The first Fender amps where made in Fullerton California in early 1946. The aliens hadn't yet landed at Roswell nor had the Transistor yet been invented. The amps where first manufactured under the name "K&F Manufacturing" and where designed for lap steel guitar players. The early amp designed where base on RCA amplifier circuits found in there tube application manual. The first Fender amp was made in 1947 and actually had a label stating "licensed under US Patents of American Telephone and Telegraph Company".
The tube amp circuit has been modified a number of times by Fender along with countless improvements over the original RCA circuit used back in the day. The first Fender amp was the Model 26 which had two 6V6 power tubes, 6SC7 preamp tube, the 6N7 driver tube, and a 5y# rectifier tube. This was all housed in an all wood cabinet with a natural finish. If made today this amp would probably cost in the neighborhood of $2500 to $3000. If you actually have one of these amps they are priceless. Jensen Speakers where used and three different speaker sizes where available in the Model 26 amp: 8", 10", and 12".
The next amp was originally called Champion 600 (and 800) but later the name was shorten to Champ. If anyone remembers these early amps they had a single 6V6 tube and where sold as a student model amp. This is how I found out about them. The Champ amp of today has been using steroids and is solid-state with digital signal processing. We're not in Kansas anymore. The next amps where the dual pro that used 6L6 power tubes as well as had a shared tone control and had two channels. This was the first amp to also have a Tweed covering and hence the Tweed era began.
The Tweed Era started in the 1950's up into the early 1960's. One of the best sounding and most copied tube amp designs is the Fender 59' Bassman . The amp and speaker housing is different than the later fenders in that the amplifier itself had the knobs located on the top of the amp facing up. The later Fenders like the Super Reverb have forward facing knobs. These cabinets also had a noticeably different look to them. They evolved from the 'TV' front to 'Wide Panel' front in this time. The TV front had the look of a TV at the time which has about a 2 to 4 inch panel around the entire speaker grille. This was replaced with the wide panel which is what you see on the re-issue amps of today (See Fender 57' Twin Tweed ).
These amps ranged from the early Champ amp to the Fender Twin Tweed. The Champ put out a mere 4 watts while the Twin was up around 80 watts. Fender was using Jensen speakers in all their amps at this time. Most of the tweeds used 6L6's (but not the Champ) and used 6SC7 preamp tubes. The 6SC7 was eventually phased out and replace with the 12AX7 which is what is still used in many of the re-issue models of today. The 12AX7s where a better designed tube and had less noise and microphonics (this is noise that ranges from ringing to thumps to outright squealing when the tube is tapped). These were also the first amps to have both treble and bass tone controls. Some of the amps that are from this time period are the 59' Bassman, ProAmp, Bandmaster, Super, Tremolux, and Vibrolux amps.
Another first with the tweeds was the addition of 'vibrato' and 'tremolo'. The vibrato would modulate (change) the pitch up and then back down. The tremolo would vary the volume of the guitar loud to soft then back to loud etc... This had the effect of floating or dream world effect. The terms 'vibrato' and 'tremolo' have sometimes been used to mean the same thing.
The next period is called the 'Tolex' era. This is because the tweed covering was replaced with a new vinyl material called 'Tolex'. This is found on all of the more modern amps of today (with the exception here and there). It was selected because of its ability to resist being scratched and scuffed as well as being unaffected by the weather. The first color used was blonde which had a tan color. Another more notable change at this time was the change in location of the amp controls. They where now located on the front panel of the amp as well as the addition of the spring reverb. Some amps from this time period are the Super Amp (35Watts two 10" Jensen's) and the '63 VibroVerb which featured the first spring reverb in a Fender amp. The color of the Tolex used has varied from brown (tan), white, and cream colored. Fender started using mainly black tolex in 1964. Some of the earlier Black Tolex amps where the Dual Showman and Super and Twin Reverbs. These amps had a silver grille cloth (the part that covers the speakers). These amps also had black faceplates (where the knobs where) and are considered to be the 'Pre-CBS Black Faced Fenders'. This only lasted a year or so until Fender was sold to Columbia Records (CBS).
After CBS purchased the company many people feel that the quality and craftsmanship of Fender guitars and amps diminished. From about 1965 to 1967 some of the CBS manufactured amps where made the same way with the same components as those made before pre-CBS. So not all the amps made during that time are considered less. CBS introduced the Silver-Faced amps in 1968 and these amps are considered to be CBS made. They had a number of engineering changes which consisted of adding components to make the amp more reliable and cleaner sounding. Cleaner sounding isn't really what guitarist wanted though. Many of these changes can be fixed so the amp can be returned to a Pre-CBS state (sound). CBS also put out a few solid-state amps which didn't really sell as there sound wasn't very pleasing to the guitarists. Today's transistor version sound much better but I prefer the sound of tube amps.
Around 1969 CBS/Fender changed the silver faced amps back to the black face specs. They also added more features including the Master Volume control and the Pull-knob (Input Gain Knob) that made the input some 6dB more sensitive and easier to distort. This was the year the Apollo 11 (US) landed on the moon (July 21, 1969). Many changes have since happened in the Fender world with the American made tube amps of today being very much made to the specification of the earlier fenders.
For most guitarists their tube amps are highly regarded as some of the best in the world and have set the standard for amp design. Fender now offers a number of different types of amps ranging from tube to DSP based amps (Digital Signal Processing). The DSP based amps use transistors as well as a computer based digital effects processor to alter the sound of the amp from bluesy clean to ultra-distortion. The best fender amp is the '59 Bassman.
Check http://www.kellyindustries.com/ they have tons of cool reviews and more in-depth pages on each fender amp !
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