Fender Sidekick Reverb 65

I bought mine back in the late eighties and it took three goes before it arrived, two disappeared en-route. It was an up grade from a side kick 25 I had been using for years. I love the treble I get with it though wouldn't recommend it if you want a really dirty sound. The reverb on this amp is excellent.

I play blues and prefer a Stones/Richards overall rhythm sound but for leads I prefer the picking style of Mick Taylor sound the clean sound is a treat. I've never had cause to use it above 3 on most gigs but found it distorted the couple so f times it was used outside. Because I use a cheap mic for my harps the clean channel on this amp really gives me some wicked playing tones would recommend it to anyone for this too.

Reliability has never been an issue and though I some times carry the sk25 for back up it's generally when neither have been in use for a while.

Never used it.

I've been playing for thirty years and yes I would try to obtain another one. It's reliabilty is wonderful. I don't really hate anything about it, sometimes wish it was a little lighter especially after three hours gig and then a four hour drive home. I wish the amp and pedal had a fuzz tone.

I purchased one of these amps back in 1986 and sold it a couple years later. This amp had traditional Fender silver face styling with 65 watts going to a nice sounding 12 inch speaker. It came with a footswitch and the amp had 2 channels from what I remember. I purchased this amp to practice with in my 33 foot travel trailer but it was to damn loud and took up quite a bit of space inside the trailer so I sold it for a smaller amp.

The amp sounded great, I used to run a Boss heavy metal 2 pedal through it to give the amp more sustain while playing distortion. The amp was so loud I could never turn the master knob past 1 or 2, this amp had some real power. The spring reverb sounded fine. I could get a real thick reverb tail with no problem on this amp.

This was a very high quality amp. It looked like it would last a long time.

Now that I'm older and have my own house with a lot of space I could really use that amp now to practice with. This was a very nice sounding high quality transistor amp from Fender, I wish I still had it.

Year of manufacter not known. 2-channel solid state with footswitch hard wired. Line out, effects loop, traditional Fender spring Reverb. I use the amp in the studio.

I use this amp with all of my solid body, semi-hollow body, and hollow body guitars. While it doesn't have some of the warmth of the older Fender tube amps, it does have a trademark Fender sound, particularly with the reverb engaged.

No problems with the amp, bought it used and have had it for a little over a year. My previous experience with Fender solid state amps was very negative, but this one has been good.

No experience with service.

I have been playing 40 years. Other amps include a Crate G40C XL Stereo Amp and a Trace Acoustic 30 Watt Acoustic Guitar Amp. I have also used a Peavey Renown, Acoustic 123, Maestro 30 watt Tube, and a Fender Super Concert.

Don't know when it was made but has a vintage look...the grille cloth is somewhat like my old fender bassman...the amp does the job and has enough volume for my needs...just play at home now so i don't push it too hard..

I use this amp with my Mexican Tele and also have a Midi guitar and run the guitar sounds thru the Fender...I also have and use a Zoom 505 and it works well thu the Fender...don't do much with the distortion channel cause i really don't like any of them...they don't compare to a good stompbox

No probs with the amp but have had to replace the input jacks as they got pretty chewed up and I guess this is a common prob..other than that the amp just keeps on singin....

never had to use it

I would rate this amp an 8 because compared to others i have owned it is in the top 5 for sound and is pretty reliable. I have owned Yamahas, Fender tube amps, Peaveys, Traynors and I think overall this is a good little solid state amp and the reverb does the job

Nice solid state amp. Has Reverb Effects loop, and a clean and overdrive channel. Decient for small gigs and mics well for larger ones. No headphone jack tho, so no latenight bedroom practices.

I use a Fender Talon I through it mainly, and I played mainly metal and grunge through it. It worked well Till i about killed it. Clean Channel seems to remain clean throughout. Th overdrive channel seems to sound ok. The Celestion does the trick well.

