What are your thoughts on the CS Fender 57 Tweed Deluxe

[guitardirky]

Any body have an opinions on these amps? Good or bad?

[wyatt]

I feel they are overpriced, but that's what Fender's brand equity allows. One can buy a well-made clone for half the price that has equal quality parts.

Otherwise they are fine amps. It's a extremely simple circuit and damn hard to screw up, Fender does a fine job. Their parts are pretty much all off the shelf, Mercury Magnetic transformers (pretty top of the line), Illinois brand caps (nothing special at all, a really common cap in mass-produced amps), modern carbon film resistors, etc. There is a single proprietary part on the amp, the 5Y3 rectifier tube is made by Shuguang for Fender and not sold aftermarket, other modern 5Y3's don't have the correct voltage drop.

The construction is top rate, lots of changes to make sure it's safety compliant in EU, new venting on the chassis (okay, this is another proprietary part, but not in the signal chain), extra fuses to protect the heater filaments, etc. Not-period correct, but not bad ideas either.

I believe street price for the Fender RI is $1600...for $850-900 you can get a Richter or Clark Beaufort Special that are almost made from great aftermarket parts. For $1500 you can get a Clark Beaufort with NOS Allen Bradley Carbon Comp resistors (the top of the line resistor for audio in ye days of old), and high-end Jensen oil-in-foil caps (these are like $20 a cap), higher quality NOS tube sockets, proprietary transformers, a significantly more expensive speaker (Celestion Blue RI), and a NOS 5Y3 and NOS 12AY7 preamp tube; in short, a hell of a lot of more expensive parts for less money overall.

So, I don't think the Fender is prices competitively except for one aspect, people want a Fender. Fair enough. They still get a great amp, but I think they could have as good or better* for less.

*Subjective, i know.

[roadfilm]

I have one. I didn't like the stock Jensen that came in it. It was too brittle and harsh, buzzy sounding. I gave the Jensen a couple months then replaced it with a Celestion Blue and it's now my favorite amp. It's perfect for blues and classic rock. Extremely touch sensitive and guitar volume knob sensitive. Some people love the stock Jensen so YMMV. I wasn't too thrilled with the stock Fender tubes either but that's true with any modern production tubes.

[guitardirky]

nice review. I was offered one in a trade so I wanted to get a low down on it before hand. I have the custom shop vibroverb 15 that i love and assumed that this amp shouldnt be to terrible.

[slowhandjr]

I think its a great amp overall!! I'm replacing the speaker with a weber for more volume, overall the tone is great!

[wyatt]

Originally Posted by billco

Enjoyed the review; to the point and non-biased. We could use more of that around here!

I did not know about the 5Y3 being proprietary. If this tube is not available aftermarket, what do you replace it with if the need should arise, and how much does it actually effect the end result?

Since Fender owns GT these days, I can only assume it'll be available. At least through Fender dealers.

Other modern 5Y3's are too high of voltage...most are equivalent to 5RA4/GZ43. This puts the B+ voltage way too high to the power and preamp tubes. Often the power tubes will bias too hot as a result.

NOS 5Y3's are $15, about the same as the modern tubes, and just about any one is just as good as the other, and will last seemingly forever in a 5E3, so you don't have to hunt down any rare Supafunkin model or anything.