Fender Sleeper Amp? Brown Deluxe!

[ampdork]

Without a doubt the dirtiest vintage fender ever made and one of the biggest sleepers ever.
Not that this adds anything to this new forum but hey ...it's a fender and a sleeper... so yeah.
Cheers

Nice to see new sub forums here.

[sliberty]

I built a Brown Princeton not too long ago, and really love it. Been wondering how different the Brown Deluxe would sound. They are similar in a lot of ways, so I am guessing, not a huge difference. Any thoughts?

[Teleguy61]

Princeton is cathodyne PI, Deluxe is LTP. Both have bias vary trems.
Great amps. Princeton runs out of headroom sooner.

[Bear]

Both great. Princeton generally comes off a bit sweeter, Deluxe angrier. The Deluxe can come off pretty Marshally for a little Fender combo.

BTW, there's pretty small difference between the 6G2 Princeton and the tweed Vibrolux besides the cabinet.

[ampdork]

What those gents said, spot on!

Angry and mini Marshall are definitely good descriptors.

Here is a brown deluxe... if you can trust BG that is. You'll notice that the lamp is not on. ;O)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u9vMo4bEFw

Both great sounds but certainly different.

I love the blonde and brown era because there is so much variety and experimentation going on in those circuit. Very productive couple of years.

[Richie]

I don't think either are sleepers. Many know about them, and you don't see many for sale. And if you do they are usually expensive.

Although there are differences,there are also some very similar things as in looking at an 18 watt marshall.
I always think of the 6G3 deluxe,as the American version of an Marshall 18 watter.

2 channels, a normal and bright, vol, tone. And trem... if you put the layouts or schems up, you can point out the things that are close to the same. But yet still they are different.

Marshall copied the 18 from the WEM amp, so the deluxe was before any 18 marshall. I think the Wem was close to around the same time or a bit earlier.

Both have good trem, although again different. I think the deluxe trem is alot less problems. Different recto tubes, output tubes. etc.. Still cool to look at differences and compare them.

[Structo]

So which model is the brown era?

6G3?

[rdjones]

So which model is the brown era?

6G3?

Yes, the 6GXx are the Blond/Brown series 1960-1963 for most models.

reddog

[rp]

I don't think either are sleepers. Many know about them, and you don't see many for sale. And if you do they are usually expensive.

+1

the brown Princeton is great too...so is browm Super...as is brown Concert....hmmm? Brown

[ampdork]

True they are no longer sleepers...but not that long ago they were in deep sleep...for decades!
When QA released the brown derby there was no other such offering ave the Allen amp which used a different PI circuit.
Then Ampeg released a hand wired version and believe there are several others as well.

Interesting to note is that if you consider that a shared cathode circuit would be double the R value if you split them (3k3 being the common value)... so if you changed just the cathode cap value for the first stage to a 5uF.... it would be the same input stage as in a Dumble skyliner. (3k3/5uf cathode, 220K plate load)

Sorry....couldn't help it. ;O)

[Richie]

I don't think either are sleepers. Many know about them, and you don't see many for sale. And if you do they are usually expensive.

+1

the brown Princeton is great too...so is browm Super...as is brown Concert....hmmm? Brown

HAHA... and and and.. oh yeah blones.. and ahhhh can you say gibson amps in here..LOL

[Bear]

Although there are differences,there are also some very similar things as in looking at an 18 watt marshall.
I always think of the 6G3 deluxe,as the American version of an Marshall 18 watter.

Very true. I've toyed with building a 6G3 in an off-the-shelf 18 watt chassis and cab. Just drill bigger holes for the power and rectifier tubes or find plausible substitutes in a smaller bottle.

[Dr-Joned]

Since you are on the subject of the Rev Gibbons and Fender. I have always tried to figure out what he used on Thunderbird on the Fandango album. The sound is very rolled off and cranked. Any idears??

[tooold]

I built a Brown Princeton not too long ago, and really love it. Been wondering how different the Brown Deluxe would sound. They are similar in a lot of ways, so I am guessing, not a huge difference. Any thoughts?

I'll go with what the others have said. I have both, both are great, but the Deluxe is a Princeton that forgot to take its meds.

[rp]

I'll go with what the others have said. I have both, both are great, but the Deluxe is a Princeton that forgot to take its meds.

I'll agree w/ that too. Today there are 10s" that keep up w/ 12"s but back then not so the Deluxe kicked more booty because of the 12" too. The orig gold oxfords in those things were a big part of the sound, especially set just at breakup. And just below break up sooo super sweet.

I don't think there's anything that exotic about the 6G3, just that the combination of 2 6V6s, fixed bias, and LTP and just a Tone instead of TB or TMB kicks serious booty. Cloners or Collectors are more familiar with tweed 6V6 amps or BF Princeton/Deluxe Reverbs and are surprised when they encounter this mini brown Marshall-like beast.