Fender 75 Combo

I got the amp about 2 months ago. From the tranny numbers puts it around 1980.All tubed point to point wired on a breadboard.No pc board crap.It has boost pulls on the treble, mid and bass.The mid boost seems to work best for me.The clean channel is superb as is the reverb.It take some playing with to figure this amp out though.

Im actually a bass player.But got this to mess with,and for friends to come by and jam.I use my american strat plus with this amp and it just plain screams!It has a decent tube breakup but it's better to run through some pedals.If you want monster distortion,this amp isnt for you.Buy a soldono or marshall.But like i said clean,clean,clean fender sound!

I havent gigged with this amp yet. But I've changed tubes.It had amer. gt's in the power section.And a wide varitiy of pre-amp tubes all have been replaced with vintage.rca's,mullard,seimens.

I've talked to the company several times over the years when they were in fullerton,Ca. They were great!

I've been playing for 28 years.I've owned marshall's,peavey,fender's,and ampeg.Get one of these while you can!These were only made for 3 years and alot of people and even tech's dont know about these Ed Jahns designed fenders.These were designed by Jahns to compete with the mesa mark II.And what a great job he did!I would find another in a heartbeat.Before they become a rareity.

- pull outs are useless
- lead channel distortion isn't great except for a crunch sound. I use the lead for a rythm channel (set at about 2) and use a boss overdrive for lead.
- It has more than enough power epecially when I run it through my Marshall 4 by 12 Cabinet

I use this amp with a american tele with lace sensors and a godin sd with hot rails.It works great for most 70's and 80's rock music. I don't think it would make a great heavy metal guitar though.The bass eq seems a little too much as it'll crap out pass 3 or 4. This amp has a very unique sound through a marshall cabinet. Very dirty,yet smooth.

This amp is old style inside. No PC boards. I had to replace the photo electric L.E.D 's ( the ones for channel switching), a set of tubes, and the original speaker was replaced. I got this amp for nothing and did the repairs myself. Good quality transformers, caps, pots etc. Mine needed a little tlc, but I have ran it for 5 years since with no problems. I'm sure it will out last any of the new plc crap that is made now

I've done the repairs my self (I do it for a living). I also live in Canada. Support isn't as good as peavey, but pretty good none the less.I've been able to get all the parts, but some of them take a long time. I've even put peavey parts in this thing (photo electric switches)

I've played for 15 years. I've used marshall, peavey and other fender amps. I don't know what it is about this amp. I guess what I like about it is that there is nothing like it. No one has my sound other than other 75 owners and how many of them play through a 4 12 cabinet? I would really love to buy a head and have this one as a spare. I honestly think in the next ten years this amp will be a real collectors item. Please e-mail me if you also use this amp through a 4 12 cabinet,have the original 4 10 cabinet for this amp or have the 75 head

According to information I have gathered it appears I have a 1980 model amp. I purchased her about 10 years ago while playing in a classic rock band. It has all the power I can ask for and I enjoy its clean warm sound, along with a sharper more crunchy lead side. I recently replaced the original power tubes that came with the amp when I bought it (Mesa Engineering) with JJ's. I liked the old tubes much better but am told I may still need to have the amp adjusted for the new tubes. I hoping the adjustment will bring back the rich warm tone again, otherwise I'll be looking for another set of Mesas.

Mainly I play rythym guitar. I use a special edition Tele with humbucker pickups. I can get just about any sound you can ask for from a Les Paul to a traditional Tele. This amp is not what I would try and compete with a Marshall for pure distortion, but in my opinion it wasn't built for that use anyway. If your looking for a superior Blues, Jazz, Country, or Classic Rock sound you couldn't find anything better.

I have owned this amp for nearly ten years and just had to replace the power tubes because one of them got loose aroung the base and I was afraid it might come loose. This has been a tremendous piece of equipment. I have played hundreds of gigs with it without one single failure.

Haven't had to even talk to a repairman until I replaced the tubes. Then I was just to find out if the tubes were as good as what they were telling me. That is still to be determined.

I'm 51 years old and have been playing since I was 9 years old. I have 6 other guitars that I play. Currently I use this amp for solo gigs. I play a Ultra Classic Ovation thru it along with vocals. I have a Sansui mike that has the perfect impedence that matches the guitar and allows the combo. I also use a 12" monitor speaker thru the external speaker hookup for a more versatile sound. My only complaint about this amp as with everyone else "IT WEIGHTS A TON". I agree with most guys about this amp, it is Fenders most under rated amp ever. Unfortunately, I am looking at selling this amp very soon and will miss it. I need to buy a powered mixer for my gigs and something has to go. Interested give me a jingle rcarmickle@earthlink.net

i'm an happy owner of a couple of, circa '79. They are cosmetically & functionally completely different amps.
The one is a 15" square cabinet - the other is a 12" rectangular cabinet. Same controls layout. BEWARE - THEY ARE HEAVYWEIGTH !!!

