New Fender Solid State Tone Master Twin & Deluxe Reverb

earwighoney

ICBM said:

I’m glad that Fender seem to making an attempt to make a *serious* pro-quality solid-state amp. I’ll reserve judgement on the sound until I hear one in person...

In the videos it sounded even worse than the Fender Bassbreaker. 

Flat and muddy. 

There are some decent SS amps around now, the Orange ones, Quilter but the videos for the new Fender ones was sound shocking. 

ICBM

Well... I've watched the Anderton's video now. I thought the best sounding amp by far was Twin 1, followed by Deluxe 2, Deluxe 1 very close behind, and Twin 2 a long way behind.

So I thought the digital ones sounded best in both cases, the Twin by a wide margin. But I will still have to hear one in person to be sure.

Mickeyji

ICBM said:

Well... I've watched the Anderton's video now. I thought the best sounding amp by far was Twin 1, followed by Deluxe 2, Deluxe 1 very close behind, and Twin 2 a long way behind.

So I thought the digital ones sounded best in both cases, the Twin by a wide margin. But I will still have to hear one in person to be sure.

Yeah, I was quite surprised to find out Twin 1 was the digital version! Pete's real valve Twin sounded rather crappy IMO and I was sure this was the new Fender offering at first. Not too much difference between the 2 Deluxe Reverbs to my ears.

thecolourbox

It's it possible they've deliberately made the real ones sound worse on order to make the he ones sound better and thus sell more?

Sassafras

thecolourbox said:

It's it possible they've deliberately made the real ones sound worse on order to make the he ones sound better and thus sell more?

I can't believe a commercial enterprise would stoop that low.

ICBM

Mickeyji said:

Yeah, I was quite surprised to find out Twin 1 was the digital version! Pete's real valve Twin sounded rather crappy IMO and I was sure this was the new Fender offering at first. Not too much difference between the 2 Deluxe Reverbs to my ears.

Exactly my impressions too.

thecolourbox said:

It's it possible they've deliberately made the real ones sound worse on order to make the he ones sound better and thus sell more?

They did say they'd set the amps to exactly the same control settings - I wondered whether that was the right thing to do, since although that would be correct if the modelling is perfectly accurate, I'm sure we've all come across amps with very sensitive control positions, which can be due to the pot taper (they're often quite crude), so it's far from certain that the two amps would sound the same like that. Personally, I would have carefully matched the *sounds* by ear, rather than relying on the controls - that's fairly easy to do by rapidly A/B'ing back and forth with a footswitch.

Sassafras said:

I can't believe a commercial enterprise would stoop that low.

I can, but I don't see any reason for them to - they'll make more money from the more expensive valve amps.

There's also another big factor that has only been mentioned in passing - the speakers. The neodymium ones in the new amps are clearly based on (or simply re-painted/re-labelled) Jensen Tornados, which are some of the best-sounding speakers I know of, regardless of magnet type... definitely better than the modern ceramic-magnet Jensens in the valve amps.

TimmyO

What amp was the Captain playing in the intro? 

ICBM

TimmyO said:

What amp was the Captain playing in the intro? 

Squier 15.


















No, it couldn't have been. They sound better than that.

TimmyO

It.sounded.so bad I stopped watching the video

ICBM

TimmyO said:

It.sounded.so bad I stopped watching the video

Watch the rest, it's not as bad. I have no idea what he was doing on that bit, although I'm guessing it was with the new Deluxe.

TimmyO

I will then

His sound was so bad and Petes was so.good I just assumed that the former was the new amps and the latter was the real.thing and skipped on lol 

koss59

Pretty sure he was using the middle and bridge pickups together with a drive pedal on. That often sounds pretty bad through any amp to be fair.

JerkMoans

Eric Haugen seems to dig the shit outta his:

https://youtu.be/Whg4JECoirk

Philtre

Eric Haugen will go back to tubes. They always do. Tube amps and a Telecaster. There's nowhere to go after that.

Kebabkid

Seriously, I've just landed a Frontman 212R for very little money and that thing has a great Fender clean and takes pedals so well and it's loud. The overdrive channel isn't too shabby, either and it sounds much better than these demos.

