A poll for guitarists/guitar knowledgable folks . . .

[pace]

Ive cross referenced other silverfaces and they turn out to be Utah (ive had owners mistakenly advertise them as jensens). Does your twin have a master volume?!? If not, there's always that mod, or switching to blackface specs is a mod that's readily available. If & when you decide to change & bias the poweramp tubes, check the tray with all the filter caps in it and make sure they're not leaking.
 
Joey is right regarding Mesa~ I work part-time with a guy who is an authorized repair center for them. In the past three years the only overhaul I had to do was to change all the pots on a triple rectifier head (there was a bad batch somewhere around 2000). Our only other gripe was that there are no bias pots on Mesa's, so you are at the whim of using their rating system (green, yellow, red) for their tubes, which are essentially matched/tested Sovteks. My friend claims to have figured out the correlation between Sovtek's codes, and Mesa's colors~ we'll see when I change the 8 6L6's in my poweramp...  

[kmh364]

Victoria, Matchless, Koch, Carr, Two-Rock, etc. all make vintage Fender-style boutique amps. All are high-end sound, construction and price-wise.

[pace]

The older 2 channel tweed Devilles are great amps Dave! The newer 3 channel ones have some fundamental differences that I dont like. My 4x10 tweed is an amp I regret selling, but I needed to in order to make way for my Mesa.
 
There's a Carr Rambler over at my girlfriend's place and thats a pretty nice amp if your into the Princton / Pro Reverb sized combos...

[kmh364]

Mike: Yup, it's a crappo master-volume model (130W deluxe job, LOL!) ca. '78-'79. I had Jay look over the thing carefully as I've heard the stories about leaky caps burning the amp down. This one has had very little usage (a lot of turn-ons/turn-offs, but no steady high-volume usage). When I questioned Jay about upgrades (mods) he basically put it this way: it am what it am...it's an OK amp, but it'll never be a blackface or a 'plexi'  
 
BTW, Jay is a disciple of Marshall plexi's (more like a worshipper, LOL). He must have about two dozen of them in various states of disassembly around his cluttered basement shop, but he won't part with any of them, LOL!
 
Unless someone has negative experience doing same, I think I can wake the thing up with a new cab and speaker replacement...it just depends on the final cost. It might be cheaper to go with a new amp, LOL! Having said that, it's difficult to replace a 'clean' amp with lots of headroom these days as everything seems to be either vintage blues-rock (i.e., increase the vol, increase the tube edge distortion) or death-metal/shred/seven-string bass-heavy distorted mondo stacks. Both of today's favored types are VERY expensive as well.

[poor_nigel]

 
Hey Kevin.  I took a 72 Twin that I bought for $200, about ten years, whose cabinet was cracked and built it a solid oak head and front ported speaker cabinet.  I learned to make dove-tailed joints on it.  It came out exceptional.  I had the D-120F's reconed with real D-120F cones, which you cannot get these days.  
 
In the picture above, you can see most of the head.  The bottom section hold the reverb unit in a sliding panel, so it can be accessed easily, but you can keep cords on top of it, no problem.  
 
The bottom looks a bit like a single ported Eden 2x10 cabinet, sans quacker horn.  The lows were extended a bit, and the highs were kept.  It was solid as a tank, and it was a bit heavy, so I put it on some really nice casters.  
 
This was traded to a professor, Eddie, at Chico State as part of a debt I owed him.  He sent me this picture a couple of months ago.  He had a problem with it once and took it here:  http://www.themusiczoo.com/wayneguitars.htm  where they replaced a tube and cleaned a couple of pots, I believe.  They were very impressed with the sound, so the hardwood cabinet seemed to work out for the better.  These are not oiled cabinets, but were sprayed by a friend using the same finish he used on guitars.
 
My quick upgrade for the loss of my Twin was to buy a 68 Silver-faced Dual Showman, with the black-faced circuit in it.  I got it with D-130F's in it, and I added an empty 68 Bandmaster 2x12 bottom and put 12 Gauss speakers in it.  It is very clean, but will overdrive nicely, if demanded.  I don't pay much attention to guitar amps, but I believe a Dual Showman is identical to a Twin Reverb - except the older Showman amps had no reverb.

[poor_nigel]

Opps: Wrong site listed. Eddie actually took his Twin to Wayne & Michael Charvel's shop in Paradise, which is very close to Chico, California. Not the distributor for his stuff.  Sorry, my senility is acting up again.  The correct link is: http://www.wayneguitars.com/guitar_history.html

[hollis]

When I plug the Mesa 2X12 into my twin it is indeed air shattering.....  
 
Thomas, If memory serves, I seem to remember that the Dual Showman doesn't have tremelo (does it?), otherwise, I think they're pretty much the same....  
 
By the way, nice guitars!

[David Houck]

According to the site,
http://www.ampwares.com/ffg/
the Dual Showman had vibrato but no reverb, except for the Dual Showman Reverb.  However, the Red Knob Showman did not have vibrato.

[poor_nigel]

 
Yo Hollis.  Yep, same as a Twin, except no reverb.  I use the head every once in a while for bass, but never with the bottoms gotten for it.  Very warm and clean bass output.  Very nice for a 60's sound, especially hooked up to a couple of old Sunn bottoms.  My old Sunn heads seem dirtier.  I think they all need to be serviced for old caps, but I will not take them to anyone around here.  When I move back to the West coast, I will definitely do that.

