Fender Princeton Reverb (1973)

This is a 1973 Fender Princeton Reverb "Silver Face" that I bought in 1987 about the same time I bought my '64 Champ. The now long gone store I bought it at had a glut of vintage Fender amps at very low prices. At that particularly time in the 80's, hair metal was in and everyone wanted higher gain and physically bigger amps leaving those of us with more blues and classic rock tastes a bounty for a few years.

The tone is everything you would expect from a classic Fender tube amp. It has a nice, super warm, clean tone and a wonderful overdriven sound. The tube and tank reverb beats anything you would hear in a digital modeling pedal by a long shot. The vibrato circuit (aka tremolo) it also great at capturing that surfin' sound or a rockabilly bounce.

Like the Champ, I most often used my VeryTone or Hotfoot to push the amp into overdrive. It did a great job of walking the edge between clean and overdrive based on playing dynamics.

Also, like the Champ, this amp is in need of repair as well. I'll probably try to get them fixed at the same time. I'd also like to get a 2x12 cabinet to plug into the amp and see how that sounds.

Here's a photo of the back