1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb

One of the Top 5 Greatest Amps of all time. This my friends, is a real 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb - Not a Reissue (although I have nothing bad to say about the sound of those either). One of the most recorded, imitated, and sought after tube amp designs made in history. At 22 Watts of power provided by two fixed bias 6V6GT’s and arguably the best spring reverb + optical tremolo ever conceived, the term “Desert Island Amp” was coined for this exact model.

This amp came to my shop in almost completely original condition. The only things changed were the tubes (a mix of NOS and new) and the speaker (replaced in the 80’s with an Eminence - model unknown). The amp distorted a bit too easily, had noise issues, and the tremolo didn’t work. Also you could get shocked depending on the position of the ground switch because the amp still had the obsolete two prong AC cord.

The amp was given a full cap job - all the electrolytic caps in the power filter section were replaced with German made F&T’s. The electrolytic caps in the bias circuit, and bypass positions were replaced with USA made Sprague Atom’s. The power dropping resistors were upgraded to 2 watt and 3 watt metal oxide/cement types. Two JJ 12AX7’s and two EHX 12AT7’s were installed to replace the faulty preamp tubes. The Fixed Bias was set to approx. %70 Class AB Plate Dissipation with a B+ of 440VDC. A 3 prong AC cord was installed, the ground switch deactivated, and the death cap was deleted all for safety reasons. All the above issues were remedied - The cap job fixed the tremolo, as the 25uf 25v bypass cap needed for enough gain to cause oscillation at V5 was leaky. The filter caps/new resistors fixed the noise, and the new AC cord/ground scheme means no more shocks. The original bias was set at a dangerous %100 Plate Dissipation which caused the early distortion. This amp has been fully restored and sounds great.