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Fender creates solid state BF Deluxe and Twin

J T

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Oct 20, 2005
Messages
10,501
Tone Master

The Deluxe


Attenuation all the way down to .2 watts.
DI out with cab/mike sim of a 57 and a 121.
23 lbs.

The Twin


Attenuation all the way down to 1 watt,
DI out with cab/mike sim of a 57 and a 121.
33lbs


What do you think?
 

deytookerjaabs

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Nov 6, 2016
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They seem to sound fine, so do the reissue amps. Eh. Will have to try one in person.

But then I'd wonder why bother trying? Shave a couple pounds, attenuation, a direct out, cool? If I get to a point where a couple pounds is the end all be all, or I have to put up or shut up with my amp choice etc then I'll have bigger fish to fry than worrying about the aesthetic appearance of my backline.

Carting around my 60's Fender amps isn't a problem and never has been but now marketing is there to convince me otherwise? It's funny how selling convenience no matter the minutiae really resonates with people.
 

toxpert

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Jul 2, 2005
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40 years later...I still wince at the thought of that skinny little cabinet top handle and carrying my late 60s Fender Twin Reverb with the 2 JBL D120f speakers. Finger tendons screaming out and shoulder at the point of popping out. I remain convinced my lower back pain came from carrying that beast.

So loud...so clean...so heavy.

Traded that monster for a motorcycle during grad school. :dude:
 

Wilko

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They seem to sound fine, so do the reissue amps. Eh. Will have to try one in person.

But then I'd wonder why bother trying?

Trying to create an amp that can be made without hard to source expensive tube (and other ) components that are hard to keep in tolerance, price, and quality. Once the R&D is done, the amp could--in theory--sound as good and be consistently made to sound great at a better relative price point. Maybe side benefits could be line out, attenuation, etc.

Not about weight.
 

zacknorton

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Aug 26, 2011
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731
Attenuation in a Ss amp?

Why?


There are no power tubes to push to saturation at full volume. And therefore no need to attenuate the volume.

Just turn down the amp.
 

J T

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Oct 20, 2005
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The other thing I'm curious about is why there is a standby switch. :hmm
 

deytookerjaabs

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Nov 6, 2016
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Trying to create an amp that can be made without hard to source expensive tube (and other ) components that are hard to keep in tolerance, price, and quality. Once the R&D is done, the amp could--in theory--sound as good and be consistently made to sound great at a better relative price point. Maybe side benefits could be line out, attenuation, etc.

Not about weight.


I worded that poorly, I didn't mean "why bother trying" per FMIC, I just meant personally I don't have any issues which warrant purchasing one. I can see the appeal to others and question the weight in terms of how much you're saving versus the tube version with Neo speakers. I will say all the "Custom" series of drip edge looking reissues I've plugged into sounded great and were very consistent in doing so but I'm not sure what the difference in street price is.
 

zacknorton

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The cool thing is that they’re putting some juice into making good sounding ss amps. But hyping an attenuator and having a standby switch etc. is stupid.
 

musekatcher

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Apr 15, 2018
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135
40 years later...I still wince at the thought of that skinny little cabinet top handle and carrying my late 60s Fender Twin Reverb with the 2 JBL D120f speakers. Finger tendons screaming out and shoulder at the point of popping out. I remain convinced my lower back pain came from carrying that beast.

So loud...so clean...so heavy.

Traded that monster for a motorcycle during grad school. :dude:

My back DID start warning me from carrying a '70 TR w/D120s, so I started carrying a counterweight in the other hand, and that worked. I spent a fair amount of time with that amp and a LP just today. Great amp.

I think folks are shell shocked about any kind of SS, modelling, non-tube amp, with so many products in the past 30 years that didn't pan out. But the reports are favorable. If they do in fact possess some tube-ness in tone, volume and impact, they would be a nice amp for those with weight lifting restrictions. But at this point, weight savings isn't that important to me either.
 

sonar

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Jan 10, 2003
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3,589
I hated lugging around my Twin and there was more than a few times (usually when I was loading in or out) where I wanted to punch out the sides and install a pair of Marshall recessed handles.

A favorite about my Tweed Deluxe Clone is how light that sucker is, even with an alnico speaker.
 

Wallace

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Feb 23, 2003
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These look like fun:salude
l like the idea of a silent record facility.
 

The Shifter

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Aug 31, 2004
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I watched Andy's blind shoot out on Reverb. By and large, I preferred the sound of the DSP modeling amps to the tube Reissues.


