Another Fender Hot Rod Deluxe arrived . This was one of the early ones in really nice physical condition dating from around 1998. It was made in the USA. Alas, I only ever see sick ones. This one had about 0.2 watts out on full volume and totally distorted. The valves had not been changed in years and the output valves were original Sovtek 5881’s rebranded as Groove tubes. They were still kind of working […]
The Fender Blues Jr is a popular amp. It has enough power with 15 watts for small gigs and it does have the Fender tone with a hint of “Britishness” with the EL84 output valves. . The reverb circuitry is solid state and three 12AX7’s for the pre-amp stages. The 15 watts comes from a pair of EL84’s feeding into a 12 inch speaker. The amp is constructed on printed circuit boards. One holds the
Fender Blues Jr Service and comparison with a hand wired version Read More »
A Fender Hot Rod Deluxe arrived that was not well. These 40 watt amps sound pretty good when they are working. However, a number of faults appear as they age. The obvious fault was that the 6L6’s were worn out. They were dull and noisy. However I could only find this out when we got the amp to make some sound ! When the back was removed one of the output valves was not lighting
A Fender Hot Rod DeVille arrived as it was very unwell. I decided not to even switch it on but get the back off and examine the innards. One of the output valves looked like it had fallen from a helicopter. It had gone all white inside (due to vacuum loss) and the glass was cracked. The valve base had lumps missing ! If you load the van after the gig tell your roadies to
Unwell Fender Hot Rod DeVille makes full recovery Read More »
A Memory-Filled Journey Into The Life Of Guitar Legend Leo Fender The world occasionally produces one of those rare thinkers whose name becomes iconic. Thomas Edison lit up the world; Albert Einstein profoundly altered the study of physics; Walt Disney reimagined entertainment; and Leo Fender perfected the electric guitar. Fender grew up in Fullerton, California, where his interest in electronics lead him to open his own radio repair shop in 1938. It wasn’t long before
A Memory-Filled Journey Into The Life Of Guitar Legend Leo Fender Read More »
Its a couple of weeks since I wrote about fixing amps and I had not seen a Fender amp to fix for a few weeks and then along comes four all on the same day ! In the cover picture we proudly present four broken amps -At the Top a Fender Blues Jr III -Underneath is a Fender Supersonic 40 watter -to the left is a Princeton Reverb re-issue -to the right is a Hot
The Howl and the Hum fixing four Fender amps in one day Read More »
Many folks ask what the difference is between the standard EL84 and the more expensive Sovtek EL84M. There has been no data available and I see lots of questions on forums etc asking about where you can get a data sheet. I worked with the Sovtek team and pulled a product information sheet together out of Russian documents etc. First of all here is some background info as to why this was done The EL84
Sovtek EL84M More Headroom More Power Longer Life Read More »
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