Fender 30

1981 2 x 10 Fender 30. Speakers have been replaced with Celestions.

Normal Channel has no reverb. Previous poster said that the reverb would work on the Normal Channel if you turned the Channel Switching OFF, but not mine. Stompbox reverb in front of amp doesn't sound good to my ears. That said, the dry Normal Channel sounds awesome with the right tweaks. You have to plug into the Reverb Channel to use the Channel Switching feature.

No FX loop, No Vibrato. Wouldn't use the loop if I had it, but I miss the Fender Vibrato (yeah, I know it's Tremolo).

The push/pull boosts on the gain, treb, mids, and bass can be useful. Fender amps always have too much bass anyway, IMO, so I'll never use that boost. The mid boost, especially, will get used a lot. Amp is very tweakable, not always a plus. This amp makes me want to dial in a perfect tone for every song on the set list (because I can), and there ain't time for that.

Tube rectifier gives both channels a bit of modulation, which is the reason I like tube rectifiers.

I play Deluxes most of the time, but I won't turn them up over 5 or 6 or so (bottom end gets flabby), and sometimes the venue demands more stage volume. I have a 2 x 10 Concert, but it's too loud if I want it to break up. The 30 is the perfect power level for times when I need a bit more power, without changing my tone drastically.

I play Country and Classic Rock in Honky Tonks. I tour some. I play ASATs almost exclusively live, got a Legacy and a Comanche and a PRS Custom 24 and an old LP Deluxe at home. Amp sounds great with an ASAT or Bluesboy (Yeah, I'm partial to G&L's). Top end will slice the top of your head off, cut through anything. No good for someone playing heavy music, but real good for someone like me who has to go from cry in your beer to southern rock to 40's jazz to college music at the drop of a tip.

Amp has been fully serviced, but still hums with single coils. By itself, or with a HB, it's dead silent. Will do OD tones to a pretty high gain level, not into the Metal range, but pretty dirty. This amp is very 3 - dimensional, and I like it a lot. It actually does the Country Tele thing - almost to the point of breaking up, but not quite - better than the Deluxes. 3-spring reverb isn't as lush as the Deluxes, seems like it's too high a frequency??

I have played Fender Amps for over 35 years. I carry fuses and tubes and tools and soldering irons, and I have seen about every problem a Fender Amp can give you when you're 500 miles from home and broke. Tubes wear out, fuses blow, soldering comes loose, tube sockets come loose. Bottom line is that, while old tube amps are more fragile and persnickity, they make up for it in tone. I've been playing Fender tube amps for so long, nothing else sounds right to me anymore.

I never deal with Fender. I have a great amp tech who ******* at me for putting EV 12L's in my Deluxes and then keeps vintage tubes and output transformers handy in the drawer because he knows I ain't gonna pay any attention to him and they're gonna blow.

Every time I find another amp, he gives it the 50 dollar E-Ticket ride, cleans and re-solders everything, puts in a bias adjustment if it doesn't have one, and doesn't mess with anything that doesn't need messing with. I trust him implicitly - way more than I do Fender (heck, he might be an authorized Fender shop, I don't know).

I played my first paying show in 1967. I've owned more gear than most music stores. I am partial to G&L Guitars and the Fender Series II amps that came out in the early 80's because of the Channel Switching thing. The Fender 30 sounds a lot like the Series II amps, but it predates them a little, and no reverb on the Clean side.

This is the only Fender 30 I've ever seen. A lot of Steel players use the Fender 75 with the 15" EV that came out at the same time, and I've seen several of them. Don't think I could replace it easily.

I love the Tele tone this amp has, and I love that I can get about any tone that I myself would ever use. I don't like spending so much time twiddling knobs. I wish it had Vibrato.

Really don't use this amp that often on the road, but I gravitate toward it at home, keep it in the bedroom with a Bluesboy under the bed. Like I said, the power rating is great for when a Deluxe is too light.

Great features. Sweet High-Gain sound. 30W of power---tube power, so obviously underrated. Great for practice, recording and small-medium gigs.

Very high gain and distortion on hum-bucking pickups. single coils and p-90's have a cleaner, but still distorted tone. Hum balance pot is great at canceling out unwanted noise.

only replaced tubes twice and the power capacitors once. A very good , reliable tube amp.

