of years back, I finally got one and I’m loving it.
It’s almost a straight clone but with a few tweaks that makes it unique.
My dear friend Chris built it with the best components that were available to us.
The cab is from Tube Town (original spec tweed), then finished with tinted nitro by Jokers Guitars here in Greece.
The speaker is a Celestion Gold and all the glass is NOS (TungSol 12ay7,
Sylvania 12ax7, RCA 6v6 & Sylvania 5y3). The transformers are Magnetic Components Classictone
and the caps yellow Jupiter & Sozo with F&T power supply caps and Sprague atom bypass caps.
Right now I use 6v6’s for the power section but I can easily change them to 6L6’s.
The bypass switch is disengaged and it’s a “mod” switch, when it’s down it’s the stock deluxe mode, when it’s up it’s a “princeton” mode.
The stock deluxe mode is everything you’d expect from a great 5e3 to be, saggy, fuzzy, punchy, very touch sensitive glorious 3D sound
that you can make it sound clean by turning your guitar’s volume down and full blast when it’s full.
I can’t believe the range of tones you can achieve just with three knobs. The controls are extremely interactive with each other.
The “princeton” mode is cleaner with more headroom, but with all the great audio elements
of the deluxe mode. Depending on the pickups you can have pretty much enough clean volume
for almost every venue that uses a PA.
I’m probably gonna use amps’ overdrive so besides modulation and delay,
I’ll probably need a boost and a fuzz. It’s a sin not to use such a great overdrive sound
and use a pedal instead.
In general it takes pedals a lot better than I thought it would, it’s not the best pedal platform
(I have other amps for that), but with a little adjustments on the pedals it can make any pedal sing.
I ‘ve to get used to the fact that my delays will be before my overdrive.
This thing is a rock n’ roll machine and I’m so happy that I finally own one.
