Back in the game... sorta...

I haven't owned a decent tube amp in some time and in the last couple
of years. I've had no tube amp at all, subsisting on a SS Princeton
Chorus and an Acoustasonic JR.

I don't gig anymore, so those amps were fine, but in recent months as
I started picking up the guitar more after recovering from band
burnout and and a long bout of severe trigger finger, I started
looking around for my next tube amp.

I've always liked Fender's older tube amps, preferring the Pro Reverbs
as a clean base for pedals, having owned a 70W version and a couple of
45Watters in the past as well as SFSR, many PR and plain Princetons,
Champs, DRII, PRII, etc, but due to prices of SF amps beyond Champs, I
looked at other amps - new Ampegs (J20, for ex), Traynor, and even
toyed with getting a Fender SCXD.

If I was going to pay $700+ for a tube amp, I wanted to play it and
wasn't willing to go the eBAY route, so I relegated myself to buying a
new amp that was returnable, severely limiting my choices for the
price I wanted to pay.

And then I walked into a local music store this week and saw an
earlier 70's SFPro Reverb with Jensen C12K replacement speakers, no
master or pull-boost, orig cab/iron, casters, pedal.

I test drove it to find that everything worked as it was supposed
to... bright switches, input jacks, reverb, trem, tone, and volume
controls.

I've known the guy who owns the store for a very long time, having
bought my first jazz archtop from him in the 70's. And then he showed
me receipt the guy who sold the amp had for a complete retube this
past spring from a local well known Fender service depot and then
there's the re-cap job from a guy who is well known for it and even
signs and dates the chassis.

So, that's why the amp was much more quiet than I expected and all the
controls really seemed to to what they were supposed to!

When buying an older tube amp, you've gotta figure possibly new tubes,
new caps, some features don't quite work. That wasn't the case here.

I picked up the amp tonight. I had forgotten how good a decent guitar
can sound thru a decent amp; even MFX sound better - you can actually
hear the effects clearly. Makes me want to join a cover rock band
again :)-

Greg
.

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