Best amp I have ever owned. extremely versatile, reliable, and good sounding. I have had this amp for 3 years, played it every-day and my playing has improved tremendously. Too bad there were only 100 made. If I could find another one I could surely buy it.

Well, back again. I wanr to ad some more info on my 10/19/2003 submission on this great amp.

Still have it, still like it. Never used the distortion mode on this amp. I like the clean with a the natural tube crunch. Now to improve the sound of this amp I disconnected the disccaps on V1 and V2. Put some JJ there and took the Eminence out and replaced it with a celesyion Vintage 30. It rocks. It really does. I love it.

A while ago the amp started to act weird. Stange sounds, distortion, volume drop, dead channel, led went off. It appeared to be the solid state appartment neath the capacitor housing. The soldered connector had come loose. Resoldered the complete (plastic) connector and every went fine from then on.

Don't think I need them.

It's so underrated. They all want the blackface thing. I got a blackface Bassman Amp. It's great, this is amp too, so is my Fender 75 and my Princeton Reverb II. A good speaker, good tubes, fine bias and there you go!

Fender 30 1x12", around 1980-81, last of the traditional construction Fender amps (good luck with your Blooz De Swill). I just wanted a relatively cheap and reliable amp platform that I can maintain and modify if need be. This amp fits the bill, with some caveats...Lots of 80's buzzola boost-mojo stuff, some of which is useful. But I really couldn't care less about sounding like Larry Carltoon anyway...

Use it with a 80's RI Dot 335, a R6 RI Les Paul, and a '54 Tele. Sounds beter with the P90's to my ears, but does a nice Tele thing too. The 335 is a little sludgy in this amp. It's adequate for lower volume gigs and recording, esp. with an efficient speaker. The preamp and pull boosts can tweak in a few different tones, but nothing radically different from various mods that are possible with a BF amp.

Not too good...bad tube sockets (seems to be a problem starting in the late 60's SF stuff). Need to replace all the octals; loose contacts that won't re-tension, tubes fall out in transport. Not good...It has blown fuses on powerup, so this is an issue. Not crazy about the push pull pots; kinda noisy and don't really trust them to last much longer. The wiring and layout are pretty bad; how much wire and components can you stuff in a BF chassis? There is also a cheapo standoff for part of the bias circuit that looks like an afterthought. As far as maintenance, I don't think it has been touched since Reagan took office.

I have the original schem and layout for it that came with the amp (?)...So I guess I can hack away at it.

Been playing 40 years, use mostly 50's Tweeds, the occasional Ampeg/Traynor/Vox, etc. Avoid Fender BF/SF cowboy amps like the plague ever since I got fired from the Buckaroos for telling Buck an Okie joke(jk)---But I really don't have any use for the bigger 60's Fender stuff. This was just a one-off purchase since I got tired of hauling a '56 Twin around. It'll do for some things, but not a mainline amp for me. But miles ahead of ANY new Fender stuff I've seen or heard in terms of construction and reliability...so, a decent deal on an amp that has potential. I wouldn't replace it; I'd look for a SF Deluxe Reverb for a few more bucks.

Prize:1.400.000 itl (about 600$ in 1981). 2 x 10" version.Features are well described in other rewiews, I rate 10 the features mainly because of the completely independent 2 channels with 2 inputs each, the push-pull knobs allowing to boost the gain and the treble, mid and bass, but also for the line out jack with volume knob and the hum balance trim on the rear.I only find fault with reverb working only on lead channel.

In 981 I was playing punk rock with a Telecaster Deluxe and some cheaper guitars and this amp gave me lots of satisfaction. Clean channel is really clean (in Fender tradition)and lead channel gives complete control not only on gain but even on each single eq knob by push-pulling mode. I used mainly lead channel (punk rock) with gain boosted and gain level on 8, treble also boosted on 8 and master level from 3 (reharsal room) to 7 (live) and the power was enough for pubs and small theatres, but miking to PA it gave to me enough monitoring to hear it over a boomy drummer even in big places and open air shows.Anyway, it doesn't sounds like a classic Fender amp and you can't find the charming light crunch of the Marshalls. This amp have his own personality, distortions are great,hot and creamy, tones are fantastic with all kind of guitar and pickups and you can find almost all kind of sounds in the range of its sound character.Maybe it lacks a little bit of dynamics with humbuckers but I heard few amps sounding so warm and sweet. You can increase the distortion to high levels but it never become nasty, so don't use it for metal, this is a r'n'r heart, no metallic tones on it, the sound becomes very fat whit high gain values but never leak in elegance. Good for every kind of music except metal.I even used it like a mixer to record demos, putting drum machine and mic on clean inputs and guitar on lead channel, whose maximum distortion never affected the clean channel as it happens in many other amps. It's like you have 2 separate amps!I give 9 for the sounds.

