Fender '63 Vibroverb Reissue

I bought this amp second hand from my local music shop for $700.00 cdn
the 2 10 inch oxford speakers had been replaced with a single 4 ohm 12 inch Fender speaker. As has already been noted in the other reviews, this is a 40 watt all tube re-issue of a '63 Vibroverb. This seems to be fairly accurate as far as re-issues go. The tolex is brown with a brown faceplate, brown knobs, tilt back legs and even a ground switch. These amps were made from @1990 til @1995. The tube driven tremelo is from an early Fender design as is the 3 spring long pan reverb. These amps seem very well put together. I have no problem with printed circuit boards. Unless you have a boutique amp, or an old amp you have printed circuit boards

When I first got this amplifier, I noticed it had the original duff oriental tubes. A quick trip to the old radio repair shop for some tasty n.o.s. stuff. R.C.A.'s and Philips. That helped some but still no real warmth and some shrillness at the top. Next came the Weber VST C12n 4 ohm. After a few weeks break-in.........tone to the bone!
It occurs to me that the easiest place for the manufacturers to make cost cuts is with tubes and speakers, so it makes sense to upgrade these components first. I had a Custom Vibrolux Reverb with Fender blue alnico speakers and chinese tubes and performed the same upgrades to great effect, that is i changed the speakers to Webers and re-tubed it.
Although i like the sonic spread of 2 10's I must admit that the 12 does have a lovely bottom end. Think of this amp as a Fender Deluxe on steroids. This amp is as quiet as a mouse. I put the volume on @4 or 5 the bass on @4 and the treble on @8. Reverb on 1.5 to 2 and just a little tremolo......2 and 2 sounds great. You can surf all day with this reverb and the tremolo drips.......this is very nice. I play mostly 50's and 60's rock and roll, and these are the sounds i remember. This amp will break up nicely above 5 on the volume, but as wwith much tube gear, this is a loud 40 watts. Telecasters and Stats sound great through this amp.

The construction quality is very good here. Plywood cabinet, nice tolex job, everything screwed together well. As stated before, change the tubes and carry spares, that just makes sense. Remember that this is not very expensive gear in the grand scheme of things....try buying
a Victoria, Bogner or Mesa for $700.00 C.D.N.

I have found over the years that your best bet in dealing with Fender of Gibson is to deal with a reputable retailer who will go to bat for you. If you regularly deal with a good shop they will support you just like you support them.

At our house we have Fenders, Gibsons, Marshalls but this is my amp of choice. I traded my Custom Vibrolux Reverb to my buddy for this one. He liked mine and i liked his so we swapped. I may one day return it to 2 -10's but for now I like the sound just the way it is.
To my ears this is a much better sounding amp than the '65 deluxe re-issue and only costs a little more. I would buy another in a heart beat.

The features of this amp are the specified in other submits. This one is an early 90's made amp bought new in 1995. I currently use the bright channel with reverb and sometimes tremelo. In my oppinion, both of them sounds extraordinary. The amp power is enought to play in small-medium sized locals. The amp is not too heavy (about 24 kg.).
This is not a very versatile and modern amp with a lor of features but sounds great the more classic styles (jazz, R&R, R&B, pop,....). Because its simplicity its very easy to use.

I play Gibson Les Paul, Fender Stratocaster, Fender Telecaster and Takamine. All of them sounds well. My amp had 2 10'Oxfords. They sound very good at low level (down to 4) but if you turned the volume up the speakers got a horrible saturation. Moreover, I felt that the voice of the speakers had decrease along the years. The past year I changed them by Weber's. Now I feel happy with the great sound of the sepeakers. Now, if you put the volume at 10 the amp dont distorts. It acquires a lot of bright and sparkle sound.

The amp is very strong. I've never had problems with it. Like I've written before perhaps the speakers were not the more adequate for this amp.

Fender has not regular service in Spain. Fenders dealer in Spain gives you 6 months warranty (excluding tubes).

I've playing guitar about 20 years and I've owned and played a lot of other amps. Probably this is one of the more complete of them considering all of it's characteristics (sound, price, use easiness, strength, weight, look,..). If it were stolen or lost I'll try to find another one. I love it.

This is a pretty good repo of the original 63 Vibroverb. This is the basic Fender 2 Channel with Reverb and Vibrato on one channel. No bells or whistles here (Rating 5). I bought this from an individual who had just got an orginal Vibroverb and I had a chance to actually compare the two side by side. It doesn't break up like the original and maybe not as much nice mid range as the real thing. The first thing I did was change all the tubes. I'm running Sovtek 12AX7's and a couple of JAN Phillips 12AT7's. I put Svetlana 6L6G's in the finals. Man what a difference over the Chinese tubes that were in it! I felt it was still lacking and I got a couple of the new Jensen reissure C10Q with the 1.5 inch voice coil. After a fairly short break in this thing really rocks.