I play everything and i love loudness. These amps have a lot of head room (15" especially) wich i love, but the 12" have the crunch and the "sustain for a days".
I think they are electronically very different.

Never looked at the 12" for a fit - everytime ok. IT MUST BE UNTOUCHED !!!!!!!
I've changed in the 15" the 15" koud speaker with a EV 12" and deeply veried the tubes line for a more aggressive soud -> everything OK.

I NEVER HAD PROBLEMS

If you want an excellent (but overwheigt) workorse, the 75 is the one!!!

I think the amp is built around 1980. It's completely black. About ten years ago I'd had another Fender Lead 75, that had a silver grille. I traded my Blues deluxe in on this one, because of the shrill, too sharp tones I got while using my stratocaster (the whole band complained about it). The 75 sounds much smoother and a bit darker. It's not particularly versatile I think, but so am I. It has one channel and a lead device, push/pull controls and a reverb. I use the amp mainly for playing live, along with a Blues Junior, which besides is pretty loud too. My style is Stones, Zeppelin, Jayhawks, surf, seventies bluesrock, Sheryl Crow, etc. The main problem with this amp is that it's bloody heavy! I think the speaker is an Emincence (sporting a blue Fender-label, but Fender doesn't make speakers).

Is use this amp with an very old jv-Squier strat and a fernandes telecaster (with Seymour Duncans). The strat sounds best with this amp, while the tele goes best with the Blues Junior. Clean and a bit overdriven it sounds very well, with a lot of depth. On low power it seems to sound a little warmer. Lead sounds either a bit raspy and thin or complete bollocks. Bright sounds sometimes a bit shrill, depending on the pickups. Clean becomes much better with the lead master and lead control at zero, since I discovered that 'clean' on this amp is affected by the lead control. The reverb is superb.

I had the tubes changed some months ago. Shortly after I purchased this amp it made sounds like soft 'pops' and crackles (but I've heard Twins that produced sounds like gnooms were running form one side tot the other within). Last year I played in a tent at a small festival in typical Dutch weather circumstances. At some moment before the gig I discovered that my amp was standing excactly where the rain came flooding in, but the amp sounded fine and worked effortless.

Never dealt with the people from Fender, although I understand that they're not very helpful.

I've been playing for almost seventeen years. Twelve years with the old Squier strat and a wide variety of amps (not always my own), like Musicman, Marshall and Fender. I've always liked the clean sound and the reverb of Fender amps, but if another company offers something better I would be interested. Even with an early sixties blackface or tweed model, guitarplayers are always searching for something else.

I've got a pair of those 75's, a late seventies and early eighties. Equipped with Groove Tubes. They've been my main workhorses for ten years of on and off gigging and recording. They're not user-friendly at all, but who cares once you've got them figured out. I've actually stripped them down bare, put them in a custom rackmount, and plugged them to a 4x12 Hiwatt '71 cabinet. I did that because the amp isn't quite versatile enough live, since you have to push pull those bloody knobs... and you only got one eq and preamp per channel. There's not really two channels in this thing... But when you've got two of those amps, bingo. You can custom dial each one, clean or distorted, without losing tonal coherence. So I've got sort of a 3-channel super 75 (A/B box + original footswitch), if you will. I never use the bright switch (shrill) and the high power. No way the low power is 15 watts !!! It can fill a medium size club without miking easy. The back pannel has a NASA feel to it : to the point, with everything where it should be.

The amp has incredible headroom on the clean channel, which is just great. It doesn't distort at all if you keep you pickups far from the strings. But you actually have to switch in the reverb (even at zero or one) for it to sound real good clean. The reverb has a true sixties touch about it, and sounds great with slide. In this day and age of crunch and gring, a great full bodied loud clean sound is an incredible attention getter. Moreover, it reacts drastically to pickup changes, which is great. Just by adjusting various pickup heights, you can go from rythym to lead, no problem. I've got a humcucker on my strats, (little '59) and it drives it quite fine. I play anything but metal (even bossa-novas), which suits this amp fine, since the actual distorsion doesn't quite cut it by todays standards. When you pull the knobs you get an general output drop and a lot of noise. So one of the heads is permanently hooked to a TS-9, with only the treble pulled out : infinite sustain at you fingertips. The overdrive on the 'b' channel is quite nice, though. Real ballsy, and low-fi as hell... Plug a vintage strat in there and you'll have to watch out not to overly sound like SRV... What is great about this amp is that you can play with authority. The drums, the bass, nothing'll drown you out, which bizarrely happens with more recent equipment, somehow.

I carry spare fuses 'cause they do blow up once in a while, albeit rarely. Since I have two of them, one can always serve as backup. The footswitch part is a pain in the ass, though. The amp won't work without it, and it's a bizarre thing. I had to have one custom made for a hundred bucks... But hey, good sound doesn't go cheap. And in ten years, I've replaced a power switch with a generic part. It'a Fender.

