seenoevil II wrote: ↑Tue Dec 15, 2020 2:19 pm
What you described did happen with tube amps for a long while, hence the progression from tweed to brown, black, silver etc. It's only in the long backward gaze of vintage gear fetishism that all have become equally valid flavors.
i love the evolution of fender amps from rough and raw tweed to cleaner, less midrange blackface. I've built a couple of tweeds and brownface amps and looking at the circuit evolution to blackface is fun. what is odd is seeing people seek out the ultra-linear high powered late silverface stuff. the prices on those is even nuts now.
seenoevil II wrote: ↑Tue Dec 15, 2020 2:19 pm
I get and also don't get vintage amps. In one hand, they are easy to service and repair and often cost about the same price as modern reissues. In the other, at a certain point, they're simply a compilation of parts that get replaced. So, what are you really buying, the chassis, the pine&tolex box?
agreed. i've had several vintage ampegs, even identical models. the component tolerances required by the schematics are huge: +/- 5%, or 20% in some places. that alone is a huge variant amp to amp all else identical to make them sound a bit different. I've recapped/tubed/cleaned vintage fenders with fresh modern components and they sound better than the old worn out stuff by miles.
it's very easy to build a fender amp clone. its the economical way for me to play every amp i've dreamed of owning for a fraction of the cost of buying vintage. (the hard part is finding a period correct chassis for a lot of those amps if you are trying to look like an original, so buying an original 1961 fender showman MAY be worth it.)