty easy to remove (or lift one end of) the 6.8K resistor and wire in a pot.

In my opinion.

Chris

[Herbie]

I asked the tech to do a mid pot on my reissue Princeton and he flat out said no the amp is crap buy a hand wired one.

Oops! There we got a guy with an attitude! Or I mean: NOT a customer service attitude!

"Bring me only good amps to fix! Bring me only amps that are easy to fix!"

[Hep To The Jive]

Is it me, or it's really mids heavy sounding with this guitar? Almost too much mids, I'd think would be better with a tele or Gretsch, something with low output pickups... Maybe just me.

[Little Jay]

I asked the tech to do a mid pot on my reissue Princeton and he flat out said no the amp is crap buy a hand wired one.

Probably because he doesn't like working in PCB-amps, which is understandable, and to disassemble those PCB Fenders (mid resistor is on a separate PCB for the tone controls which means un-doing all controls) is a lot of work. But it is very possible and technically it is minor surgery with major results.

But to bluntly state they are crap.... well, everybody is entitled to have an opinion. I just don't share his.

[gggomez]

I had a solder pop, he says happens all the time (yeah he is a bit grumpy and arrogant)

but maybe right to as I seem to have another issue now, each time I plug in the power seems to be different.

Here is one of his black faces (wait for the old Gretsch at the end), such great clarity:

Agree the Tweed maybe has too much mid for my ears, hence why I am thinking that the 63 Brown Face could be the go but it just has a tone nob?

A mid control on a Princeton sounds like a wonderful idea, do you have any recording with it mid up mid down etc?

[ptchristopher3]

It seems to me to be unreasonable to suggest that PC boards are more subject to failures than various hand-wired designs.

On the other hand, they are certainly less forgiving to ham-fisted techs. But even a damaged trace can be repaired fairly easily.

The mid-pot mod is easy on a PRRI. Yes you need to remove all the knobs and pot nuts. But if this seems daunting, then just find someone who has mastered this challenge. On my own PRRI I -used a shielded cable to go from the tone stack to the pot (in the Ext. Speaker hole). But this is almost certainly giving no value over a competently twisted pair of wires.

Go try a Twin or other Fender amp with a midrange control. Then seriously consider having a 25K linear pot instead of the 10K that will be in the amp you try. You will have all the control of the 10K, then some other options beyond.

Or maybe just buy a hand-made amp if that is what you really are going to be happy with in the end anyway?

My opinion.

Chris

[Greentone]

One issue when plugging a Gibson into a Tweed amp is--for goodness' sake--plug into the #2 input. It sounds, for sure, as if the guy at Carter's is jacked into the #1 input. He is really loading down the input and compressing the signal. He gets mids/compression/distortion/etc. Well, why not? He is in the "Fender input." Leo figured that guys with single coils would use the #1 input. Folks with hotter signals would use the #2 input.

Whenever I use a Gibson or Gibson-style guitar with my Tweed Deluxe/Tweed Pro/Tweed Bassman amps, I employ the #2 input. It shaves off at least 6 decibels of input signal and sweetens things up.

[hans halmackenreuter]

Exactly what I thought!

[MikeTT]

I have a Headstrong Princeton clone (lil'king), he also does a version with 6l6 for more headroom.
Great amp, I only had to change the reverb pot (was difficult to set the reverb, was either off or almost immediately full on).

(I don't have a recording, I always use modeler/plugins for home-recording).

[Herbie]

A mid control on a Princeton sounds like a wonderful idea, do you have any recording with it mid up mid down etc?

I did not find clips about that from my computer but instead I found a comparison I made between a 5E3 clone, a Fender Princeton Reverb 1979 w/ WGS G12C/S speaker and the mid pot (almost full) and a Polytone Mini Brute IV.

Not much musical content, just noodling three different ... noodles!

Played to a Ditto Looper and recorded with Oktava MK319 –> Akai EIE –> iMac & Amadeus Pro.

Guitar played is ES-175 VOS 1959 RI.

I was a bit surprised about the results: for my ears they sounded very similar!

I need the 5e3 clone for my rocking reasons so I had not any more reasons to keep my Princeton. It was also the most valuable one of these three so I sold it!

The mid pot was very easy to install. When increased it increased also the overall volume a bit. Very musical amp with that mod.

(Edit: Added the words 'from my computer'.)

[Greentone]

ptchristopher3,

I have had plenty of experience with pc-board amps and hand-wired amps. Intrinsically, there is no difference in reliability of well-designed amps of either construction method. Some of the Fender (and other) pc-based amps built since the 90s are a bit dodgy. Not all of them, to be sure. Some, though, have PC- board mounted tube sockets. Tubes dissipate half or more of the power applied to them as simple heat into the amplifier. If the tube socket is mounted on the PC-board, this heat can lift and destroy the delicate copper traces that constitute the actual circuit of the amplifier. I have repaired several Fender Blues Junior amps where heat from one of the EL-84 tubes lifted and ruined the traces on the tube PC-board. This is reparable, but it's a PITA. (The official Fender repair, by the way, is just to take out all three boards and completely replace the circuits. Only the transformers, chassis, speaker, and cabinet is retained. This is because nobody does board-level repair anymore.)