Dont' know. Local guys know their way around it.

I've been playing for 25 years, 10 semi-pro. I've got a pair of strats, a few basic effects, and those 75's. If they were stolen, I would buy another pair on the spot. They're part of my sound now. I just love the power and balls of them. Plus, you can do serious gigging with them. They're a professional tool. Heavy and a bit noisy, though, but it's older stuff. If you want a 3 pound silent amp, it'll sound like a 3 pound silent amp. I compared with a lot of amps, since I've jammed a lot in clubs. The 75 sort of sounds like a twin, but is yet cleaner, and when you switch to lead, way heavier. I will admit that it doesn't sound as good as an original plexi head, which I've tried once... What's great is that it's not well known, so you can buy one cheap.
General comment : guitar amp industry was never 'big' enough to generate its own electronics parts market. What we have in our amps are TV and radio stuff. And those parts have changed. It's not beeing snob to say old amps sound better : they just do, because of that. 'Vintage' reissues are bogus, because the parts are long gone from the market. I go in music stores once in a while, plug in to new stuff, and it sounds good, but somehow just doesn't compare.

This amp is one of the best keept secrets. I love the full clean sound. The distortion is the only weak point.It has bass middle & treble boosts pluss a bright switch.The bass & treble are great when pulled out.

I play an american tele.It sounds great for country & blues.I find it to be fairly quiet.The distortion is not great but I use a stomp pedal for distortion.

I have used it on gigs for two years and have had no problems.

I bought it used so I've had no experience there.

I've been playing 37 years.I would buy it again.I love the clean sound but I wish it had tremelo.

The amp is TOTAL CLASSIC FENDER!!!!! Has boost pulls on the treble,mid,& bass controls. Has 2 channels clean & distortion. You can fine tune to any classic early fender sound with this amp. NOTE_ this amp has major "Cajones" it's very, very loud. It does have a high and low switch. Best if plyed on high power. gets that classic sound at that setting. Has a very long foot switch that controls channel selection and the reverb. Very heavy chassis and can withstand anything. My favorite workhorse. It covers blues,rock, and country all just fine

If your looking for a meaty distortion, THIS IS NOT YOUR AMP. But, if you want one of the most versatile amps that Fender makes in tube, this is it. Makes tele's, (I play 3, standard to humbucked,) sound way monstous and makes Strats sing like Clapton and the Skynyrd boys. It definately prefers single coils to humbuckers. Then again, that could be be me. Probably the best sound from this amp is Classic Rock, Swamp Texas blues and a whole lotta country. Works well at all settings

I've owned this beast, ( because of weight,) for 5 or 6 years. When I bought it, one of the tubes was shot. I would not hesitate using this amp anywhere and without a backup. It has never given me any trouble and I've only complained about the weight. But the sound and reliablity make up for it

Don't know, the deakler here in town really takes care of me. Never had a problem

I'm 45 years old and have been playing since I was 10. I have 3 other amps. A fender Vibro Champ, An Epiphone sc10, and a Peavey. I rarely play with a pedal only a Boss Blues Driver through the vibro. Other than that I rarely use a pedal. I like it right from the guitar to the amp, no gimmicks. I have 14 different guitars, half Fenders and the rest various.
If stolen, I would cry, then I would search high and low for another. I love most everything about it other than it's too loud for most gigs I play. even outside ones. I wish it had better saturation of its full sound at lower volumes. It really opens up at around 3. by then your way to loud. I only wish it had a 3rd channel for pure lead.

This amp was made in the early 70's. This amp is very nice for a begging band for small gigs like what my band does. It has boosts on the treble base and mids these are very nice for a heavyer type of music. I rarley turn the volume switch over 2 it is so loud it hurts my ears.

This amp has a great sound if u turn the volume above about 3 or 4 a buzz will pick up but you cant ask for everything. It also has a very clean sound and is very loud.

Im sure you can depend on it its 30 years old and its still in very good condition.

I bought it used so couldnt tell you

I wish Fender continued this amp although it is very heavy it is an all tube amp which if u play guitar you know is a great quality sound.

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The clean channel of this amp is superb! I don't use the crappy distortion channel at all. However, running my strat through clean channel at low power setting I could nail the Keith Richards thing perfectly with the bridge pickup. Turn up the reverb and rip some old-time country, rockabilly or surf-mania. Go to middle pickup & nail some reggae, ska, soul or funk. Neck pickup, we got some beautifully nasty John Lee Hooker-esqe blues groove going. I like playing all this stuff,not an expert but I goof around with it all.

It's a Fender.

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Sounds great, quiet, heavy, well built. Second channel is crap, but otherwise it's everything a Fender should be.