I have used this with a single coil RIC, Fender Strat, Gibson Les Paul and a Epi 56 Goldtop Replica, and all with and without effect pedal. I'm using a Digtech RP 200 pedal and you can get whatever sound you want. No noise at all. Like I said above it just does'nt want to break up but the pedal makes up for it. This does have a solid state rectifier which just won't sag either. This thing sings clean though without any effect. I can't believe the bass response with the Jensen speakers. The individual guitars still sound like themselves.

I have had no problems at all with it and don't expect any. This was in near mint condition, and I do baby my stuff.

I do all my own amp repairs, This is out of warranty.

I have been playing since late 60's, mostly a bass player but love rhythm guitar and very minor leads. I have a strat, MIM tele, two gibson les pauls, one with 496 in both positions and one with PAF's, and an Epi LP Goldtop with P90's. I'm old enough to remember how these are supposed to sound. I'd rate higher but the stock speakers are not too hot and the original tubes are awful.

you know the features. a vintage-style amp with no bells and whistles and i got no problem with that.

please read this review with a grain of salt handy, because after owning this amp for several years and being happy with the sound i was getting out of it in my basement, it let me down big time at a gig last night. so some bad sounds are ringing in my ears right now. i like vintage and reissue type gear, and play the usual fenders and gibsons and, when my back feels strong, a travis bean. like everybody else, i'm always chasing the perfect tone. my style is blues-based, and i love all the '60's guitar gods. at home, at relatively low volumes and when matched with a chandler rack mount tube driver, this amp suited my style. on stage is another matter, as i'll explain more fully below.

reliability has not been a problem.

i've been playing a long time and have been thru more gear than i care to remember. for the past few years, however, i've tried to stick with the same stuff. for other amps i've got a mesa blue angel and various small blackface fenders. i had been using the mesa thru a 2x12 cab loaded with celestions with the band (a rootsy outfit playing blues and classic rock) but got tired of schlepping and decided to bring the vibroverb for a gig at a biker bar last night. the other guitarist (he tends to play rhythm more) uses a marshall 20 watt PA head into a single twelve - and he was smoking me big time! this amp is supposedly 40 watts, but sounds more like 15. funny, fender's pro junior is 15 and sounds like 40. i was playing a reissue strat, and the sound was terrible. while i like blues, i tend to go for a greasier, more distorted tone than the average tube screamer guy. the more i turned it up to cut thru, the worse the sound got. 40 watts on 8 should do the trick for the kind of band i'm in, but i was not cutting it at all. and i just couldn't get any sustain. you know that feeling when the sound is just fighting you and everything becomes an effort such that you have to play really safe so you don't sound like an idiot? it was humiliating. this amp does not really distort as you turn it up - it just goes BLAT! again, i think it's OK for clean sounds, and the reverb is good. the speakers suck, but i knew that before last night. i've read other posts where people have extensively modded these, but experience has taught me that you shouldn't beat a dead horse. i'll keep the amp and use it at home as clean amp, but i'm not risking bringing this to a gig again.

y'all know the features

play blues and drunk-a-billy with a strat and tele. when I first heard this amp I thought it was the best sounding amp I had heard. It sounds great at low volumes. When played with a band it is a little weak. I found it very tight and lacked depth. I experimented with different pre and power tubes. this helped but not enough. when played at 5 or 6 the amp broke up moderately but was very harsh. I use a TS9 tubescreamer and this enhanced the overdrive. I later ran a '59 bassman reissue with it and this improved the fullness a lot. I really thought this was the sound that i had been looking for. I then found a '73 super reverb in a basement for $65 bucks. Until then i really did not know what a good amp sounded like. This amp had warm fat overdrive and depth. the reverb and trem were lush but not as creamy as the super.

I never had any problems with it

I have been playing for 15 years. I will only get vintage amps now, no more reissues. I have since bought a '67 blackface supeer that i run with the 73 super. with that being said the vibroverb and the bassman sound better than any new amp around, including the fender blues deville. these amps sound old but they do not have the same cream and warmth of vintage fenders.

