Amp techs,how come my old Fender twin....

[SHEPPARDB.]

Sounds so much better than the newer fender stuff?
I have been gigging alot so I picked up a back up amp today,Hot Rod
Deville.My main amp is a 74 twin and there is no comparison between
the two.
The deville has a very fine line in between clean and where the tubes
start distorting,where-as my twin goes thru several levels of overdrive
before reaching a full on distortion.(with my fulltone)
I tried both overdrive chanells of the deville and both are far to dirty
and muddy for my style.I hooked up my fulltone full drive 2 and still
could not find the point where clarity meets overdrive.
The deville has a very good clean tone,but it is lacking when compared
to the twin.
Anywho,I was just wondering if this is a tube issue?(I have rubys in the
twin and G.T.'S in the deville)Is there anything I could do to get the
deville sounding more like my twin?
BTW,I'm not bashing on the deville.It is a kick ass amp.(I've owned 2,
but I never really noticed these probs with my first)It is a JCM 800
with better clean and reverb for all practical purposes.Great amp for solid rockers,but I'm more of a blues/rocker.
Any help or advice is appreciated.

 

[Charva]

Jeez, for a few hundred more, you could have got the Twin re-issue!

The only thing these to great amps have in common are the fender logo.

the deville is real touchy with the overdrive.

I don't really care too much for the deville overdrive channel.

I use it for the clean and run my guitar through a tube preamp for the distortion effect.


Dave

 

[SHEPPARDB.]

Jeez, for a few hundred more, you could have got the Twin re-issue!

The only thing these to great amps have in common are the fender logo.

the deville is real touchy with the overdrive.

I don't really care too much for the deville overdrive channel.

I use it for the clean and run my guitar through a tube preamp for the distortion effect.


Dave

Dave,the lowest price I have seen on the R.I. TWIN is more than I care to
spend for a back-up amp.(Especially when I can buy an older one and rework it for a better price)I just need something to gig with if my twin
gets the flu or something.
Yeah,that O.D. chanell is touchy as hell.What gets me is that it has a fairly
decent clean ch. but as soon as you add an overdrive(in my case the full
tone)it turns to shit.Loses all clarity and gets muddy.
BTW,I didnt shell out any cash for the deville,I traded some shit I had laying
around for it.

 

[Outlaws]

Ya, the DeVille isn't the same type of amp. Compare your old Twin to a RI Twin if you want, but the DeVille is apples and oranges. You might as well compare a vintage Gibson acoustic to a modern Gibson electric.

 

[JazzMasterWil]

I'm not trying to bash you or anything like that, but I agree with outlaw.... Totally different amp.

But personally, I like the deville. I think it's a pretty sweet little amp, and I've always had good results with groove tubes. But if more distortion is what you're seeking, you could swap out the pre-amp tubes.....

This might be a risky move, because you might scarfice your clean tone for my overdrive. I've seen, heard, and even owned amps that really didin't have a "clean" channel. (Sometimes do to insane pre amp tubes).

Some marshalls are a good example of this.... the clean sounds good, but not "prestine" if you know what I mean. It'll clean up a little bit, but you've got to roll down the volume on your guitar. And gigging can be a nightmare, without a lot of clean headroom.

I hope you enjoy the amp, but, there's no way it'll ever sound as good as that twin you've got. (And I don't mean that as an insult, there's a reason why twins cost so much money).

 

[-=¤willhaven¤=-]

God, it's been a long time since I've been inside of an old Fender. As for a different design, that might be true. Even with the same design, I believe different capacitors can give a different sound. I believe they used to use electrolytic capacitors in ye olde days and apparently they sound different than capacitors with a newer design.

 

[Middleman]

The reason the older ones sound better is the transformers. You just can't match those beasts.

 

[Hard2Hear]

Not to mention it probably has REAL Jensen speakers in it, not the imported crap with Jensen labels on it made nowadays. Speakers are 50% of the tone of an amp, and more and more new ones are korean absolute junk.

H2H

 

[Dani Pace]

I tend to agree with the speaker issue. There is a world of difference in the tone between even old twins and the new ones. New ones seem to sound somewhat "dry", almost like solid state while the old ones have a "wetter" sound more suited for blues.