My primary amp is a Fender '65 Twin Reverb Reissue. This is the second TRRI that I've owned. I traded the first for a Mesa Boogie Blue Angel which was a great trade until the Boogie died. I took it in countless times to be serviced but to no avail. In any event, I had a 70's Silverface Twin briefly before deciding to trade it in on a new TRRI. The Silverface was noisy, and just too loud. And so, I've had this current TRRI for about 8 years now. It's recently been re-tubed with JJs and is now good to go for another number of years.
As you can see in the picture, the speakers were replaced. No, they aren't JBLs, the ones in this picture were Eminence Commonwealths, which are supposedly similar to the vintage JBLs with aluminum dust caps. I was interested in experimenting with speakers and was well aware of the fact that Garcia and Kimock use(d) JBLs. Not wanting to spend a fortune of vintage JBLs, I tried the Commonwealths. They were crisp and loud but they were just way to heavy... each one weighed about 25lbs, bringing the weight of the amp up to what seemed like a ton (I'd guess between 90-100lbs). Now, I'm not an old man, but nor am I still in my 20's. I do still play the occasional gig and moving this beast around was just too much so I decided to explore other speaker options.
About 6 months ago I decided to try some Eminence neodymium speakers. They're light and I love them. I opted for one Lil' Texas and one Tonkerlite. The pair seems well balanced together and best of all, I can lift my amp again.
The Commonwealths are sitting in my shop and I have contemplated loading them into an extension cabinet but even that may be more weight than I want to tote around. Time will tell...
As far as the Twin goes, I can't imagine playing through another amp. The thing just rocks. Yes, it's loud but it just sounds so sweet and clean that I couldn't live without it.
I also have a few Fender SCX2s. After a brief foray with a Fender Mustang III (which suffered from the dreaded fizz which plagued the first generation of Mustang amps) I traded it in on this little number. These SCX2s are fantastic amps. The clean channel is great and the amp models (and reverbs) are usable and flexible. I don't use the other effects on the amp. I spent a little time using the FUSE software when I first got it to dial it in and I've got it set up just the way I like it now. There's no mid control on the front face of the amp so using the FUSE software is the only way to dial in your miss. Some of the amp models also have features that can only be dialed in using FUSE, but once they're set, you're good to go. It's an awesome little 15 watt amp. Having once owned a Fender Blues Jr., I can honestly say I prefer this model. It does everything that amp does and them some.
The cabinet is the real story here. I found an old stereo cabinet at a used furniture store for $28. It was in rough shape and the grill cloth was pretty ragged but I got the idea to turn it into an extension cabinet for an amp. I refinished the cabinet after tightening it up and adding a new baffle and semi-enclosed back. I also put some new basket weave grill cloth in it and loaded it up with an Eminence Cannabis Rex speaker. Of course, with the cabinet completed, I needed a little head for it. I liked my SCX2 combo so much that I decided to try the head version.
It's definitely not something I'd gig with but it's pretty sweet sounding in the studio. I discovered that there's more to making a guitar cab than throwing a speaker in a box. This cabinet has a lot of low end, too much probably, but for home studio use it works fine.
This project is still in the works but I had so much fun doing the first custom cab that I thought I'd try another. This one was only $20 bucks at Goodwill and was in pretty rough shape all the way around. It required some re-glueing at a few of the joints. It still had the old radio and tubes in it when I purchased it but I yanked all that out and covered the hole with a cool old California license plate. I used an adhesive felt on the back of the plate before mounting it to try to reduce the possibility of vibration. Given that I have not made the baffle or installed a speaker, we'll see if my efforts were successful. I used a super heavy duty black paint (for metal) and so it really sealed the gaps and little cracks in the wood and formed a bulletproof finish. The plan is to use one of the Jensens that was originally in my Fender Twin. I suspect that this cabinet will also suffer from too much low end but it'll be fun to goof around with in the studio. The plan to to just run it using the SCX2 combo or head. At this point, it's being used as a table in my studio. It's not hot on my list of things to do right now but I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually. I'll keep you posted...
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