Fender ’65 Twin Reverb 2×12-inch 85-watt Tube Combo Amp

But I will congratulate you now on your milestone, but don’t expect me to recognize you in threads later on down the road because of boundaries that separate us. I have a 1972 Dual Showman Reverb and it was the first year of the MV but 5 years before the Ultra Linear Trannies and Pull boosts. I Find those Silverfase Dual Showman Reverbs from 69′ – 76′ To be among the best amps Fender made. One or both of these tables will be useful if you’ve found yourself asking “How do I tell what year my Fender amp is?

The control panel format remains true to the original Dual Professional, featuring master tone, instrument volume and mic volume controls with chicken-head knobs and Lo Gain, Instrument (x 2) and Mic inputs. The Lo Gain input bypasses the Instrument channel preamp tube and also defeats the two Instrument input jacks. Fast forward a few decades, and the V-front Dual Professional/Super became a cult favorite amongst vintage Fender amp cognoscenti and seekers of the ultimate electric blues overdrive. Billy Gibbons is an avowed longtime fan (it’s been a secret weapon on many ZZ Top tracks), and thanks to his hoarding tendencies these amps became even harder to find over the years.

Country players love the Twin for its crystal clear tone—a Tele lead pickup through a Twin could be an instrument of sonic destruction. Also a favorite with blues and rock players, Michael Bloomfield used to dime his Twin to unleash an onslaught of blues tones. Blackface amps were immediately popular upon release and used on numerous famous recordings.

Both channels used the same GZ34 rectifier tube on their way to dual 5881 power tubes, leading some tinkering guitarists to use a short jumper cable to engage both input channels simultaneously. Well the 328 is the MFG code that tells you the speaker was manufactured by Utah. The other three digits should be the Year and month of the year. I think Utah went out of business late 70’s so its likely 71, 61 ir 51. Most speakers prior to the 50’s had electromagnet coils instead of perminant magnets. And if its a guitar speaker, I’d mosly likely say its 61 or 71 because all the guitar amp manufacturers like Fender were using them.

They decided to use this space for branding, adding the name JTM45 and MKII on either side of the switches. After five prototypes, they had the first Marshall amp – the JTM 45 (JTM for James & Terry Marshall, 45 for the RMS-rated wattage). Contrary to popular belief, it was not merely a Fender Bassman clone. Eventually the store changed its name to “J & T Marshall” and opened a second location across the street. “This first full tweed line was easier to manufacture than the woodies.

Artists began to explore this threshold territory—long before rows of 100 watt stacks—with the humble blues-rock voicing of the JTM 45. “These are the earliest Fender-branded amps and although they existed prior to Doc and Leo splitting, Leo did advance the designs somewhat. There was the [4.5-watt] Princeton, which was a tiny student model with an eight-inch speaker. Then there was the single 10-inch [10-watt] Deluxe/Model 26 – it has often been said the ‘26’ is a reference to February ’46. And there was the [18-watt] Professional, which has a 15-inch speaker. ”Around that time, Doc Kauffman – a local professional musician and inventor – would often go into Leo’s shop, which also sold records and sheet music, and they struck up a friendship.

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The quality of the effects is impressive, and so too is the ability to take full control of your signal path when putting together sounds. Indeed, the intuitive design is a huge selling point here, with a clean control panel putting those sounds within easy reach. There’s an auxiliary input for playing along to external audio, a stereo effects loop, an onboard tuner, an electric toothbrush… No, wait, no toothbrush.

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Finding out the date a transformer was made doesn’t guarantee that you know when an amp was made. Transformers are made before being added to amps, and in some cases, they also spend a good amount of time in storage. If you are confident that the transformer is the original one that came with the amp, adding six months (or even more) to the transformer manufacture date will give you a good CasualDate idea of when the amp may have been built. If this is the case, the first of the last three digits is the last number of the year of manufacture. You would need to have a general sense of the decade in which your amp was made to date it this way, but many of these six-digit codes were printed in the 1940s. The first three digits are a special code for the manufacturer of the transformer.

From the early JTM 45 prototypes to the Bluesbreaker combos and later innovations, Marshall stood for a particular sonic response, a brand of British rock quite separate from the jangly tones of Vox amps. While Fender amps may have blazed a trail for country and early rock ‘n roll, we owe modern lead guitar tone to the precedent-setting Marshall amps of the ‘60s and ‘70s. While dating Fender amps made before 1994 by serial number is all but impossible (as records of these numbers were never kept), all hope is not lost—the charts below should prove helpful in dating your Fender amp. “N”-prefix serial numbers denoting the 1990s were introduced in 1990.

Some
things are very
obvious such as non-original or reconed speakers, non-original
transformers,
replaced pots, re-tweed, re-tolex, re-grill, etc. and these changes are
often
disclosed and of a non-malicious nature. Over the years, it’s been to clean electric guitar tones what Roger Federer has been to tennis. Its ample power and headroom have made it a popular choice among touring musicians who want their Strat to stay glassy even when it’s loud enough to be heard above the dummer’s cymbals. Its reverb is phenomenal, too, and as a pedal platform it’s tough to beat. Under the hood, there are hand-wired tube sockets and custom-made Schumacher transformers.

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Spanking clean to around «8» on its volume dial, it can go toe-to-toe with any drummer onstage, but it speaks with authority at any volume — beautifully chimey, glassy, and full-throated. Sonically, the Fender Twin Reverb is based on their classic 1965 Blackface circuitry, and it delivers the legendary sound you’ve heard on countless hit records. If you are unable to determine the approximate production year of your amplifier using the above charts, there are other means of dating Fender amps. Several excellent books are available that contain reliable and invaluable information on the history of Fender amplifiers.

This product can be used for practice, and it is also reasonably priced. If you want a tweed amplifier that will give you the warmest, most authentic tone, the Fender Princeton 65amp is for you. A date code is required for all fabricated Fender amplifiers manufactured between 1990 and today. The QA (quality assurance) sticker is on the chassis of the amplifier.

Facing competition from the immensely popular Vox AC30, Jim and his team had been developing a combo well before Clapton walked through the door. ”Fender amps are rooted in Leo Fender’s radio repair shop,” says Terry. “By 1940, he had a full-time business with several employees in Fullerton under the Fender name. It was very successful in the local area, and, according to Leo, they did over 10,000 repair jobs in 1943 alone. I’ve recommended Aspen Pittmans tube amp book several times on this post.

While we do some decoding of various model names in this article, you can get a full breakdown of serial number dating and speaker codes for Marshall amps in our Marshall Dating Guide. Plug into the Fender Twin Reverb amp and you’ll experience legendary tube tone with an unmistakable vintage vibe. Fender manufactured the Blackface Twin Reverb amp from 1963 to 1967. From its venerable 85-watt AB763 quad-6L6 circuit to its inimitable spring reverb and tremolo, Jensen speakers, and tilt-back legs, the Fender Twin Reverb is every inch a classic, veritable cornerstone of modern American music. The ’65 Twin Reverb is a meticulous reissue of a true American classic. Whether your guitar has humbucking or single-coil pickups, this iconic 85-watt, all-tube combo amp serves up definitive clean tone that’s perfect for rock, country, blues, jazz, fusion, and more.