I bought one a few years ago from a friend of mine. Got it for like $400 in excellent condition. Didn't gig it much but a need came up recently to bring it back into use. So I start noodling around with it and decided to change the tubes (original groove tubes) and see what happens. So I ordered some tubes. Then I decided I couldn't wait, so I popped in some tubes I had laying around. I didn't notice that the tube guides were broken and put the tubes in. I see the rectifier tube glow and burn. Oh fuck. So I call my buddy that made the JTM for me and ask him to take out all the circuit board crap and whatever else needs attention and do a point to point, handwired set up instead. He told me that I just blew the fuse and the transformer is fine. So for $300 in parts, I now have a handwired Deluxe.
From his post on Facebook:
"The amp I built for my friend Bill is all done. Started out as a Deluxe Reverb Reissue. I pulled all the PCB junk out, mini pots, 1/4 watt resistors, ribbon connectors -- all gone. Handwired onto a custom turret board, replaced the photo resistor tremolo with a Brown Fender style bias type. Quiet at idle, loud as hell at full roar, and nice warm tone. Breaks up nice above 6 or 7, but you won't be making friends at that volume. While testing it, my wife said "Hey! That's the best sounding amp you have!" Oops."
And from his text this morning when I asked if I could grab it today:
"I had to move the reverb jacks to the back of the amp so I ordered a set of right angle wires. I can bring you the amp anytime, but the plugs stick out from the back for now. I had to replace a bad 12AX7 (I used an old Fender branded RCA), and a bad socket, added bias test jacks, new RCA cables, all the pots and input jacks. I'm into it for just about $300."
So Thu night I'll be picking this up. Now I'll need to grab a better speaker as the Fender supplied Jensen Design speaker kind of sucks. Probably get a Speaker Warehouse Fender clone thrown in there. Also planning on either Mullard or Electro Harmonix 6V6 tubes. Now I just have to wrangle up some more non Chinese 12ax7s and I should be golden!
Fender Deluxe reissue
Fender Deluxe reissue
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.