Early 60's Fender Concert, Brown

[sunvalleylaw]

It has a pair of Tung Sol 6L6WGB tubes in it now, that were reportedly old stock, (not in a box) that were in good shape. The pre-amp tubes are tung sol as well, but I need to pull the cover off of one to tell you the details. Other than reading a bit about replacement JJ tubes for my C-30, this will be my first foray into real tube knowledge, as I basically know nuthingk! LOL!

After folks left the office last night, I progressively turned it up some, ending on a hair past 7. The bass is unreal, and it was still fairly clean, but just starting to break up maybe, with my strat going straight in with no pedals. It seemed that if I dimed the guitar volume, it would get to break up range, but if I dialed back to 7 or 8 it would clean right up. Oh, and it was vibrating a couple of greeting cards I had on a long two drawer filing cabinet next to it all over the top of the filing cabinet, when I played bassy chords like a E or a barre G. LOL!

[tunghaichuan***]

The 6L6WGB is similar to a 5881. It might even be the same tube, just relabeled. That is great news, no need to swap them out unless they go south.

From your description, it sounds like Leo Fender was moving more towards the Blackface sound and away from the tweed sound. Leo always was trying to remove distortion from his amps

The downside is that you'll have to crank it to earbleed-levels to get natural distortion out of it. Good thing you have pedals, they'll save your hearing.

It has a pair of Tung Sol 6l6GWB tubes in it now, that were reportedly old stock, (not in a box) that that were in good shape. The pre-amp tubes are tung sol as well, but I need to pull the cover off of one to tell you the details. Other than reading a bit about replacement JJ tubes for my C-30, this will be my first foray into real tube knowledge, as I basically know nuthingk! LOL!

After folks left the office last night, I progressively turned it up some, ending on a hair past 7. The bass is unreal, and it was still fairly clean, but just starting to break up maybe, with my strat going straight in with no pedals. It seemed that if I dimed the guitar volume, it would get to break up range, but if I dialed back to 7 or 8 it would clean right up. Oh, and it was vibrating a couple of greeting cards I had on a long two drawer filing cabinet next to it all over the top of the filing cabinet, when I played bassy chords like a E or a barre G. LOL!

[sunvalleylaw]

The 6L6WGB is similar to a 5881. It might even be the same tube, just relabeled. That is great news, no need to swap them out unless they go south.

From your description, it sounds like Leo Fender was moving more towards the Blackface sound and away from the tweed sound. Leo always was trying to remove distortion from his amps

The downside is that you'll have to crank it to earbleed-levels to get natural distortion out of it. Good thing you have pedals, they'll save your hearing.

Good to know. I wondered what the tube designation meant. Your description of moving toward BF sound is accurate from what I have read. As I understand it, the brown amphs of the early 60s are in between the tweeds and BFs in terms of tone and headroom. It seems to have lots of warmth to my ear, and to me, that gives a bit more character than the squeaky clean BF sound. But that is based on models I have listened to and played through (Line 6 Gearbox models, etc.), not really experience with the real thing. It seems to have enough tweed in it to make it enjoyable to me.

[tunghaichuan***]

I have an RCA blackplate 6L6GB, which is a great sounding tube. It ODs nicely in Champs and tweed Princetons. The "W" designation in tyour tubes stands for ruggedized. The 5881 was an industrial tube, also ruggedized. IIRC, they were used in mobile radios in the US military circa WWII. Those tubes had to be tough. I have a pair of reall 5881s pulled from a hifi amp and they sound glorious in my homebrew tweed Princetons.

Good to know. I wondered what the tube designation meant. Your description of moving toward BF sound is accurate from what I have read. As I understand it, the brown amphs of the early 60s are in between the tweeds and BFs in terms of tone and headroom. It seems to have lots of warmth to my ear, and to me, that gives a bit more character than the squeaky clean BF sound. But that is based on models I have listened to and played through (Line 6 Gearbox models, etc.), not really experience with the real thing. It seems to have enough tweed in it to make it enjoyable to me.