I've heard that they can be reliability issues with these or when something goes, it's probably not worth the repair, or too complicated, but if you want a traditional Fender-looking solid state amp, I'd look here instead OR just go for a DRRI (there's one on here for £700).

ICBM

Kebabkid said:

Seriously, I've just landed a Frontman 212R for very little money and that thing has a great Fender clean and takes pedals so well and it's loud. The overdrive channel isn't too shabby, either and it sounds much better than these demos.

I've heard that they can be reliability issues with these or when something goes, it's probably not worth the repair, or too complicated

The only problems I've ever seen with them are - by far the most common - blown speakers, which is unfortunately an expensive job but at least means that if you fit decent quality replacements then they shouldn't go again, the downside being that a pair of decent speakers will cost as much as the amp did if you bought it used; and slightly less common, a pair of high-power resistors inside which overheat and desolder themselves - this can cause the amp to either crackle violently or cut out completely... it's usually fixable by thoroughly clenching the wire ends over onto the PCB before re-soldering, or you could fit larger resistors which won't get quite as hot either. Given that if you do both these repairs you should have a very reliable amp for still not a lot of money, I wouldn't hesitate to do them when they become necessary, even if it seems 'uneconomical' in some ways.

jpfamps

ICBM said:

Kebabkid said:

Seriously, I've just landed a Frontman 212R for very little money and that thing has a great Fender clean and takes pedals so well and it's loud. The overdrive channel isn't too shabby, either and it sounds much better than these demos.

I've heard that they can be reliability issues with these or when something goes, it's probably not worth the repair, or too complicated

The only problems I've ever seen with them are - by far the most common - blown speakers, which is unfortunately an expensive job but at least means that if you fit decent quality replacements then they shouldn't go again, the downside being that a pair of decent speakers will cost as much as the amp did if you bought it used; and slightly less common, a pair of high-power resistors inside which overheat and desolder themselves - this can cause the amp to either crackle violently or cut out completely... it's usually fixable by thoroughly clenching the wire ends over onto the PCB before re-soldering, or you could fit larger resistors which won't get quite as hot either. Given that if you do both these repairs you should have a very reliable amp for still not a lot of money, I wouldn't hesitate to do them when they become necessary, even if it seems 'uneconomical' in some ways.

I've had a few of these (and FM65s) in with faults where the mute circuit come on after the amp was on for a few minutes which I never got to the bottom of. I could stop the amp cutting out by applying freeze spray to one of the transistors, but changing the transistors in that circuit didn't cure the problem. 

The mute circuit works by turning off the current source feeding the input diff amp of the power amp rather than muting the signal.

In one amp in an effort to try to understand the circuit better I ended up changing all the active components in the diff amp and mute circuit to no avail.

In the end I simply disabled the mute circuit. The amps would hum for a few seconds on start up but worked fine and have not come back.

In my view an overly complicated inexpensive amp: the worst sort.

Blueingreen

Kebabkid said:

Seriously, I've just landed a Frontman 212R for very little money and that thing has a great Fender clean and takes pedals so well and it's loud. The overdrive channel isn't too shabby, either and it sounds much better than these demos.

I've heard that they can be reliability issues with these or when something goes, it's probably not worth the repair, or too complicated, but if you want a traditional Fender-looking solid state amp, I'd look here instead OR just go for a DRRI (there's one on here for £700).

For a lot of people the appeal of these is going to be the weight.  I have no interest in a DRRI:  I have a Rivera Chubster which covers much of the same territory and weighs about the same but never leaves the house because my Quilter weighs half as much. 

I'm potentially interested in these if they sound good.  It's not a question of price.  I wouldn't be buying this because it's cheaper than a DRRI it would be because it fits my needs better. 

Philtre

I think it's a symptom of something else. We are eating less meat and getting weaker. We can't lift the old tube amps like we used to. Come on, people! A good old steak and some deadlifts with an AC30 will soon have you back to rights!

Kebabkid

Cheers for the comments guys and good to know. Fingers crossed, mine doesn't suffer and it's a back up/play around amp