Fender Super Reverb

1969 early silverface. Most of you know the rest, ahh the reverb.

I dig single coil pickups. To help create my own sound I made a solid body guitar from scratch using Z90 Harmonic Design pickups. The guitar is made from one slab of Curly Big Leaf Maple (neck and body) so it leans to bright side tonally. The SR's controls are extremely versatile and will dial in your desired tonal needs. I'm 58yrs old and have been through lots of amps and guitars, I've come full circle. I began years ago with a 69 Vibrolux, new. My musical tastes have remained the same, the Blues, but my approach tonally has varied. At present a SR is perfect. Mine has 4 matched CTS AlNico's, Fender blue molded caps, AB763 circuit and unbeleivably, the original compliment of RCA tubes, testing new. I swapped the 5AR4 rectifier for a RCA 5U4GB to give me a little sag and according to Pete Cage of pete@audiocage.com this lowers the power a bit to 30-35 watts. Super Reverbs are LOUD. As stated in previous posts, nothing sounds like a Super Reverb, period. I have a black face Deluxe which is another great amp but the SR takes it to the next level. It's warm and big sounding, not the slightest bit boxy. The clean reverb drenched sound is nirvana to me. It's the quintessential Uptown Blues amp.

I carry with me a 1966 Bassman Head for emergency use. Not for the SR per se but for general use, including the PA.

No

I've been playing for 38yrs. I own a 58 Bassman, 66 Deluxe. I play a 53 Harmony Stratotone (customized uith string thru and 2 pickups). I'd repace the SR and the Deluxe in a heart beat. For open mikes I'll carry the Deluxe @35lbs and for a gig the Super Reverb @60lbs. The SR isn't insanely heavy but it's a bit to tall. When you have to carry it up any stairs it tends to want to clip the steps unless you lift it up a bit and that becomes uncomfortable. Lifting the Deluxe is less work weight wise and it will hang on your extended arm.

To say this was a super reverb, we'll just say that it read"super reveb" on the front. It was originally a master volume model-still is. I originally bought it with a missing transformer and no speakers. The other t-former was a top hat- so I bought another to match the set. I then bought the reissue blue alnico speakers. With the amp I recieved a two page printout of all the modifications that was done to it over the years. That is what this review is going to be about. The power section was fairly basic except you could switch out-with rebiasing- power tubes, and a triode switch. Man you could really do some low powered damage with these items!!!! The interesting part was how you could really make this thing sound like a marshall, even with the 6l6's in it. More of a high gain modded jcm800 when you used the master volume. But a few of the preamp mods really helped with this.
The pre-amp mods were pretty big also. It had the torres triple killer switch- never used very much, but the "Brown" setting was fun! The best part was a pull switch on the channel 1 treble was a tone cut out. This basically circumvented all tone controls and the reverb and tremelo. Very interesting, I used this most. It has a few others, but they increased hum and feedback when used, so I never really would use them.

I've had many different guitars. But with all super reverbs, you tend to pick up the strat all the time. With the amp hooked up to a 2x12 with g-12h's and the el-34's you couldn't help but use the LP custom. This thing could make Zakk Wylde cry for his mother. It could put out that much raw-hair on your neck standing up- distortion, and soooo detailed with the tone cut-out. And Man could you hit the ZZ lagrange sound, you could even bump that up a notch.
Noisy, you bet, this thing sometimes would sound like it was playing itself. But once you hit a note, it came along for the ride. Kind of like hitting the gas on a muscle car. It wasn't much for the corners, but flat-out heart acceleration, nothing has ever compared. As far as different sounds, this thing could make any sound you want, as long as it wasn't pussy!! I brought it into a guitar shop once to compare it to a new reissue. And the salesperson kept complaining about the noise, hum, dirtiness, and of-course all the exposed wood. But the shop owner came out and offered to buy it from me!! He played in an SRV cover band, and nothing he had could break through the mix. With this thing you had to fight to not leave them behind..
Clean channel- who cares. I think it could do the clean thing, but once you get into a muscle car, you don't want to go the speed limit! The distortion was never a triple rectifier, but the brilliant way it went about doing it was breath taking

Never had to do anything to it. I bought it with out the t-former and speakers, and really made a gamble on it. The reverb and tremelo weren't even hooked up. They worked fine once they were. The reverb was some fancy thing that my amp tech loved. It works very nicely. Loaded it with an old set of sylvania 6l6's, and an old set of mullard el34's from my vox ac-50(you use thatr for your clean channel, with an a/b box). Bought 3 sets when I bought the ac-50, which still uses the originals.This thing was meant to be used. If I didn't it would probably break from disgust.

