New To Me 65 Twin Reverb Reissue

[Fairlane 63]

New amp day yesterday for me. Saw this on my local CL for a good price and decided to pick it up.
Of course through selective photography it looked a lot cleaner than it was; bet most of you know how that story goes... But I could tell this has sat for a while and was definitely a diamond in the rough.

Now I did my due diligence on this and read lots of great reviews and some not so good reviews. Lots of gear snobs and if I could afford a vintage one I would have it but this was in my price range of pocket fun money so I decided to at least check it out. Went to the gentleman's house and it was sitting there in his small apartment main room next to the Parrot cage so it had the obligatory bird squirt on it fortunately it was only in one location. He explained he bought it new but was too much amp for him now living in a small apartment and it being to heavy he wanted to sell it. By looking at his Dearmond hollow body and his Custom Shop Stratocaster he took good care of his stuff overall.

He had not plugged it in for a while he said which probably meant a few years but despite some crackly pots it sounded very nice, especially with the strat of course. I was sold so I picked it up with the manual and foot switch.

It is cleaning up nice, in fact it looks like brand new. I pulled the amplifier out of the cabinet at lunch time today to get at the pots, all of them, but you have to remove every knob and every retaining nut to get it out. unplug three ribbon cables four switch screws and there it is on the bench. Getting some good old Deoxit in the potentiometers was tricky but you can get it in there on the side of each switch.
Anyhow it seems to be built well and I know it is a PC board and all and the cork sniffers will smirk but it gets a lot of amp into your house for a lot less than an original. I have vintage tube stereo gear that is point to point as well and newer solid state gear with PC boards both are outstanding, both are great in my book.

A few pictures for anyone interested.

Loaded in the car, dirty and dusty. Webs and dog hair too.





Inside looking good after some vacuuming and elbow grease.



All the tone switches removed.



The mother board checks out and looks perfect. All connections are tight, no sign of excess heat.


Bottom of the switch, small opening on the side gets you inside for thorough cleaning with contact cleaner.


Looking good here too. Removed tubes and cleaned the pins.


I can post some post clean up pictures when she is all back together if anyone is interested. Look forward to playing around with it. Bet it will sound great with the LP too. Thanks for looking and would appreciate opinions on these amps good and bad. Will not be offended in any way.

 

[o6 oly white]

I like it. It looks good, enjoy

 

[Mansonienne]

HNAD!!!

 

[Neil.C]

A lot of amp for a normal house but because of that they can often be picked up at bargain prices.

Happy new amp day.

 

[jimyjazz]

Looks great . Enjoy your new twin.

 

[mikej89]

Very nice! The cork sniffers can pay twice as much for a boutique point to point model and pretend to know the difference But that's a high end amp you have the way I see it, top of the line Fender. They'd really look down on my Blues Jr. It's made in Mexico, has PCB, and particle board cabinet. Yours is USA made with a pine cabinet.

 

[hornpiper]

Congrats. on the new amp. I have an older '65 reissue, among a couple other amps, and contrary to popular belief, it sounds pretty good with the sound turned down, and also turned up. I like it with humbuckers and single coils. They are a really versatile amp, very popular with country and jazz players (who both don't always play loud!), as well as rockers. If you want dirty, just add an overdrive and/or distortion pedal. Of course the classic Fender Reverb and Tremelo are already there. Ya, ok, they're kind of heavy, but so are a Marshall 100watt head, or a 4x12. The constant "heavy" thing on the internet about the Twin cracks me up. From lots of experience I can guarantee that a Super Reverb is a little heavier, and unwieldly than a Twin, and an AC30 is considerably heavier, but their weight is rarely mentioned in discussions about those models. If you like a certain guitar or amp, follow what you like, don't pay heed to the gear police. A lot of lt is just B.S. that grows and mutates as it gets passed around, by people, some of whom have actually had no experience with gear they're talking about.

 

[sumran]

Congrats on the amp. You bought it the right way with your eyes open. After what you went through to clean the pots, you have "enjoyed" the PCB experience. Not recreational but you do what you need to do.

Twins are a great value. They sound good at lower volumes. They work well with pedals. Casters or a dolly handle the weight. As long as you expect it to be a Twin and not something else, you will love it.

