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1966 Super Reverb...harsh/brittle

10/21/2004 6:37 PM
jason	1966 Super Reverb...harsh/brittle The question folks is can you turn a red apple into a green apple? What i am saying is between speakers, cap/res. values and tubes, can i get more head room and clarity out of my SR. Right now it is very bright, brittle and borderline thin. I have philips 6L6's in there, a Sylvania Rect. tube and an assortman of ge, rca, mullard and sovtek pre-amp tubes...I love hendrix on machine gun, SRV on lenny, and john mayer's lead sound on everything...even KWS has a good sound...i just can't get that head room of the dumbell's, marshall plexi's or vibroverbs/twin reverbs...am i playing a lose lose game here? Maybe some tubes, diff caps and speakers would do the trick...im also playing a mexi strat with swamp ash body and maple neck/fretboard...i have a lil 59'er in the bridge p/u and rest is stock...i use an analog man modded ts9 and sensor relayed dunlop cry baby wah wah pedal 535q i believe...next i need that pedal hendrix uses on machine gun...any help or advice?

10/21/2004 6:37 PM

jason

1966 Super Reverb...harsh/brittle

The question folks is can you turn a red apple into a green apple? What i am saying is between speakers, cap/res. values and tubes, can i get more head room and clarity out of my SR. Right now it is very bright, brittle and borderline thin. I have philips 6L6's in there, a Sylvania Rect. tube and an assortman of ge, rca, mullard and sovtek pre-amp tubes...I love hendrix on machine gun, SRV on lenny, and john mayer's lead sound on everything...even KWS has a good sound...i just can't get that head room of the dumbell's, marshall plexi's or vibroverbs/twin reverbs...am i playing a lose lose game here? Maybe some tubes, diff caps and speakers would do the trick...im also playing a mexi strat with swamp ash body and maple neck/fretboard...i have a lil 59'er in the bridge p/u and rest is stock...i use an analog man modded ts9 and sensor relayed dunlop cry baby wah wah pedal 535q i believe...next i need that pedal hendrix uses on machine gun...any help or advice?

11/15/2004 12:49 AM
Bob M.	New tubes are good... but I'd have a look under the hood first. A thin Super Reverb sounds like it needs some routine maintenance like new electrolytic caps: preamp, bias and filter. Replace some of those badly drifted resistors as well, bias it up properly and see where you're at with it. Then stylize away with various NOS and boutique parts. A well maintained BFSR will be neither harsh, brittle or thin. Bob M.

11/15/2004 12:49 AM

Bob M.

New tubes are good... but I'd have a look under the hood first. A thin Super Reverb sounds like it needs some routine maintenance like new electrolytic caps: preamp, bias and filter. Replace some of those badly drifted resistors as well, bias it up properly and see where you're at with it. Then stylize away with various NOS and boutique parts. A well maintained BFSR will be neither harsh, brittle or thin.

Bob M.

11/15/2004 8:45 AM
Wild Bill	I've done a coupla SR's over for bluesmen. I found that you absolutely have to run the bias at 60% to 70% (max) idle current. I did some 6L6 reviews at http://www.thetubestore.com that might be helpful. Replacing the tone stack caps with .02's like in a Marshall also works well. I think 1966 was the dawn of the Silver Face Era. You might check the schematic for any tone-sucking SF changes. We tried running the heads into different cabs with different speakers but any improvement was marginal. It seems you can't really fix this problem unless you're willing to crawl inside the amp and get your hands dirty. Your post only mentioned "everything but" crawling inside. If you're not comfortable doing this then take it to a tech - high voltages can hurt or even kill. ---Wild Bill

11/15/2004 8:45 AM

Wild Bill

I've done a coupla SR's over for bluesmen. I found that you absolutely have to run the bias at 60% to 70% (max) idle current.

I did some 6L6 reviews at http://www.thetubestore.com that might be helpful.

Replacing the tone stack caps with .02's like in a Marshall also works well.

I think 1966 was the dawn of the Silver Face Era. You might check the schematic for any tone-sucking SF changes.

We tried running the heads into different cabs with different speakers but any improvement was marginal. It seems you can't really fix this problem unless you're willing to crawl inside the amp and get your hands dirty. Your post only mentioned "everything but" crawling inside. If you're not comfortable doing this then take it to a tech - high voltages can hurt or even kill.

---Wild Bill

11/19/2004 12:29 PM

Rick Erickson

quote:
"I think 1966 was the dawn of the Silver Face Era."