10 out of 10! I depended on it for 9 years (981 to 990)and never a problem, despite the fact that I threated it very, VERY bad(shame on me!) Beer baths,spits and bottles-launch by the audience of the yumps down the stage, kicks to hear the boom of reverb,standing often in moisty places, never changed tubes in 10 years...a real crash test and this amp got through successifully.

Never needed

I play since 1977 and had a lot of amps,from Jazz Chorus to Marshalls. In the 90' I was sound engineer and I tested thousands of amps on stage and studios, finding that many guitarists with 100w tube heads and 412 cabinets never heard the real sound of their amp becouse it's too loud to make tubes working properly. Even in medium and large theatres, if you have a 100w shooting out loud it must be removed from PA. This means that the audience in front of the amp will be knocked down their seats and the other half will hear only mid and low tones. That's the reason why I love small tube amps and I still own my old Fender 30 even if it-honestly-doesn't play like 23 years ago. If I was taking properly care of it in the early years surely it could and if I will spend some money on it it probably will give me back his original sound.

First of all: I love this amp. The serial number reveals this amp was made in 1980. These amps were made in 1980 and 1981. You see them with black and silver grill cloth. Don't know which came first. Mine's got a silver cloth. For specs see the other reviews and the Fender Amp Field Guide. They came with two 10" or one 12" speaker. The speaker on this amp is not original. It's an Eminence 12" Legend Series. Sounds fine to me. Don't like the fully crancked up distortion on the amp. Just add a little distortion and you het a nice crunch.

I'm a bass player really, so I play this amp just for fun. I got a Ibanez Lawsuit Les Paul copy. Sounds ok, clean and distorted. The reverb ain't that strong. It got better after changing tubes. Must find a way to get it stronger

When I got the amp it was real noisy, made funny sounds turning off and on. Cleaned the tube sockets and pots. I changed caps (thanks to Hoffman Amplifiers) and set bias -38Ma cathode current method. Changed tubes. I became quiet as a mouse. I play a Fender Studio Bass and a Bassman 100. Very reliabel. So this won't fail on me either I suppose

Never dealt with Fender. But I did with Hoffman Amplifiers. Nice folks.Back here in Holland it's very hard to get the right stuff for Fender amps. Very expensive too. Paid $500 for this amp. Bit too much I think, but Fender tube amps are pretty expensive in Europe. But like I said it's a nice amp. A real bity Fender sound.

I once had a 1978 Fender Princeton Reverb. Sold it in 1983.This one is a bit louder. I'm glad I have a point to point Fender tube amp back.

I know this is not a forum, but I'd like to make an addition to my submission. Someone else's submission states that Ed Jahns worked on this amp, as stated in the 'Fender Amp Book', which states that the 30 is the little sibling of the 75 and 140. This is a false statement. There is a hint in 'Fender amps: the first fifty years' that due to the differences in design, more than likely two different teams worked on the two amps. I find this obvious by comparing the two schematics. The 75 is has an ultra-linear output transformer, and some very innovative circuits for power reduction. The 30 is very different beast. The base circuit is a blackface circuit, to include not only a straight bias adjustment (vs a balance bias circuit), but also a tube rectifier. It's almost as if the research team started with a standard BF amp, and started adding mods by adding the channel switching circuits and preamp/tone stack boosts. If I had to take a guess, I would say the 30 was Bill Hughe's project.

My previous submission goes a little while back, but since I have become completly addicted to the sound of this amp with my Les Paul. The sound is Tantric. The sound is also wonderful with all my other guitars, except... my PRS CE24 that Santa (my wife) brought me. Phenomenal guitar, but just haven't found the sweet spot though with this amp.