 

[CGHguitars]

Corksniffery aside, these are AWESOME amps. I sold mine a few years back to get a lower-output Deluxe, and really miss it. The amp really responds to tube and speaker changes. The Jensens are pretty harsh IMHO. NOS pre-amp, and if affordable, 5881's to replace the 6L6GC's, help it smooth out, drive a bit better, and overall warm up the tone. Tung-Sol re-issue 5881's are the most affordable I found; about $42/pair.

Great amp!!

 

[Fairlane 63]

Thanks guys. All great advice and opinions.

Figure with what I paid for it I can fart around with some different tubes and maybe speakers, who knows. I have some great vintage preamp tubes Teles and Mullards
I plan on putting in it for fun but what little I have heard so far it is pretty sweet stock too.

Will get it back together tomorrow and fire it up good this weekend when the wife is out

I will post the final cleaned up picture.

 

[CalicoSkies]

Nice amp.
I recently sold a Twin 65 Reissue myself. I felt similar about it - I liked it, but I felt like it was too much amp for my needs. I think they sound great though.

They can take a while to sell, too - I had ads out for mine for about a month, and then I decided to sell it on consignment at a local guitar shop. I suppose having it available in a shop helped, since someone bought it recently. A couple people had replied to my ads that I put out, but they both decided not to buy it.

 

[Fairlane 63]

Nice amp.
I recently sold a Twin 65 Reissue myself. I felt similar about it - I liked it, but I felt like it was too much amp for my needs. I think they sound great though.

They can take a while to sell, too - I had ads out for mine for about a month, and then I decided to sell it on consignment at a local guitar shop. I suppose having it available in a shop helped, since someone bought it recently. A couple people had replied to my ads that I put out, but they both decided not to buy it.

Good points. A lot of gear and amps on my local CL but people want ridiculous prices for most of their stuff and it sits week after week. I had been looking for a classic Fender amplifier and this is probably overkill but I do not care at this point. Figure I can sell it down the road if it really is too much amplifier and will enjoy the heck out of it in the meantime. Like just looking at, lame I know.

I paid $500 for which I thought was a fair price to both of us and I am not worried about at least getting my money back if needed.

 

[liltimmy]

I paid $500 for which I thought was a fair price to both of us and I am not worried about at least getting my money back if needed.

Congrats on the new amp. Twin Reverb makes a great all around amp whether for home, studio, or gigs. Never short on power. $500 is a good price for a good condition RI Twin. I would not want to pay more than that, and I often see guys trying to get 700-800 for a used RI which is hopeless because mid 70's Twin are all over my local CL for that price and less.

I dig the Twin. Massive reliability. I finally replaced the phase inverter tube in mine a week ago. I was hoping that was the source of some slight crackling. There was a General Electric tube pulling duty there that was either the original tube or put in within a few years from manufacture. Pretty good service life 1969-2017, lol. While I was chucking new preamp tubes in there I tossed a new tube, JJ803s in the v2 spot, which is the first gain stage tube for channel two. I highly recommend this tube! Very sensitive and responsive. Clean and tight! I am a big fan of JJ's in my twin, they have proven to be very reliable with a good sound akin to a vintage amp. You are probably years away from need a retube though. With a Twin you can swap less used or unused preamp tubes around the amp to get it back up and running in a pinch, pretty cool.

The cork sniffers can pay twice as much for a boutique point to point model and pretend to know the difference

I paid $1200 for a '69 drip edge Twin. It's a Fender, not boutique. And heck yeah, there is a difference: more robust construction. Easier to repair. And it holds it's value better. In spite of your reverse corksniffery, I don't look down on you for owning a blues jr, it's a good little amp. I don't look down at anyone for the gear they use. If you can play, you can play. Reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite movies. Corksniffery starts about 45 seconds in.

 

[Fairlane 63]

Well here it all cleaned up. Looks and sounds like new.

 

[johnnymg]

Well here it all cleaned up. Looks and sounds like new.

View attachment 214481 View attachment 214482

Wow................ that does look 'like new'

 

[nuculer terrist]

Nice amp, and hell with the corksniffers.
Enjoy your badass amp!

 

[bryan83]

Excellent deal on an excellent amp. I've went through two TRRI's in my musical history. Very cool amps. Like all blackface fender, very easy on the eyes. My last one was the blonde special edition, I would love to have that one back. There is one on my local CL, GAS is a killer!