Pribek

Here’s a neat little tube amp from Fender, the 65 Princeton re-issue.

It is 15 watts through a 10″ Jensen speaker-two 6V6’s for tubes. It sounds real nice. Click here for sound clips.

The original Princeton’s are great for recording and I have no doubt that this re-issue would be as well. The reverb sings and it has the real deal vibrato, turn it up and it saturates, turn it down and it gets mellow.

Great practice amp, no doubt.

I’ve been doing a little thinking since we last talked amps here. Is a 15 watter like this enough to do a gig with? Here’s the thing, I strive to do two things, keep it simple and, be prepared for the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario often involves issues with the PA. Sometimes, there isn’t a free channel for the guitar so, you have to have enough power to ensure you are going to hear yourself on stage and pump out enough to be heard out front in that situation. Sometimes, the monitor mix isn’t going to give you quite enough or the sound guy sucks and you have to have enough power to ensure you are going to hear yourself on stage.

Right now, with TNH, we carry our own system and Allen is real good at getting the mix right. So, I would feel comfortable taking something like this Princeton, putting it on an amp stand so it’s pointed at an angle, putting the Sennheiser guitar mic. that I always carry on it and sticking a few select stomp boxes on the floor. It would be a must to run it back through the monitors and that’s the key. You got to get enough through the monitors to get your touch.

It would be a joy to carry around though.

Sweetwater has the list price at $899.99 but, they don’t have them in stock. The 15 watt Blues Junior goes for around five bills for comparison. I’m sure the Blues Junior has a printed circuit board and I’m guessing that the Princeton does not because, when they do these re-issues, they stay pretty faithful there. And, the vibrato on the Princeton is classic, if you are in to that sort of thing. Those little Jensen speakers, I’ve always liked them.

By the way, I found out about this amp by subscribing to Fender News by email. Pretty neat if you dig Fender stuff. Click here to sign up for that.