Who knows, I've never called Fender in my life. I think they use the same tech support team as Hewlett Packard, great if you speak the local dialect in India!!!

I've been playing for 20 years. As far as other equipment I have owned-I'll say that I bought one of those amp modelling pedals(which was a lot of fun). And after going through the list of amps they copy, I've owned, not just played, every one on the list!!!I even have a '65 Super reverb that is bone stock- collecting dust(boring, and worth too much). If the other super reverb was lost(how do you lose a 80lb amp?) or stolen, I would cry and call my insurance agent, and not replace it. If the same happened to my frankenfender, I would tear up the old black face and make it sound as good, probably tear somes holes in the tolex wghile I'm at it.
To compare this to anything? I don't know a cross hatch of a heavily modded jcm800, a dumble overdrive, a Mless H/c 30, and there's still plenty of Super Reverb in there! If this could make the same sounds as my old JMI ac30 TB with the blu bulldogs, it would be the only amp I ever played on. And sometimes it's nice to play at lower volumes. My GainStar is pretty nice for that.v As far as rating on this amp, the results from everyone else is, it goes between "gawd look at that piece of shit!"- to "How much would you take for it?-I've got Cash!"

Just the basic stuff here, normal channel and vibrato channel w/bright on/off on both. I'm not really looking for a whole lot of features with this amp but I do wish it had an effects loop so I'll give it a 9

Playing with a US made Fender strat w/texas special pickups. Pedals are TS9 tube screamer, DOD stereo chorus (just to split the signal), DOD milk box (compressor), Boss NS-2 Noise suppressor. This amp has such a smokin tone. The clean is crystally and with a TS9 in front it has an exceptional warm/dirty blues tone. I'm a guy who like to have a lot of low end available in the tone and this amp has more than I'll ever use. This amp is very loud despite the low wattage. I usually keep the volume around 1.5-2. I'd like to crank it up to the sweet spots (around 5 I hear) but it's just too loud to play at that level all the time. If your looking for a hard rock/metal amp, well this isn't it. But for jazz/blues it's perfect.

When I got it, it was in need of repair, but since then it has been great. I'm not sure of the durability, but suffice it to say I wouldn't be throwing it around the back of a van or anything since it does have tubes. But it you treat your gear like that you're an idiot anyway.

never dealt with fender directly, but there website contains user manuals and customer support. A lot of people overlook the fact that a company has a web page as a means of customer support and I find Fenders site adiquate, though sometime hard to find stuff you looking for (serial number ID and such).

This is my main amp. I'm not a gigging musician, just a guy who loves guitars, but this is a great amp to have.

I"ts a 68 /70 silver face,no master volume,4 ALNICO original speakers(hoseshoe magnets),2 Cinch connectors for the footswitch, Export version with multitap input voltage selector, no alu trim around the grlle cloth. 2 channels but I use only the vibrato channel. I use it mainly on practice with some freinds and occasionally on gigs. Full tube including a 5U4GB rectifier. Power stage with a pair of 5881. could have more options that I would probabely never use.