This is an update to an earlier submission:

After a year and a half of contemplating I finally had a tube rectifier installed in my Vibroverb! All that was keeping this amp from being what I wanted it to be was the lack of a rectifier tube. Gone is that stiff, brittle, fake sounding amp. Now it breathes and basically sounds like a Brown Super...a little brighter perhaps, but time will cure it of that. I also have had Jensen P10R's w/bells and Svetlana and USA Phillips tubes for a year now. Great stuff. Basically, I'm in love with the sound of this amp and the fact that there is no one out there "boutiquing" these amps seems strange. Great tone, great reverb, great trem, great weight, output, price...etc. But the tubes, speakers, and SS rec have to go.

Anyway, here's what had to be done: Order a transformer: I chose one for a Super Reverb from Zack at www.vibrowrold.com - $100 roughly. Then I took it to a good amp tech, paid him $170...and walked out with a new amp. He had to cut the chassis to accomodate the larger and heavier transformer and cut a hole for the rec tube. Not a problem.

If any one out there is being held back by that SS rectifier...I feel you. Get this mod performed. It's worth it.

Anyone know where I can find a point to point board kit for this thing!?! Hoffman doesn't make them...he makes them for almost every reissue but this one. Vibroverb owners may have to form an Alliance and find a way to get this done. We want board kits! We want board kits!

My amp must have been made some time between 1990 and 1993 according to my inquiry to Fender, as the serial number is apparantly not recorded on their system after 1993. I was very lucky to pick this amp up "used" from a local music store that I usually frequent. It had
just arrived the same day I happened to stop in. The former owner traded it towards a Fender Deluxe Tele. This amp is just like new, not the slightest bleemish anywhere, not even on the vinyl cover. I am a very fussy person and I like all of my equipment to look as good as it sounds. The '63 Vibroverb is a true vintage style amp. No frills, just great decent classic Fender sound. It is very close to the original except for the solid state rectifier and the missing conveniance plug in the back panel. That is the reason why I have rated it at a 9 instead of a 10. I don't understand why Fender did not include the conveniance plug? It is a great feature to have should you need to plug in a CD,tape player or and effect or what have you.
Mine came with the Sovtech tubes and the Oxford speakers. So far, I have not had any problems with the sound or quality. With some of the
other reports given, the owners seem to have had problmes with these.
It could depend on the individual as different playing technics, music styles etc. could have a bearing on this. There seems to be confusion on the actual wattage output, Fender specs on any of their information sheets rate it at 40 watts and some other reports are saying 35 watts? Whatever it is, I find this amp has sufficient power for most venues. Another nice feature is you don't have to be a Schartzenegger to carry it. Also the asthetics of this amp is "cool vintage".

Through my years, I have accumulated quite a large variety and collecton of guitars. Fender, Gibson, Mosrite, Rickenbacker, Godin, National, Supro etc. For me this amp is very clean and quite. I rarely take the volume past 6. Of course to get the pristine clean sounds at this volume means I am using single coil pickups. Out of my main arsenal of guitars, my main usage is:'89 American Strat with gold lace sensor pickups, '99 Custom Shop Strat with fat '50's pickups, Mosrite "Ventures Model" with Semie Mosley's special wound hot single coil pickups. Rickenbacker 360 12 string with vintage toaster top pickups.
To go the opposite (still leaving the volume on the Vibroverb at no more then 6)I get a bluesy, dirtier sound when I use my big Apple Strat with dual Seymour-Duncan pearly Gates Plus & '59 pickups or my '75 Les Paul or even my mid seventies Fender Lead II. Pickups are your key to your two basic sounds.I have not found a problem with the rectifier being solid state vs. tube however it would have been nice if Fender would have left it at tube instead. The Reverb is consistant to other Fender amps of this style(I use to own a '66 Pro-Reverb that my dad had surprisingly bought for me new in 1966, then a silver faced mid-seventies Twin reverb that I swapped my Pro-Reverb for in 1978 with the guitar player for DION when I was performing with them). For complete true "drippin-wet" reverb, you will need the '63 Fender outboard Reverb unit or else get a Vibro King or a Dual Professional amp as it has the dwell,mixer and tone controls that are essential requirements required to give you that sound.
The Vibroverb or other similar Fender amps have excellent built in reverb - but it is nowhere close to the above mentioned products. Believe me, I have played "surf" music since it was originally popular in the early sixties. I find the vibrato excellent, again as consistant as to other similar syle Fender amps. With the '63 reissue Vibroverb I also hook up a Marshall Bluesbreaker II that gives me a very smooth distortion. I also use a Chandler digital echo rackmounted unit and a Boss chorus pedal.

