Fender ‘64 Custom Princeton Reverb Amp • Orange Crush Acoustic 30 Twin Channel Amp

THIS HAND-WIRED REISSUE OF THE WORLD’S MOST POPULAR SMALL AMP MIGHT JUST SPARE YOU THE OVERHEATED VINTAGE MARKET. REVIEW BY CHRIS GILL.

Partly thanks to session players like Tommy Tedesco and Steve Lukather, the Princeton is known as the most recorded amp in the world. It’s also appeared on stage and in the studio with rockers like Pete Townshend, Mike Campbell and St. Vincent, country pickers Clarence White, Marty Stuart and Kenny Vaughan, and even jazz guitarists like Bill Frisell.Stars like them may have made the Princeton an icon, but its success and longevity lie with the millions of unknown players like you and I who have made it a reliable staple for practise, recording and club gigs.

With the Fender ’64 Custom Princeton Reverb, Fender has resurrected the most beloved model in all of its former glory. It’s designed for players with a discriminating ear who desire classic Princeton Reverb tone and performance, but don’t want to spend $5,000 or more for an original vintage model that’s more than likely missing original parts.

True to the original, the ’64 Custom Princeton Reverb is a single-channel, 12-watt all-tube amp with reverb and tremolo. The power amp is driven by a pair of 6V6 tubes, while the preamp is driven by one and a half 12AX7 tubes with the other half split to the phase inverter. The third 12AX7 is split between reverb recovery and tremolo, a 12AT7 drives the long-spring reverb tank and the rectifier is a 5AR4/GZ34 tube.

There’s also a pair of inputs (normal and -6dB), volume, treble, bass, reverb, speed and intensity knobs on the front panel and a power switch, quarterinch internal and external speaker jacks and jack for the included two-button reverb/tremolo on/off footswitch on the rear panel.

While the hand-wired construction, period-correct cosmetics and high-quality components are all welcome details, what truly makes the ’64 Custom Princeton Reverb worth its price is its stellar tone. Like the original, the clean tones are among the absolute best available, especially when paired with its gorgeous, lush tube-driven reverb. Individual notes have ample body, and percussive snaps of the low E string deliver a tight, drum-like wallop.

The impressive clean headroom and overall warmth and richness makes this amp an ideal base for a pedal-based rig for gigging or recording. The tremolo is also mightily impressive, with a rich, organic texture that smoothly emerges on the decay of sustained notes and ducks out of the way when playing more aggressively.

The Princeton Reverb’s tone transforms to overdrive grit with the volume at 5 using a humbucker-equipped ES-335, or at 7 with a single-coil Strat. The overdrive becomes satisfyingly raunchy with the volume at 10, but the tone never becomes compressed or tubby and note definition and percussive attack remains brilliant.

The tone cleans up beautifully by backing down the guitar’s volume control, so I heartily recommend Jim Campilongo’s tried-and-true approach of leaving the volume at 10 and using the guitar’s volume control as your “channel switcher.” The volume output is more than ample for most gigs and absolutely perfect for studio recording.