Princeton Reverb = small deluxe reverb?

I have both. They're similar but not quite the same. The PR has quite a bit less clean headroom which is fine for a "stay at home" amp. I've modded my PR pretty heavily...12" speaker, PI mods, OT upgrade...and I can use it at some gigs with a pretty loud drummer. Mic'ing always helps.

 

I prefer the PR's.......because of the split tailed PI. Its a hair more in the marshall camp. Both are great amps tho....

 

PRs sound "smaller" in general to my ears even at similar volume level...

 

had a SF, now I have a 66 BF...........both sound great and very very close to each other. The stock speakers sounded very small.........I replaced the stocker in the SF with a weber P10Q and it sounded huge. In my BF I went another step and bought a 12" baffle then dropped in a red fang. It is a great amp.........unreal cleans, nice verb and trem.....hit it with a OD and it will sing for daze....

 

I have 72/73 SF modded by David Allen (great guy). Weber speaker...added a bias control, and did the obligatory PI mods.

I love it...I bash it w/a bad bob booster.

Here's what DA did.
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I have your amp finished. Here is what I found/did….

The main filter can capacitor tested good so I left it in there.

I replaced 6 cathode bypass capacitors and the bias supply filter capacitor. One cathode bypass capacitor was missing. There appeared to have been some work done with the speaker jacks. Your ext speaker jacks was falling apart and wasn’t tight. I replaced both speaker jacks and rewired the output transformer and NFB leads going to the jacks.

I installed a bias adjustment pot. The Philips tubes were matched and sounded good so I left those in there. I installed the correct 5U4G rectifier tube and a new 12AT7 (I didn’t see on in the amp) and a new 12AX7 tube. Two of the 12AX7s you sent tested noisy so those are the two I replaced.

I did the Paul C and Stokes mods to the phase inverter. I installed the blackface spec cathode resistor and bypass capacitor for the reverb driver tube (12AT7). The silverface spec runs that tube very hot and is prone to more failures. I put shield covers on the preamp tubes.

As you already had the hole drilled in the back panel, I installed my combination middle/raw control. I put a mark where the middle would be set on a stock amp without this control. I put a pointer type knob so you could feel about where it was set without having to look at the back of the amp. Just above 9:00 is the stock setting. You can now turn that control down to scoop the mids more or turn it up to unscoop them and give you some gain boost, too.

 

I'm planning on doing the 1x12 thing to a BFPR. Thinking about splurging for a Celestion Blue; comments?

/rick

 

will sound great but, at 15 watts you will be right on the edge and with what a real blue cost.......I think its risky. Thats why I went with the Red Fang. I've never compared a real blue to a redfang and have been told the red fang is only close, but is rated at 30 watts.......sounds damn good and cost a whole lot less

 

I've got mine set up very similiar and I gig with it regularly and have no volume problems.

BTW, did you have clearance problems w/ the speaker and OT. I've got an OT from Allen, I wanted a Weber 12F150 in the amp but there's no way that hotdog style basket would clear the Allen OT. So I had Weber build a 12F150 into a four hole Celestion style basket abd I mounted the speaker so the OT sits inside one of the cut outs. That speaker sounds fantastic with this amp.

This amp has more grind when pushed than a DR, which works well for my style.

 

Have a BFPR and several BF and SF DRs.

As another pointed out, the different phase inverter has a strong influence on headroom and also how the amp behaves on the edge of distortion. The DR isn't "louder", it just has a touch more headroom. PR also has a bias-vary trem that sounds much nicer than the LDR-based version in the DR (though you have to keep the trem controls clean and lubed or kiss your power tubes goodbye).

The stock Oxfords (or later Utahs) are crap next to replacements from the likes of Weber. After a very public grab of the BFPR here, refurb and load with a ceramic Weber 10, it's become the main practice amp (superseding a much loved BFSR )

 

Aren't the DR transformers relatively beefier and doesn't that significantly impact the sound?

 

The Blue sounds great in a BFPR. It is very efficient as well and will make the PR much more gigable. In the PR that I have put the Blue, I also put in a DR OT and did the Stokes and Paul C mod. It is pretty close to a stock DR and is much punchier and louder than the stock PR. The tone does change some with these mods, but it is still very much a Fender.

As for power handling, don't worry at all about a Blue in a PR. I've tried a Red Fang, but prefered the Blue simply for tone.

The cabinet size has a considerable effect on the DR sounding "bigger". The PR will almost always have a slightly more boxy sound, the DR more "airy" and open.

If you need to choose one or the other (having one of each is best ), I'd choose the DR if you are going to be playing with a full band often. If you are playing at home, recording (Larry Carlton used one extensively), playing an occasional gig or small jam, I'd say the PR will be fine.

 

I would have had major space problems for the OT except that I had already replaced the can cap with internal Sprague Atoms. That allowed me to locate the OT over the hole where the can cap had been. Not sure if it would have been possible any other way. I matters had been more desperate, I would have tried mounting the OT inside the cabinet.

 

Yes (I used an Allen OT though). In either case, the improvement is a definite asset.

 

Yes, the PR would probably be the best choice for your situation.

 

Well, keep in mind that w/ the Celestion style four hole basket everything will clear. It's tight, but it all fits. It would help though if you make/buy a replacement baffle with the speaker offset to the side to make room for the OT.

 

How's the restoration of the BFPR coming?

 

All done. It's the BFPR mentioned above as current shop favorite