Basically used with 2 strats (a Mexican standard and a "E"serie japanese), a Washburn J6 full hollowbody and a 1967 Gibson SG Special with 2 x P90 and short Maestro vibrola. Some stompboxes, including Phaser,Flanger, Chorus, a Morley optical volume pedal and 2 Danelectro Dan-Echo. Each guitar gives a specific beatiful sound that gives an incredible palette of sounds, depending the kind of music i play on each moment. Basically, i look only after clean sounds and never went above 4,5 on the volume knob. Above, my ears will not resist so LOUD it is for a 40/45 watts.Maybe an old VOX AC 30 could, gives better sonds but SO EXPENSIVE

I bought it 7 years ago,practises 5 days a week, never a major problem, but recently HUM became a little too high, so I recapped it completely, replaced the reverb tank, and now it's a dream to play with it. Capacitors were still originals!!! Such a way of building amps so strong and reliable can only be reached by handwired boutique amps today. When finished the recap job, I measured the properties and came to he conclusion that replacing tubes was not necessary. I did this maintenance job myself as engineer in electronics.

No need! I found different schematics on Internet, found out the closest to my amp, and made some retrofit to the Blackface schematic diagram. There are enough infos on internet about those old workhorses.

I use it for 7 years now, and compared to my other amps, a delicious 64 Dynacord Bassking and a Faylon Studio 100, all tubes amps, this one is the most versatile, and easy to use. Also fits the boot of a standard european station wagon. Maybe too heavy, but all tube amps are heavy. Stolen or lost? let me get another one. I love the creaamy sounds that comes out this amp, and as a Shadows fan, you know now what creamy means to me. If I really need more power, I add the Faylon + a 2 x 15 speaker cabinet that gives me about 150 watts of pure valve power!!!

1968. First year silverface. Wiwhat I think are alnico tens. All original bought it from the first owner. Man, what a great amp.
I removed many years of grime rebiased and changed the tubes , dusted off the foot pedal and entered tone nirvana. The first channel sounds kinda limited , but the second is the one I have been looking for. As others have said it breaks up at about 4, but prior to that it has the most melodic clean tone i have ever heard, This guy has some pretty still competition, an allen old flame for one. It is not better than the Allen. However it is a gem.

I use a G and L bluesboy semi hollow and a rickenbacker 360 through it. the Gand L was made for it, but the ricky really sings with the mids up full on the amp. Nice articulation, nice comreessed break up, nice rectifier tube sag, nice tone. A little heavy but the most portable half stack I've seen if you care to consider it in that light. No good for rap though. Ha.Not much good for metal either, but then neither am I.

Pulled the sovteks and rebiased it. Vaccummed the speakers and cleaned them with a bruch lightly. This thing has been used professionally since new and everything works. It has a few scuffs, but then so do I and it looks better than me.

any competent tech can work on these, and in my experience loves to do so. Haven't bothered with the blackface mod, it sounds great stock, and I have the allen for asnything else. Play it with 2 12 celestions, but they didn;t add much bass response. These 4 tens were originally there to comepnsate for low power handling, but they are now irreplaceable in my mind.
Dont expect fender owes me a thing....

Been playing since before the internet. Played Marshalls for years. Now I write more often and this inspored. No need for any pedals other than a delay which has a sound surround element on this baby. Couldn't be happier with an amp for my style of country, folk bluegrass and some rock. Seems they are priced for what the market will bear. I have never played a blackfaced one and maybe they are substantially better. Howevrer I do not see how.
Bought a cover for it, if thats an indication of my view of this amp.

Super reverb Made in 1974.
Definitely a very versitile amp. I play "mor" jazz and country/R&R.
2 channels, no switching, effects loops, headphone jack!
I wish there was an XLR balanced line out,. because it's easier to run into the general mix. I use all of the features including the tremolo and reverb unit, which at this time is not working

I use a variety of guitars with this amp, depending on the gig. I mostly use Strats and Teles, some of them hotrodded. I've been known to use a Lespaul and an Ibanez G.B. Single pickup archtops work particularly well through this amp1

I am a stickler for preparedness. I carry 2 amps just in case as a habit. But in the case of abreakdown, I carry a spare set of tubes in my gig back. Incidently,the has most of the original tubes that were in in when purchased in '74. Reliable or what??

Most repairs were tube replacement and general checkups. The tubes I can do myself. Warranty is "N/A" since the amp is 30+ yrs old; or is there something I am missing or not aware of??