I have had no problems with this amp. I have owned a lot of amps through my 37 years of playing and find this amp to be of consistant quality as my older Fender amps were. Besides the '63 Vibroverb, I also have a Measa-Boogie Studio Pre-amp that I use with one of my two bands. I also have a Fender Princeton Chorus and a Marshall V65R that are excellent practise amps. My '63 Vibroverb gives me the ultimate sound for my other band that is completely instrumental.
I do not take a back up amp as I have never had any problems with my Fenders. The Mesa-Boogie acted up once but it was quickly remedied.

Fender has always been great, at least to me!? I have used them for reference and found them to be very informative and friendly. I had used them once for a warrenty repair (guitar) and they met and exceeded my expectations. Again that is my opinon.

As I have mentioned above, I have been playing for over 37 years now. I have performed with some of rock n' rolls legends and I am very happy to have found this amp. If my amp should be stolen? I try not to think of this. I make sure it is with me at all times and my home is alarmed, I also have two very mean dogs that would love to eat anyone or anything that would dare try to get close to my property.
I find that the '63 reissue Vibroverb amp gives me a most loved vintage sound. I would mention that this amp is best suited for surf,
classic rock, blues and country but probably not for some one who prefers heavy metal or grunge. I play most styles of music however I mostly lean towards Hank Marvin of The Shadows, Nokie Edwards and Dick Dale. I usually perform in large arenas and community centre halls, I find this amp to have ample power (of course I have it sound
reinforced through our system).I consider myself very lucky in finding this gem and it is a definate keeper. As some of the other reports said - "if you find one, you better buy it". Besides - the brown tolex matches my '63 outboard reverb unit! What else could I ask for!!

I believe mine is a 1993 issue, purchased mail order from Guitar Center in Arlington,Texas for $650 with footswitch. This amp can do all the tones (Country,Blues,Jazz,Metal,Rock)in a heartbeat. Two individual channels Normal and Bright with no Channel switching, Effects loops, or Headphone Jack. I've been playing for 24yrs., and also work on tube amps and do upkeep on my own. I am a purist in the sense that I like a straightforward volume tone or volume EQ design amp. The more crap (channel switching and built in effects) the more muck and deterioration of the original signal, and after all don't we all want to hear what our guitars REALLY sound like? I use this amp at all kinds of venues, and it has more than enough power to do the job. I am a minimalist when it comes to effects as well, in the past I have owned a Korg-A3 and ART-SGE rack mount processors, and I got rid of them and opted for my Tom Scholz Rockman that I have owned & used for many years. The Rockman has (2)GREAT clean EQ settings(1)edge setting and(1)distortion setting, the ECHO(Reverb)and CHORUS settings are perfect, and I believe compression is designed into the circuitry such that all notes (clean/dirty) are sustained longer. The 63'Vibroverb by itself is awesome, and when coupled with the Rockman the sound is pure heaven. My amp has the stock speakers, and preamp tubes that came with the amp. The only thing that I have changed out is the Chinese Fender 6L6's for Sovtek 5881 WXT's. Even with the stock speakers the headroom is high and the sound remains tight until around 7 or 8 when it starts to break up.

I have 6, and soon to be 7 electric guitars all of them LEFTY except one. A 1990 Gibson ES-335 Dot Neck RI in Tobacco Sunburst, Custom Made PRS copy (Ron Lira - Honest Ron's Guitars Okc.,Ok.),60's Greco "Super Real" Les Paul 59'copy(previously owned by Elliot Easton formerly of the "Cars"),American Std.Tele 3-Tone Sunburst w/maple neck, Baby Blue 62' Fender Strat,Tokai 56' 3-Tone Sunburst Strat w/maple neck and tortoise shell pickguard(RIGHTY strung left).All my guitars either have stock vintage output pickups, or Seymour Duncan vintage output pickups. I play all styles except country, and have done much experimentation with this amp. It is a tight little amp primarily because of the solid state rectification, although it would be nice to be able to plug in a tube rectifier (ala Tweed Bassman RI).
The 63' RI amp can be modded to do this by utilizing an actual NOS 63'Vibroverb Power Transformer, and it can also be modded to use EL34 Power Pentodes(ala Marshall) for an improvement in both clean and distorted settings.

The 63' Vibroverb is highly dependable, especially without a backup. The only minor problem that I have encountered with the Fender Classic RI's(Tweed Bassman and 63'Vibroverb)is the Fender Chinese 6L6's that came as standard issue with both amps. When these tubes were working they sounded GREAT! but after 3 months the Tweed Bassman RI's tubes had to be replaced(one was ready to short out - red plate)and about a year after buying the 63' Vibroverb RI I noticed a low volume ticking sound like that of the tremolo being turned on at low volume. Marshall had a similar problem in past years with the quality of their OEM EL34's such that they started shipping 6550's as standard equipment.The 6550's would last through the warranty period and Marshall wouldn't be stuck with the out of pocket expense. Barring this observation on Power Pentodes, I would still give this amp a 10 for reliability, because they are no longer made and therefore most end users by now will have already changed these out for better quality tubes.