[hollis]

Well..... so much for memory.....  
One thing I do remember is the crystal tones...

[hollis]

Well..... so much for memory.....  
One thing I do remember is the crystal tones...

[kmh364]

Ooops, I was wrong...I rechecked the speaker serial numbers and the original Fender Musical Instruments 12s in my Silverface are made by Pyle. I think EV's or JBL's were a $50-$100 Fender factory option on an amp that originally MSRP'ed at $1,000 back in '81 when I bought the thing.
 
I spoke to Bill Boekhoff today. He quoted me $500 delivered to my door for a gorgeous oversized (i.e., larger than stock) hand-rubbed and polished tung-oiled mahogany Twin Reverb cabinet with a center section in flame maple (same sound principle as a Les Paul) and mellotone grille cloth. He's making it with a covertible back that can be removed in sections to tune the bass response and openess (made from 3/4' mahogany). He's also going to supply me with new Weber California 12s at a discount which are modern versions of the old discontinued JBL D120F.  
 
Bill is a Fender tube amp freak: he claims to have at least 40 various Fenders of various vintages in various states of repair. His forte is rescuing old, banged-up amps...one's that only the amp chassis is salvageable...and turning them into gold by mounting them in one of his awesome hardwood cabs with new premium drivers in them for his personal use. He is a Silverface man (he actually prefers them over Blackfaces for certain types/styles of music) and knew exactly what I was talking about as far as my complaints went. I told him I wanted a clean amp, mostly for jazz and clean rock tones that preserves the headroom, but firms up and extends the flabby bass while taming the shrillness. He said that the mahogany/maple combo would sound nice, and the extended higher- quality convertible back would tune the bass nicely while calming the highs. The JBL-clone speakers are uncolored and would not break-up even at high levels. Sounds perfect! He said that If I didn't like the way the Silverface chassis looked with the new cab, I could get a new blackface panel from Fender for $35 and drill-out an additional hole for the Master Vol. without encroaching on the Fender Logo.  
 
So let's recap: for another $500 plus $170 = $670 delivered I can transform my old Silverface Twin (a decent stock amp in it's own right, just ask Steve Howe, Ted Nugent, Tim May, Dennis Budomir, Tommy Tedesco, etc., LOL!) into a really toneful LOUD and CLEAN jazz amp! Hmmmm...lessee....TOTAL investment: Amp $250, Switch $5, Tune-up $80, Larry LeCover Custom 2000Denier Ballistic nylon cover $35, Sultone Cab $500, Weber VST speakers $170...
 
Grand Total = $1040 ($1075 if I want it to look like a blackface)
 
Spread that over 23yrs of ownership, thats $45/yr, or so, LOL!
 
Can I get an amp that sounds that clean and loud in a gorgeous hardwood cab with premium speakers for that kind of money? Remember,$370 of that money is already spent and the amp is usable in it's current state. If I change out the cab, I can always restore it to stock for an EBAY sale if I had to, or conversely I can put a chassis from a wrecked amp in it.
 
Decisions, decisions, decisions, LOL! Bill can have it delivered to my door in about a month if I place the order this week.

[hollis]

That sounds sweet Kevin........
 
Now, let me see...  Honey, you won't believe how much better this amp is going to sound with a hardwood cab.....  Does Bill also make custom dog houses?
I think I'm gonna need one LOL!

[kmh364]

Anybody remember that great '78 Guitar Player Magazine with Jerry Garcia and Wolf on the cover?
 
Not only was Jerry's interview excellent..it explained about his rig and Doug Irwin's stereo effects loop mods on his former Alembic(s) and revealed that he didn't listen to other guitar players but that he listened to Jazz HORN greats for guitar inspiration and phrasing (Ornette Coleman specifically)...but there was also a big article on what all the GREAT studio guitarists of the day were using for equipment. ALL of them had a Fender Silverface Twin Reverb combo, custom pedalboards with tons of stomp boxes (rack-mount guitar effects didn't really exist then) and usually an ES-335 or similar (some had Strats and Les Pauls in addition to the Electric Spanish Gibson).  
 
I tell you, after that article, I had to have a Twin! It was a who's who of some of the greatest guitar players ever...Larry Carlton (especially), Lee Ritenour and the greats mentioned above (who has more studio/record/commercial/film score, etc. appearances than Tommy Tedesco? LOL!).
 
Seriously, back in the day, in my young, naive pot-clouded mind there was only Gibson and Fender guitars and Marshall and Fender amps PERIOD, LOL!. I don't think I ever quite got over having to own one or more of each, LOL!
 
BTW, I know Steve Howe still uses two Silverface Twins on-stage (stereo?), I don't know about Mr. Biltong (Nugent) though.

[bigredbass]

I'll repeat a shameless plug for a friend of mine here, with your indulgence.
 
Check out www.boydenamps.com.  Dick Boyden is an old friend of mine, and he heads up the repair department at Tringas Music, the ALEMBIC dealer in Pensacola, FL.  Dick is a first-rate player, an utterly qualified instrument AND amp tech, and the type of guy you can trust.  First rate, and I'm sure anybody in Pensacola these days could use the business.
 
J o e y