PLaying 30+ yrs.
If itv were stolen I'd mostlikely buy another, or one of those Hotrod DEvilles, or a twin.
I don't compare. I like what I like!
Other gear I have are a couple of Vox solid states, an old '63 bassman, a Guyatone copy of a Showman head. Each is good for it's particular use.
I jusy need to find parts for the reverb unit on the Super.

This is an update to my previous review (see the original a couple of reviews down - Matt in SC)

This amp turns out to be a 1968. Contrary to what I said in my previous post, the circuit is not AB763 even though the tube chart says so. Evidently Fender never printed any AB568 Tube charts, but used up their supply of AB763 on all these amps. It is one of the strange early silverfaces without the aluminum "drip edge" around the grille. Apparently, a bunch made it through without this feature. I am lucky enough to live near Mike Clark (of Clark Amplification - see reviews of his amps here on Harmony Central) and he worked on the amp for me. Mike offers fantastic amp service, and some of the finest tweed replicas you have ever heard or seen. He really knows old Fender amps. Mike dated the amp for me based on pot codes, transformer codes etc. He blackfaced the amp, installed a grounded power cable (no more shocks!!), recapped it, lowered the voltage to the reverb circuit, and put some NOS Philips 6L6s (circa 1976) in it. He used Sprague Atoms, and Allen Bradley carbon comp resistors throughout. I left the original RCA preamp tubes, as there is no issue with them. This amp was great before, but is absolutely unbelievable now!

This amp sounds fatter than any other amp I have ever played. Even at low volumes it positively exudes thick tone. I keep thinking about pulling the reissue Jensens out and putting Webers in, but it currently sounds too good to justify doing that. I use this amp to gig with a classic / southern rock band. My current setup is as follows - G&L ASAT Special Semihollow, G&L Legacy, or Yamaha SBG-500 > Peterson Strobostomp > Old Dunlop Cry Baby Wah > Barber Tone Press > Foxrox ZIM > Foxrox Captain Coconut II > Tonebone Switchbone > '68 Super Reverb for clean tones, and a 2002 Top Hat Emplexador T-50EM (into Fender Tonemaster 4X12 w / Celection Vintage 30's) for dirt. The Super is the ultimate semi-clean amp for my purposes. It is perfect for classic rock, southern rock, jazz and blues. What a great combination with the Emplexador! The Top Hat really has to be crankin' to sound its best even with the master volume, but the Super sounds great at any volume (sans master). I find myself using the Super with pedals at lower volume gigs and for practice, and on larger gigs, I use the Super for clean and the Emplex (straight in - no pedals) for dirt. The Switchbone makes life much easier. Forget the crappy cheap A/B/Y switchers.

As I said in my previous review, I always take a spare amp to gigs. In my current rig, that spare is the Emplexador. If the Super took a crap, I would run through the Emplex by itself for the remainder of the gig. Vice-Versa if the Emplex dies. I feel confident that this amp will hold up, especially since Mike Clark just gave it a thorough servicing. BTW - I always carry spare tubes and fuses too!!!

Right.

I've played blackfaces that did not sound as good. A properly set up and serviced silverface Super (pre master volume) will sound as good as a more expensive blackface, IMHO. This amp absolutelt kills at gig volume, and still sounds great at more moderate levels. Perhaps the finest "clean" amp ever made. No joke. Get one. Believe the hype this time.

I don't know what year, this is a silverface, tho. It has just enough watts for a nice gigging amp. I play jazz and blues on it, and it can do anything that doesn't have much to do with OD. What sucks is that you need to go to guitar center or something and pick up a $50 footswitch to get tremolo(they call it vibrato) to work.

I've used this amp with a Squier Affinity Strat, an Epiphone Dot, and an ES-135, all using clean sounds with the amp turned up to 5, just where it starts to saturate. With the strat, it buzzes, but with the Dot and 135, if you use a non-crap cable(monster jazz for ex.) it is absolutely silent. It sounds awesome for jazz, sweet and warm with just a touch of reverb. Great for surf and blues, too! Nice spekaers.

