From tremolu–(at)–ol.com Sun Jul 2 21:51:41 CDT 1995
Article: 51064 of alt.guitar
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From: tremolu–(at)–ol.com (Tremolux)
Newsgroups: alt.guitar
Subject: Re: Fender Super Amp
Date: 2 Jul 1995 15:34:11 -0400
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Reply-To: tremolu–(at)–ol.com (Tremolux)
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Re your 1970 Super Reverb, you mentioned that this one was made “before
CBS changed the circuitry”. This is simply not true, if indeed your amp
is a Silvereface 1970 model. FYI, and this is WELL documented in NUMEROUS
places, CBS bought Fender from Leo in January 1965. At that time, they
changed the company name from “Fender Electric Instruments” to “Fender
Musical Instruments”. They basically left things alone up to the end of
1967, as this was the last year for the “Blackface” amps. Starting in
1968, the Silverface era began. With these 1968 amps, the new CBS-Fender
company introduced several circuit modifications, primarily in the phase
inverter and output stages, to reduce distortion. This was the dreaded
AB568 circuit. The 568 means fifth month of 1968, the design date, just
like the beloved AB763 was designed in seventh month of 1963. These 568
amps were the ones responsible for the silverface amps getting such a
bad-rap for sounding shitty. Fender quickly realized their error, since
sales plummeted, and removed most of the mods. This became the AA1069
circuit. Shortly thereafter, they did some more tweaks, and that was the
AA270. Now, if indeed your Super is a 1970, it MUST either be a 1069 or a
270, which most certainly has some CBS changes. This is well documented.
Mind you, these amps are fairly easy to modify back to the old 763
Blackface circuit, and they sound way better when this is done. Has yours
been modified back to Blackface?

Just a bit of Fender history to set the record straight.

Regards.

 

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