Hi Everyone,
I was wondering if I might prevail upon the resident experts on vintage Fender amps for an opinion?
I have the opportunity to buy a 1965 Blackface Deluxe Reverb. It is cosmetically pretty clean. The trannies are all original (dating to late 1964 or early 1965), but the speaker is not. There is a replacement 1963 Jensen that has been reconed (I believe it's a C12) currently in the amp. For some reason, the rectifier in there now is a Sovtek 5Y3 (Which, I believe, should be a 5AR4). All the glass is Sovtek. There's no cover and it comes with a non-original footswitch.
I'm not concerned about the speaker being a non-original recone as it sounds good. What concerns me is the 5Y3 rectifier. Considering that it's the wrong rectifier, I wonder if the circuit has been messed with (perhaps an attempt at 'brownfacing' the amp??) or if the guy just yarded out the 5AR4 (and other expensive NOS glass) because he's being cheap? I don't know much about rectifiers, but I'm unsure if it's safe to substitute a 5Y3 simply because the tube will fit in the socket. Is it possible that using a 5Y3 could damage a Deluxe Reverb in some way if it was just put in with no adjustments to the amp (rebiasing or whatever)?
Anyhow, does everyone think this is a reasonable deal at $2300?
Thanks!
I was wondering if I might prevail upon the resident experts on vintage Fender amps for an opinion?
I have the opportunity to buy a 1965 Blackface Deluxe Reverb. It is cosmetically pretty clean. The trannies are all original (dating to late 1964 or early 1965), but the speaker is not. There is a replacement 1963 Jensen that has been reconed (I believe it's a C12) currently in the amp. For some reason, the rectifier in there now is a Sovtek 5Y3 (Which, I believe, should be a 5AR4). All the glass is Sovtek. There's no cover and it comes with a non-original footswitch.
I'm not concerned about the speaker being a non-original recone as it sounds good. What concerns me is the 5Y3 rectifier. Considering that it's the wrong rectifier, I wonder if the circuit has been messed with (perhaps an attempt at 'brownfacing' the amp??) or if the guy just yarded out the 5AR4 (and other expensive NOS glass) because he's being cheap? I don't know much about rectifiers, but I'm unsure if it's safe to substitute a 5Y3 simply because the tube will fit in the socket. Is it possible that using a 5Y3 could damage a Deluxe Reverb in some way if it was just put in with no adjustments to the amp (rebiasing or whatever)?
Anyhow, does everyone think this is a reasonable deal at $2300?
Thanks!