 

goldtop0

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Aug 19, 2003
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8,931
Got to admit the DR sounds pretty good with the neo speaker, I'd need to play one to get a good feel for it with the attenuation etc.
i know I don't need a 100w combo and the price(US$900) will work out to around NZ$2.3k or so when they hit our shores so..................
 

thejaf

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Oct 27, 2006
Messages
527
When clicking on this thread and seeing Tone Master my first thought was "Fender is reissuing the kick-ass 100-watt amp from the early 1990s!" Oh how wrong I was :##
 

Cliff Gress

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Aug 26, 2004
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The A/B video was good, I needed to be told which was which.

A Princeton in this format would be great.
 

herb

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Jan 13, 2002
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Fender's attempt to stay with the times. As a business I'm sure they feel they need to do this to remain relevant. As someone that owns 6-8 tube amps I currently have no desire to purchase one of the new Tone Masters (or any other current SS amp) but someone starting out or even a pro that needs the features these amps offer will take a good, hard look at them, I'm sure.

When tube amps are obsolete or too costly to maintain (whenever that's going to be) we'll all be glad that Fender and other amp companies took the time and resources to start R&D these amps now.

I'll be turning 65 in a few days and am pretty sure my tube amps are all I'll need for the rest of my life but, as someone that's been playing electric guitars for over 50 years, I'm pretty curious to try one.
 

Gris Gris Man

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Oct 12, 2019
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6
I've had one of the Tone Master Twins for about a month now and it totally fulfills all promises for me. I've owned quite a few mid-60's and earlier Fender amps over the years, my first Fender amp was a Vibrolux Reverb back in '65. So I know the tone. I've always loved Twins but the weight and incredible loudness were obstacles. So this seemed like it held promise when I first read about them. I have a great reference guitar to use with it, my '65 ES-335 and I'm the original owner. So I was skeptical but hopeful the first time I plugged in and turned it on. Well, took no time to dial the amp in as it works exactly like a vintage version but with the ability to get the volume control in the sweet spot and dial down the sound pressure level with the power scaling. Everything works and sounds just like all the vintage versions I've ever used or owned. The reverb is killer and the tremolo is perfect.

I also can't resist picking the thing up every time I go into the studio and play it for a while. It weighs only about half what real deal BF Twin weighs. For comparison sake I just flipped a recent model Supro 1600 Supreme after I bought this. The Supro is a single 10" speaker, dual 6V6 amp with just two volume controls and a single tone control. Good amp, basic but nice tube tone. The kicker is it weighs 1 pound more than this Tone Master Twin. That's just nuts. The Twin is also fantastic with pedals.

I love this new Fender, it just makes me want to play. As far as all the prognostication I've seen about long term reliability, and what about obsolescence, I'm not concerned. It gives me a great amp for the studio and a killer rig for gigging. The XLR out works great, the cab sim IR's are perfect to my ear. This amp will scale nicely for small club gigs and the bigger summer festivals I play.

My advice is check as many videos as you can if you're considering it. I think they do a fairly good job demoing what the amp sounds like except that none catch that juicy 3D feel live in the room. The amp does that for me. I wasn't looking for a new amp but when I saw these things it all made sense for my needs. I'd actually been considering a Deluxe Reverb reissue recently but wanted a bright switch and a middle control so I held off. Glad I did.

Oh, and before anyone suggests it, I'm not affiliated with Fender and have no agenda. I just joined this forum recently and this is the first topic for which I have something to contribute. On another forum somebody accused me a being a shill. I'm not above that sort of thing, but it takes cold, hard cash to get me to do it and nobody has paid me a dime.
 

fakejake

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Sep 3, 2010
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Anyone knows whether the headroom on these is more than on the original tube versions?
Would be great to use the Deluxe Reverb as a clean platform on louder gigs without any unwanted distortion.
 
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Gris Gris Man

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Oct 12, 2019
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Anyone knows if whether the headroom on these is more than on the original tube versions?
Would be great to use the Deluxe Reverb as a clean platform on louder gigs without any unwanted distortion.

The headroom is the same. You do have the XLR out but the amp still has the same volume capability as the regular tube version. I went with the Twin to have more headroom before breakup at any given power level.

One thing asked about was about the "standby" switch. It is actually a mute switch so you can kill the internal speaker while sending a signal out the XLR. The amp still functions but silences the internal speakers.
 
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