I don't need Fender for support or repair. Just as long as GOD blesses me with the ability to use my own hands, heart,and mind I've got all the customer support I need.

If I had to replace the amp, and had the money to do it, I would try to find another one just like it. I have always liked 10" speakers in combination, with configurations such as: 2X10's or 4X10's.

This is an update on the 1963 reissue Vibroverb after I have been playing out with it weekly for alomost two years.

At first I was disappointed with it because it was clean only at any volume. I tried several different power tubes including yellow jackets which did not change the tone any noticable amount. I finally decided to use a power booster (LPB-2) and an 808 Tubescreamer.

This amp is rated at 35 watts and is louder than most 100 watt amps. With the LPB-2 I was too loud so I quit using it. My amp has Weber P10Q speakers (not original).

After a few months of playing through it regularly at rather high volumes the sound started to change. It is no longer clean all the way. It starts to break up at around 4 on the volume. It is still very loud and the tone is fantastic and getting better every time I use it. It seems that it needed some break in time. I am using the original Fender tubes with excellent results.
I still use a tubescreamer on occasion to provide a Marshall sound.
I have had absolutely no problems with it. Both the reverb and vibrato are excellent. If you get one and decide to change the power tubes be sure to have it biased. I have played through the original 1963's long ago and this amp sounds considerable better with much more volume when needed. Set your guitar volume at 10 and the amp volume at 4 and get a great blues sound with nice distortion.

I play a 1966 Rickenbacker 370, 1972 Stratocaster, American Fat Telecaster and an SG Doubleneck into this amp. Each guitar has an entirely different sound through the amp. Single coil guitars are bright and clean but will distort nicely. Les Paul's and SG's have a much darker sound with more pronounced distortion. The Rickenbacker rings like it should. An archtop gets excellent jazz sounds. If you don't like the sound of this amp just try another guitar.

I have been playing for over 30 years and have played most popular guitars and amps. The only amp that compares to the 1963 Vibroverb reissue, in my opinion, is a Twin Reverb. But the Vibroverb weighs half of what the Twin weighs. I am hoping to get a (brown) 2x10 extension cabinet for it in the future. I play at some loud venues and this amp keeps up with the best of them. Don't tie the channels together. They are out of phase from each other and you will lose much of the low end.

Its a faithful copy (cosmetics) With typical controls, vol, bas, treb,reverb and trem intensity and speed. Two channel, normal and bright, just like original.Looks wonderful, nice job with all the cosmetics with this amp, but.............

Looks can be deceiving. I received this amp in very good shape. All original except new Jensen C10Q speakers. Good sovteck tubes. It was well kept and really had no operating problems at all. Here comes the interesting part. I had to write out this review after reading all the wonderful things said about this amps tone. I have been playing professionally for 22 years, own a '67 Fender Super Reverb, '65 Princeton Reverb, ya da, ya da, you get the picture. Well I hooked up my ES 335 to this beautiful looking amp and immediately looked around, up and down and inside and tried to find the TONE! Its not there brother, just not there. Very, I mean very, dark and low fi.
Tapped treble control or not if this is really anything like the original circuit I find it hard to believe the originals would be that sought after. I tried everying, my Tele single coils, different speakers, tubes. Also this amp is too loud and not in a good may. If you are looking for nice reasonable break up it isn't going to happen untill after you damage your ears. Remember unlike the original this amp has a solid state rectifier.Reverb was nice sounding but almost unusable. Anything beyond 2 you are swimming in a sea of muck. Now I know tone is a subjective thing but if you are looking for a nice blues, rock tone and are thinking Hmmmm could be like a nice old Fender, forgetaboutit!! I really wanted and tried my best to make this amp work. Its pretty, light weight and hey its a Fender.

Did not have it long. The tube sockets wobbled , I believe the original speakers are poor and there is the whole circuit board thing. But to tell you the truth I think if it is takin care of it would be fine. Now repairing it if it does break down, that could be a whole new chapter.

Fender............well I don't think they are going to be too helpful do you? Best bet is to find someone good with small soldering irons and is good with circuit boards. ( electronic repair )

AS I mentioned earlier I am not a new comer to playing and have bought and used many tube amps over the years. None quite as pretty as this one thought. All that glitters is not gold. What a shame. It worked fine, looked good, but great tone, come on guys!