This amp has a tendancy to just go out without any warning and that really bites. I have to open up the back and see what's wrong, and it turns out there's some stupid problem with the bass pot or something. Maybe because it's CBS:) It went out once, but just because of neglect of regular servicing(the tubes died).

This makes a wonderful amp for jazz and blues, with a radically different, warm, less-distinct tone than an amp like a Polytone Minibrute, which I also use. The amp seems to articulate less than a polytone, but it makes up for that by warming the tone up noticeably. An awesome fuckin' amp!

1969 Super Reverb - Silverface - AB763 Circuit - JoLida 6L6s - All RCA preamp tubes. 4 x 10" speakers. Loaded with new Jensens (still have the originals). Normal and Vibrato channels. Footswitch for reverb and vibrato. Bright switches on both channels. Non-master volume. 40 Watts. Loud enough for any gig I will ever play. External speaker output. Dual prong AC cord - No ground. I've been shocked several times already. I will be replacing it with a grounded cord soon (hopefully before I suffer any serious damage). I will probably invest in a power attenuator (Weber MASS) before too long to really push those power tubes at smaller gigs. As many of you know, 40 Watts is LOUD.

All the fat tone you could ask for. This is not a metal or hard rock amp. I use this amp for all styles that I play - Blues, Fusion, Funk, Rock, Southern Rock, and Jazz. My setup consists of 1998 G&L ASAT Special Semihollow, 1985 Yamaha SA-800 (ES-335 Copy), or modded 1994 Fender Strat (JB Jr. in bridge), into Peterson Strobostomp Tuner - Barber Tone Press - Foxrox ZIM Dual Overdrive (VT and B9 Cards installed) - Fender Super reverb. Sounds killer with each guitar. I have arrived at a "base setting" that I use on the Vibrato channel that sounds fantastic no matter which guitar I plug in. There is NO SUBSTITUTE for these old hand wired all tube amps. The new reissues are not the same, maybe because of the PC Board construction or perhaps the new components are just not the same. Also very important- You cannot replicate the smell of an old tube amp when it is warmed up. I have owned several Boogies in the past and still own a '90s "The Twin" (Rivera design). None of these can hold a candle to the pure sonic euphoria I experience daily with this amp. It has the perfect tone for me.

I will always take another (newer) amp for backup, simply because of the amp's age. It has never broken down, but if it does, I will have it serviced in a heartbeat, no matter what the cost.

Warranty for a 1969 amp? Right! Never Dealt with Fender for anything. I doubt they would be much help with an amp as old as I am.

I have owned pretty much nothing but good quality tube amps (newer Fenders, Boogies) for the better part of 20 years, and until now, was never completely blown away by the sound of any of my amps. This one does the trick. I realize that a guitarist's tone is probably one of the most subjective matters in the known universe, but if you are a player serious about tone, you owe it to yourself to check out some old Fender amps. Contrary to what the purists will tell you, Blackface is not the only answer. To get a great sounding amp, do your research at places like www.ampwares.com/ffg and find out when the circuit changed in all the classic amps - not just the cosmetics. Then go out and PLAY SOME!! This will tell you all you need to know. Compare the "real thing" to the reissues. You will see the light. I did. If this amp were stolen, I would definitely seek out another.

This is a technical update for all Silverface 1968-75 owners. It is very easy and inexspensive to change to Blackface wiring. First, Why is this important? The blackface curcuit allows for true tube bias with the adjustment pot in the chassis. All of the Silverface amps ( the 68 AB-763 curcuit I believe the only exception) do not allow this. They do have an adjustment pot but it will not help bias your tubes. Kendrick amps has a very good video that shows you exactly how to do this. Or take it to a local amp service and they will explain. Again this is not exspensive to have done. It will help keep your amp sounding sweet from Tube changes. Another tip, Try KT-66 Tubes (have all tube replacements biased) They are very musical and sweet break up. In my opinion the Super Reverb is one of the best Tonefull amps ever made. Yes, there are alot of great amps out there these days.But the Super can hold its own with most.