Had an arcing problem due to shorted screen resistor. Common in Fender amps. Easy fix, did use higher wattage resistors.

It would be nice if they had *all* their schematics on-line at an ftp site.

Stolen or lost? I'd be heart-broken. I'd whither away, while I was desperatly searching for another one. If I used effects, I would say an effects loop would be nice, but I don't, so I don't care. I think this little amp is about the most unknown amp (outside of the old Traynors). A real delight to play with.

The Fender 30 is a serious 'Fender' BF/SF style 2 channel combo. Mine is a 2x10" version and is in mint condition. I only play at home, I like blues, classic r&r, and a little metal sometimes. The 30 does everything except the metal. An effects loop would have been nice and Fender certainly utilized them in 1980. The amp IS versatile but you have to pull and turn the controls to get there. Hey, that's what they're for.

I play Strats through my 30 and it sounds fantastic! From fat and thick to clean and sparkly, from ratty, natural tube and speaker distortion to gentle bluesy breakup, to smooth and sweet clean, you can make this amp do it. It is not intended for brutal or heavy distortion and doesn't go there without the help of your pedalboard. (So what?!)
I must say that I have exchanged 1 of the CTS ceramic speakers for a Jensen P10R alnico re-issue and it was a dramatic improvement to my old ears. I also replaced the 3 spring reverb tank with a 2 spring model and captured every bit of Fender's famous reverb with it.
The amp stays clean up to about 6 or so with the stock speakers. Then comes a gentle tube breakup and compression. The reverb channel has another gain control which can give a little dirty, fat distortion when used with the mid boost and treble boost. Basically though, it's a Fender sound all the way. Pedals work very well in front of it.

23 years and still strong and quiet!

It's definitely a sleeper. Reliable Fender amp tech tells me that 675 were made in each year of 1980-81. It is built like a tank. Typical, warm Fender tone in spades, and a bit more versatility than a BF/SF, makes for a terrific combo (at least the 2x10" version). If you find one of these, and like the Fender thing as I do, you really can't go wrong with the 30...IF you can find one!

All-tube Fender amp with point-to-point layout of the blackface / silverface era, built only 1980 for 1 year. Channel switching allows classic pure Fender "sparkle" and a hot lead channel, reminding of Marshall and Boogie. With these features (and the built-in Fender tube reverb) definetely the most versatile vintage Fender amp ever made. Lacks the tremolo (which I don't need anyway), but thus resulting in a "9" for this category.

I play many styles ranging from Blues, Country, Classic Rock and Metal, mainly with Strats and Telecasters. Nice sparkle with single coil pickups, good lead sound with both single coils and humbuckers. For more saturation, I use a tube screamer and other pedals.

I played in many clubs with this amp, it The amp has never failed me.

Never needed to contact Fender. As the amp is point-to-point wired, it can be easily be serviced anyway.

Rare amp. I play for more than 15 years now, never stumbled across a second one. As this amp basically is a Pro Reverb with a hot-rodded lead channel, it may be only replaced by two amps. To me it has the vintage Fender sound which has not been fully captured in the subsequent PCB-based blackface reissues.
If you ever have the opportunity to play one, I would highly recommend to do.

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This is an update since I last posted the review listed below...

I do not do amplifier mods for a living. I just fell into doing those mods to THIS amplifier. I never really intended to be this extensive (having practically rebuilt it) it just happened. I guess that it is kinda like restoring a vintage automobile. Once you get into it, it takes on a life of it's own. I have restored several other amplifiers (both Fender and Ampeg), and I have a background in electronics and engineering as a hobby.

Since I last posted here on Harmony Central, I have changed the power supply to a 5AR4 rectifier instead of the 5U4 (boosts the HV to about +450v) and recapped the power supply with Sprague Atoms rated at 500v. I also changed out the output transformer to one similar to the Fender Super or Bandmaster and disposed of the small 30-watt model (Thanks to Allen Amplification). And finally, I was able to obtain a JBL E-120 ceramic speaker (similar to the E-130 that SRV used in his twin Vibroverbs) with a new recone job by NorthWest Audio. Hoffman Amplification has also provided chrome corners and a new blackface style amplifier handle. The sound is unbelievable with the JBL speaker.