a friend just got some brand new princeton and it had noise first weekend, got it fixed for free and no issues yet. (was output tubes)
we have a local fendauthrorized so that helps.
Your sample is a clean and smooth Fender tone, sounds good.
Id prefer to hear it without all the delays and reverbs, but its ok as is and has the fender tube tone, strat and sm57.
How is rating up against your Super and others you own? Deluxe still #1 ?
If you could ask your friend, I'd be curious to hear the noise described. Did he get the 65 Reissue or the 68 Classic Princeton (the one I have)?
The two other Fenders I have are a Hotrod Deluxe (not getting a lot of play) and the 65 Reissue Deluxe Reverb (my all-time favorite amp). I hear lots of differences between this Princeton and my Deluxe. The Deluxe has the classic scooped Fender tone. For pure clean tones, it's as nice as any and nicer than most, but where it really lives is from edge-of-breakup to full-on overdrive. It's got a very sweet overdriven tone. However, the bottom can get a out of control if you're not careful. Mine is an early production amp from the late 90s or early 2000s with the brown Eminence speaker instead of the Jensen they added later. Some say the Jensens are better, but this Eminence of mine is so broken in, sounds sweet to me, and I'm used to it.
This Princeton is just a different animal. It really wants to do pristine clean. That's its best sound, based on what I've found so far. It seems strange to run a 12 watt amp on volume settings of 3 and 4, but that's where it seems happiest. I would describe its clean tone as tight, midrangy, punchy. Not at all scooped. If you're listening to that clip, notice the last note in the opening phrase (E, a-string, 7th fret). Hear that tight, percussive quality? Very different from how the Deluxe would sound. I am not liking the overdriven sounds as well. There is a slight fizz. It might be possible to tame it, but I've got the Deluxe to cover overdriven.
I'm on the fence as to whether to keep it or trade it up for the 15 watt 65 Reissue Princeton. I could walk into GC, return it, and for another $100 walk out with the Reissue. I've got a couple more weeks to decide, so for the meanwhile I'm going to play with it. What I would get out of the 65 is a little more clean headroom and a later breakup, and a more traditional blackface sound. If this were my only amp, I would exchange it for sure. But I'm interested in a palette of sounds for recording, and I don't need a smaller version of the Deluxe. I want an amp that brings something distinct from what I already have, and this one does.
Yeah, the delay sounds a lot by itself. Most of the tones I post are takes from songs that I'm working on at the moment. I want to show how a given amp works in a specific song context. And I always track my guitar FX. So if the guitar part has delay in the song context, that's what you'll hear.