Well I bought this thing already beaten. The LED was punched in, and the grill cloth was torn. I beat the hell out of this thing over the last 7 or so years and it sounded great. I Ended up droping the thing off a chair and it landed on the jack and finally punched it in. The Main amp input in the back still worked so thats what im using now. All I need it a service man to fix this beast.

Never had it fixed yet not sure if its worth the price. THo the company has been very helpful when i talked to them on other products.

I been playing 10 years and this thing lasted me through most of it. And it was a great buy to boot. If you see one for under $120 its worth it.

Fender Sidekick Reverb 65 SS amp. Features as described by others. I bought this used for a practice amp as a upgrade for a truly awful Fender Frontman 15R, which I returned to the dealer. Mine came with a Celestion 12" G12K-85 speaker. It has no headphone jack. All of my comments and ratings must be seen in light of its price, which was $200 used.

Not bad for the price I paid. I think it's a better amp than others seem to think, though that is probably due to the fine Celestion speaker. SS overdrive is not great. But if you spend some time fine-tuning the adjustments, you can get very good sound out of it. Since I am using it as a practice amp, and since I don't plan on performing for a long time, I will be lucky if I ever get the volume control past 3.

I'll guess that you could use this amp as a wheel chock for an 18-wheeler and it would still work fine.

I'm a relative beginner. I have a few nice guitars, including an American Strat and a Dean EVO Special Select. I compared this to a Peavey Transtube 110, which did not sound nearly as good to me. And the speaker in the Peavey was a truly crummy-looking 10" speaker with a tiny magnet that must have cost the manufacturer about $3. Until I can afford (and deserve) a Fender tube amp, this will do nicely.
To sum up, it is a Fender 65 watt solid-state amp, fed into a Celestion 12" speaker, with a typically good clean channel, typically trashy solid-state Fender overdrive, and nice Fender spring reverb. If you know about what those things mean, you can basically predict how it sounds. Extremely decent for the $200 I paid for it.

This is a re-review of my previous posting on this amp.(I'm the old geezer thats been playing for thirty years and bought this amp to play in small jams)

All I wanted to add was that since my other review I have experimented alot with this amp and have found that if you put a distortion effect ( I'm using a Sansamp GT2) in the effects loop, you get a much better dirty sound. Much better. I have been turning down the preamp side (volume and gain knobs) and just boosting the master in this set up. I've tried my tubescreamer here also and it sounds better than in front of the amp. But the sansamp really makes this little amp come alive with this set-up. Also, if you have a compressor/sustainer try it in the loop. Again it sounds better than in front of the amp. In all of these applications you'll need to do some careful tweaking with your effects and the amp, but the result is a purty decent sound. It also works well with the other channel too. I have been using this signal chain in the loop; CS3--GT2--Nanoverb. Fairly decent sounding for a solid-state amp. Can get a little noisy though at high volumes. Maybe a noise gate would help.

Well, since finding out a little more about what I can do with this amp, I find I like it much better. I still like the clean sound but find the reverb to be fairly cheesy. The Nanoverb has much better reverbs so I usually don't turn the amp's reverb on at all. If you have one of these amps try using the effects loop for your pedals instead of playing them in front of the amp. Everything seems to sound better there. I guess its the amp's pre-amp that sucks so bad.

Need I say them again? They are in the past reviews anyway.

Very pristine clean. Some may like that, some may not. Since I have been used to tube amps, I can say that this amp lacks warmth. It's a solidstate, alright? Jazz boxes will compliment the AMP'S clean channel.
For the overdrive channel, I'd rather not talk about it... It is just one of the worst overdrive channels I have heard. Very harsh to my ears, so am I being harsh in rating the sound of this amp.

Been playing for 15 years. For clean tone, it delivers the goods fairly, but not godly. The overdrive is pathetic. The volume of this amp is good for small to medium sized venues. This is a great practice amp.

