Repairing a VINTAGE Silverface Fender Princeton Reverb [Full Service+DEMO]
10,026
Published 2019-01-16
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We take a close look at a great vintage classic amongst guitar amps, the Fender Princeton Reverb, covering tubes, capacitors, sockets, bias, and what not! Even in today's modern in-the-box realm of recording, the Fender Princeton Reverb, especially the vintage ones still stand a solid ground in recording electric guitar!
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In this complete repair service we discover that it's from 1976 and in good shape, but has probably has never been serviced before. We change out the electrolytic capacitors, and also end up replacing the octal tube sockets after an attempt at re-tensioning the pins in the original sockets. These were worn-out, unfortunately.
0:00 Introductie
0:21 Visual Inspection
2:35 Disassembly
7:01 A Service Plan
8:43 Happy Soldering Time!
15:42 Surgery Recap
16:08 Cleaning Pots & Tube-Sockets
22:02 Bringing it to life
26:45 Output Tube Bias
33:25 And more soldering!
34:19 DEMO
We are lucky: This PT is a double-120v example and the JJ-5U4GB miraculously gives us the right voltage for a newly installed set of JJ-6v6 in the original non-adjustable fixed bias setup! Too high current draw could cause low plate voltages but it's good that's not the case. A GZ-34 takes it closer to the given value on the schematic anyway but the amp works great in this conservative setup. In this video I'll show you how to calculate the bias in these.
The original Blue coupling capacitors also test fine and are not leaking (yet). While the amp might benefit in the future from a preventive replacement, it's nice that it's further fully original and working great.
We do modify the tremolo as it is a very easy and reversible mod. The original value of 1M didn't quite cut it, even with the intensity on 10. This is a common mod.
Gotta love these old Princetons, which aren't critically altered since the blackface era. When pushed a little and played with the right touch it can give you a wide range of great guitar tones with just your attitude and electronics on your guitar!
May it please you, more tech-mumbling content is on the way!
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All Comments (21)
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The demo at the end with the tele is awesome. Fantastic tone. My PR is just a bit older and is a lifetime amp for sure. Thank you!
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Great work and best explanation of biasing I’ve seen! Great playing as well!!
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Sounds real good .....sweet amp😊
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I dont know why I am watching this.I can barely change a light bulb. Anyways,I really liked your video.There is something calming watching people fix amps and set up guitars.More of these please 🙂
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Great video man 🎉
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Sparkle 😊
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Good job, glad you replaced those wonky sockets!
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At 16:40 deoxit is sprayed into the tube sockets. I'm not sure that is best practice. I think isopropyl alcohol is a better cleaning agent as it will 100% evaporates out. Those sockets remain glossy/shiny after the deoxit spray suggesting that something was left behind for perpetuity. Tube sockets should look clean and dry. Thanks for the video.
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Ciao Aldo, Perfect video and very well explained process. Really appreciate it. I love my ´66 Princeton Reverb. By the way , the telecaster authority the Princeton is perfect . That is my set up , ciao e salute
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Sounds unbelievable with that Telecaster
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Very cool! Amazing tones man!
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Clear and concise, perfect video. Thanks for posting.
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Sounds beautiful! Great job and thanks for explaining the details
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great job thanks !
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You are Dutch,i prepose(you sound Dutch). Great video and explination on working on this amp. Soon i get a friend over,to inspect his Fender Princeton reverb: it got serviced years ago,so maybe some capaciters are already replaced.It needs service on the pots(got scratchy) and check the tubes.Maybe the speaker is gonna replaced with a JBL E 110.
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yeah the green wire is a nice cold joint :) except for that nice!!! its amazing how simple they are.
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Wonderful video I'm fixing a Princeton reverb right now the 1000 Ohm resistor by the center tap keeps melting well we'll see if I can fix it thanks again
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An amp that sounds that good with speaker face down on a table is gonna work out just fine.
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Is the volume knob turned down at all on the tele in the demo?
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You could measure the voltage drop over the OT live, but use an alligator clip. Even with this multimeter, you would have gotten two decimals, which really matter... If the voltage drop was actually 4.4V dissipation per tube would be +11W. Great video still!
