1994 Fender 63' Vibroverb

This is a re-issue of the famed Brown-Panel Vibroverb produced by Fender in the early 1960’s. These 90’s re-issues are not exact copies however - the lack of a tube rectifier and heavier filtering in the power section among other minor changes separate them from their predecessors. The biggest change in construction though is the move from hand-wired to PCB format. Despite this, due to a small production run and the ever increasing value of tube amps, these have become quite collectible and valuable in their own right.

The amp came in to the shop in almost original condition. Someone had replaced the original reverb tank with a MOD branded unit but it was the wrong model - it had the wrong number of springs and more importantly the wrong input and output impedance for this circuit. Due to the amp being 30 years old and having recently been dropped in shipping this one needed a full restoration including a cap job, new power/misc. resistors, cleaning, a new reverb tank, and new tubes.

All filter/bias/bypass caps were replaced with upgraded voltage and temperature rated MOD/CE/Rubycon brand electrolytics. New 2 Watt Metal Oxide power dropping resistors were installed for better reliability and lower noise floor. New 470 Ohm 3 Watt Cement resistors were installed for the screens of the power tubes for reliability reasons. The reverb tank was replaced with the correct MOD brand 4AB3C1B tank.

The original tubes did not test good and were all replaced. This was the lineup: V1-V2 = JJ 12AX7S, V3/V6 = EHX 12AT7, V4-V5 = JJ 12AX7S, V7-V8 = JJ 6L6GC Matched Pair. The 6L6GC's Fixed Bias was set to %53 Class AB Plate Dissipation with a B+ of 472VDC. Amp was cleaned, pots treated with De-Oxit, and hardware tightened. This Vibroverb is ready to survive the next 30 years.