Made some time in the eighties. This is a solid-state amp with just a few features, channel switching and reverb. The amp has a clean side that includes volume, treble and bass. The other channel has volume, gain, master, treble, mid, bass, and reverb. This is a plug-in and play amp. Nothing to figure out at all. The amp does have one more feature thats interesting. It has two inputs. The first one utilizes the channel swithcing, the second one incorporates both channels together. Meaning, if you plug into the second input, both channels are on at the same time enabling you to enhance your sound with the additional volume and tone controls. This amp has a 12 inch speaker. This amp's construction is solid and the cosmetic appearance looks to be vintage fender. It also has an effects loop. It came with a foot switch for the channels and reverb.

I bought this amp in a pawn shop. I wanted a little amp for small get togethers with friends. I have an red knob "evil twin" and an old quad reverb that I use in a rock band. Both are too large, loud and heavy for friendly jams. The sidekick is a good amp for the small living room jams. I play a strat plus and a telecaster and a gibson "the paul II". Pedals are; boss compressor/sustainer-Ibanez tube-screamer-Alesis nano-verb.
Now, about the sound. The clean sound of this amp is exceptable. Being used to the sound of tube amps I am biased in that direction. So I find it hard to say a solid state amp has a really good sound. With-out going into any of the old arguments of tubes vs. solid state I'll just say that the amp sounds too pristine to my ears. Very trebley even with the tone controls set to offset it. I guess I'm trying to say there is no warmth to it. The second channel through the mixing of the volume, gain and master affords you some of the worst sounding overdrive/distortion I have ever heard. Completely pathetic. The best solution is to set this channel to a clean sound and to use a pedal for distortion. Even then it can get to be to shrill for my taste. I find that I must turn the treble way, way down and the mids about half way, and then boost the bass up. Or, I use both channels at once adding the first channel's tonal capabilities. I said this was a plug-in and play amp, but on second thought, its not. Some careful tweaking is a must to get a fair to good sound out of it. And though this amp is supposed to be 65 watts, it does'nt sound like it. Very little to no head room. But, as I said I just needed a small amp to play at low volumes and it does this well enough. Barely.

As said before this little amp is solidly built and I would expect it to hold up like anything by Fender.

I have never dealt with Fender.

I have been playing for over thirty years, 24 in a rock band. I would hate to have anything I have lost or stolen, but if this amp was either I would not get another one. I guess what I like about the amp is that its lite and portable and has a passable sound to it. I mean as far as something to amplify a guitar. My other fender amps are instruments in themselves and I guess I was expecting to much out of this little amp. Or maybe I was expecting to much out of a solid state amp. Its been a long time since I played through one.

This is a solid state amp which has footswitchable Clean and Gain Channels; the clean channel has only 3 controls: BASS, TREBLE and VOLUME. The Gain channel has more controls though; it has controls for BASS, MID, TREBLE, PRESENCE, PREAMP VOLUME, GAIN and MASTER VOLUME. It also has controllable REVERB. Has an effects loop and delivers 65W of power through its 8 ohm speaker. Made in Japan.

This amp is reminiscent of the Japan-Fender era during the early to late 80s; this amp is good for low to medium volume scenarios.

First I want to emphasize that the distortion of this amp is USELESS. I mean it is very harsh and tinny, and the only way to utilize the gain channel is basically using it for clean tone too. How? By setting the gain at zero and tweaking the MID, PRESENCE and VOLUME controls. I do this because the clean channel has only bass and treble controls which I find very limiting; but it is very sparkling clean though. Through my Squier Strat and Boss Metal Zone I can get a variety of sounds from raunchy overdrive to edgy metal distortion. But for plug and play clean tone, this amp is awesome- IT IS A FENDER, all right? The reverb is kinda cheezy I think. I think that is because of the small reverb tank.

One day I noticed a certain squeal through the speakers. It turned out to be a problem with the filter caps. My tech changed the caps and the squeal disappeared.

Fender lacks spare parts for the amps made during the 80s. That is pathetic.

Been playing for 10 years and this amp is good for intermediate to semiprofessional use. I play blues and hard rock and this amp is good for practice and low volume scanarios. But take note that it is a rare amp from Fender.