I think it's the Blues Junior, Hot Rod Deluxe, and Pro Junior that have given Fender a black eye. They are good sounding amps, but the PC-mounted tube sockets and input and output jacks are areas that not infrequently need repair. Simple heat and mechanical flexion are the culprits. Chassis mounting those parts is a superior design.

If the tube sockets and input/output jacks are chassis mounted, there is no reason why PC-boards for circuitry should be inferior to other designs. Ampeg, Hiwatt, and other amps have proven this. Those amps historically were built like tanks and sounded great.

[stevehollx]

I own a 5E3 (Tweed Deluxe). I don't think brown/tweed Fenders are a great suit for a Jazz tone, to my ears. They break up too fast and with too much hair. I'd probably choose a VOX over a tweed for jazz tone.

Get a fat jazz tone guitar into a black/silverface. Check out Allen amps for modern Fender cleans.

[hans halmackenreuter]

I own a 5E3 (Tweed Deluxe). I don't think brown/tweed Fenders are a great suit for a Jazz tone, to my ears. They break up too fast and with too much hair. I'd probably choose a VOX over a tweed for jazz tone.

Get a fat jazz tone guitar into a black/silverface. Check out Allen amps for modern Fender cleans.

The 5E3 is one of my favourite amps for jazz and many iconic LP's were recorded with one. In the 50ies Rudy van Gelder recorded with a 5E3.

Because of the mid-scooped black- and silverfaces, brown and tweed amps are more likely to provide you with a fat Jazz guitar tone.

[Herbie]

I own a 5E3 (Tweed Deluxe). I don't think brown/tweed Fenders are a great suit for a Jazz tone, to my ears. They break up too fast and with too much hair. I'd probably choose a VOX over a tweed for jazz tone.

Get a fat jazz tone guitar into a black/silverface. Check out Allen amps for modern Fender cleans.

I agree with Hans. Do You have proper preamp tube in V2 position? V1 should be 12AY7 but instead of "rock-standard" 12AX7 in V2 I recommend You to try a 5751.

And if Your guitar has a humbucker, use the input 2.

The result can still be distortion if You play loud. Then You need more sensitive speaker. Or another amp!

I have used a Vox AC30TB (from 1979) with my rock bands since 1984 and while it is my favourite amp, I have never found a classic jazz tone with it. The mids are somewhere else than they should. And the AC15HW1X I had for years was not better.

But I don't mean that some one else could not find The Sound with them!

[John A.]

I think the Tweed-Brown-Black(-Silver) comparison very much depends on which amps you're talking about. As a rough generalization, Fenders went from mid-rangy and distorted to scooped and clean over the course of the years, but some models made these transitions at different points in the cosmetic evolution and some basically didn't change from one era to another. E.g., I had a very early brownface Pro, and it was as scooped/loud/clean as a Blackface Twin Reverb. I had a SF Champ that was basically the same as a tweed Champ. I currently have a late SF PR that's the same as BF one, etc.

John

[Greentone]

JohnA makes a good potent. The engineers "de-Leo-ed" the amp line at different times. They went after the big amps first. Champs and Princetons were left alone for years.

[gggomez]

Thanks Herbie yeah the Tweed and Silver face are close. Very interesting. Spoke to Achillies Amps and they can add the mid control.

Thanks guys yes have the fancy valves and upgraded speaker.

This is the tweed I am thinking of. Man it is talking to me, it sounds like it has so many stories to tell, so many colours in there:

I guess I just gotta get out to play it with my guitar in person.

[Herbie]

Thanks Herbie yeah the Tweed and Silver face are close. Very interesting. Spoke to Achillies Amps and they can add the mid control.

Thanks guys yes have the fancy valves and upgraded speaker.

This is the tweed I am thinking of. Man it is talking to me, it sounds like it has so many stories to tell, so many colours in there:

I guess I just gotta get out to play it with my guitar in person.

I am happy if the recording helped! I was very surprised how similar sounds You can adjust these three amps that apparently are very different.

I've seen many inspiring clips of Achilles amps, I'll bet You won't disappoint with them.

The Tweed Deluxe circuit IS amazing! I have played with it soon two years and I just been admiring the natural and musical essence of the amp. And versatility, with changing the speaker & pre valves You can make it jazz like Kenny or rock like any Marshall rocker.

And the genious Princeton Reverb is a masterpiece too – specially with an added mid pot.