1966 Fender Princeton Reverb Amp

Up for grabs is a 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb in excellent condition. One of the all time best recording and small club amps around, this one is no exception. This amp has just a few replaced caps with many of the original blue molded ones intact. The tolex and grill cloth is in great shape, and the period correct Jensen 10" sounds incredible.

Summary

The Princeton Reverb is the smallest blackface/silverface Fender amp with both tremolo and reverb. With a 10 inch speaker run by a 12-15W dual 6V6 amp, it delivers a true “American” Fender tone with punchy, responsive lows together with chimey highs. When it is cranked it tends to sound a bit “browner” than the bigger two-channel amps, meaning more breakup in the lower frequencies and mid-focused tone. Much of this is due to an inefficient phase inverter circuit design.

Compared to many bigger Fender amps the Princeton Reverb (PR) went through the CBS/silverface periods with very little changes. The rectifier tube was one of the tube and circuit changes where the 5U4GB was replaced by a GZ34. In build quality and component selection (brands of caps, resistors, pots) the silverfaces are not as robust as the blackface models. The glued and stapled baffles on the silverface amps is to us one of the bigger differences between the blackface and silverface amps, or should we say, the cabinets. Still, many people consider the tone of the silverface Princeton Reverb just as good as the blackface. Being almost a blackface amp with a “wrong” faceplate, the large number of silverface models became popular player’s amps. Lot of value-for-the-money. As a player’s amp one could replace the speaker with a bigger one without “ruining” the value of it, like for the precious collectable blackfaces. First in 1978, when the push/pull volume boost was introduced, there was a significant difference from the traditional blackface circuit.

Transformer Codes:

606604 - 4th week of 1966

606-5-47 - 47th week of 1965

606-5-48 - 48th week of 1965

Please Call us at 747.388.2929 for more info!