The Twin Report
In a previous post I outlined the need for some maintenance on my Fender 65 Twin Reissue. This amp is the workhorse for my gigs with The Dudley Manlove Quartet. Over the past year I’ve noticed that the tone seemed less dimensional than before, and that I seemed to be lacking clean headroom at gigs. I bought this amp used and had a simple shop inspection as part of the purchase.
I recently discovered there is a great electronic repair shop right in my home town of Burien, which is much more convenient that driving all the way into North Seattle for routine service. The shop tech and I discussed the work I wanted done, and he really did a nice job. All of the tube sockets needed tightening and cleaning, as did the jacks in the amp chassis. Once this was completed the entire chassis was inspected, and then the amp was completely retubed with new Groove Tubes.
The first post-spa gig was Saturday 2/12 at the Tulalip Casino. This is a big stage and gives me an opportunity to really check out the sound of the amp. It sounded much better than before. There is a lot of warmth and big tone that was not present before the tune up. I know the power tubes were previously mismatched, and I suspected the preamp tubes might have been getting pretty tired. The sound of the freshly retubed and tuned amp is inspiring, and I look forward to many years of using this amp. Based on the recommendation of my tech, I’ll probably do a full retube every three years on this unit from now on.