Actually it was 1968. The 1967 amps still had black face panels. The '68's had the new silver panels but still used the cloth covered solid wire, in 1969 they started using crappy plastic coated stranded wire (this doesn't mean ALL plastic coated stranded wire is crappy btw) and cheaper jacks. They went back to Switchcraft jacks shortly thereafter but 1969 remains one of my least favorite years for Fender amps, followed by anything by Fender from the 70's or 80's...

RE

1/1/2005 6:03 AM
Randy	1967 was the transition year. The earliest Silverface I have seen was dated to September 1967. It was a Bandmaster, and had no difference between it and the Blackfaces except grill cloth , drip edge and faceplate. I currently own both a 1967 Silverface Super reverb and Bassman, circuit wise the Super is blackface, both have the drip edge and Black lines on the face plates. The Super also uses a gz34 rectifier. The ab165 Bassman, blackface or otherwise is really the first amp CBS messed with and the circuit appeared in 1965, black face plate or not.

1/1/2005 6:03 AM

Randy

1967 was the transition year.

The earliest Silverface I have seen was dated to September 1967. It was a Bandmaster, and had no difference between it and the Blackfaces except grill cloth , drip edge and faceplate. I currently own both a 1967 Silverface Super reverb and Bassman, circuit wise the Super is blackface, both have the drip edge and Black lines on the face plates. The Super also uses a gz34 rectifier.

The ab165 Bassman, blackface or otherwise is really the first amp CBS messed with and the circuit appeared in 1965, black face plate or not.

2/21/2005 6:35 PM
SpeedRacer	depends on the model I suppose. I had a 67 Twin that was BF. I have a 68 DR which is SF with that Al trim around the grill at the wierd wire (looks like cloth but is not the same..) My BF Super was built in Jan '65 and so is technically (IIRC) a "CBS" amp.. but it sho don't sound like one. Can't we all just get along?

12/2/2004 6:04 PM
SpeedRacer	Re: 1966 Super Reverb...harsh/brittle IME you most certainly can. My '65 sounded terrible when I bought it (but it was CHEAP!) had bad chinese outputs biased cold, terrible speakers etc. Swapping out the output tubes, biasing pretty hot (35-40mA) and switching to good speakers made a world of difference. For speakers, Kendrick, Weber, Mojotone all make a nice "10R" type speaker. Ceramics will be punchier and have more headroom. AlNiCo's will compress more and be sweeter in general. I use the Kendricks in mine, but in a/b tests the weber C10R sounded identical. The mojo P10R is (or was) a great sounding speaker too. Tubes are key, esp output tubes. Some 6L6 types can get very 'broken glassy' to my ears. The right set will be thick and chunky. If you like beefy mids try a set of KT66 in there. They just need a re-bias but sound great. (they will not hurt anything..) smoother highs on the KT's as well. Play with different pre-amp tubes as well; just bc they have a 'name' does not mean they will always sound great in every amp. Mix and match.. find the right combination in your amp. It will be well worth the time you spend dialing it in. These are some of the sweetest amps on the planet IMHO when they are happy. Don't give up, and don't mod the thing. They sound amazing stock..

12/2/2004 6:04 PM

SpeedRacer

Re: 1966 Super Reverb...harsh/brittle

IME you most certainly can. My '65 sounded terrible when I bought it (but it was CHEAP!) had bad chinese outputs biased cold, terrible speakers etc. Swapping out the output tubes, biasing pretty hot (35-40mA) and switching to good speakers made a world of difference.
For speakers, Kendrick, Weber, Mojotone all make a nice "10R" type speaker. Ceramics will be punchier and have more headroom. AlNiCo's will compress more and be sweeter in general. I use the Kendricks in mine, but in a/b tests the weber C10R sounded identical. The mojo P10R is (or was) a great sounding speaker too.
Tubes are key, esp output tubes. Some 6L6 types can get very 'broken glassy' to my ears. The right set will be thick and chunky. If you like beefy mids try a set of KT66 in there. They just need a re-bias but sound great. (they will not hurt anything..) smoother highs on the KT's as well. Play with different pre-amp tubes as well; just bc they have a 'name' does not mean they will always sound great in every amp. Mix and match.. find the right combination in your amp. It will be well worth the time you spend dialing it in. These are some of the sweetest amps on the planet IMHO when they are happy. Don't give up, and don't mod the thing. They sound amazing stock..

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