Tone Master Princeton Reverb?

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

Anyone who buys a vacuum-tube-based amp today because they fear "digital" replacement parts for a Tonemaster won't be available in 20 years time is betting on the wrong horse.

I find this statement silly! As long as there's a market for vacuum tubes, and there is a GIANT one, somebody will build them. Companies are already tooling up in the wake of the Chinese tube supply scare. And they ain't doing it out of the kindness of their heart, they know there's money in it...

https://guitar.com/features/intervie...actory-crisis/

https://brimaruk.com/valves/

But you can bet that those digital boards for these Tonemasters won't be around in 20 years. Any part for a 50's / 60's Fender tube amp is still around, for good reason, they sound better, and are more reliable than any Fender tube emulation modelling circuit out there. And they are user serviceable. The Tonemasters will be as expendable as cell phones. I know which way I will bet. And I'd be willing to bet than any of these amps of mine will outlast any Tonemaster out there and that's giving those newfangled Tonemasters at least a 30 year head start

1969 Fender Vibro Champ


1964 Deluxe Reverb


1961 Ampeg Mercury

[Brent Hutto]

Sure, there will always be vacuum tubes around. But the question is at what cost. At some point (I'm guessing years rather than decades) they are going to be priced at "rare and exotic" levels. Will you really want to spend a hundred bucks or more every time a preamp tube goes out? Or five hundred for a matched pair of power tubes? Just to keep a decades-old amp functioning for a few more years?

At some point replacement parts get so expensive there's no real difference between available and unavailable. I mean heck, if Fender quits making Tonemaster parts you'll always be able to source an old Tonemaster to salvage parts from, it might cost you more than a new amp but someone will sell you one at some price. Tubes will be there sooner than you think.

But as for the whole fear of not being able to get parts for a 20-year-old Tonemaster, to me that's not a drawback at all. If you can't get your money's worth out of a guitar amp in 10 or 15 years you really ought not buy it in the first place. It's a piece mass-produced electronic gear. Use it for a decade and buy another one.

I think the whole obsession with keeping half-century old amps functioning is a generational thing and will not really apply to any great number of people born after 1980 or so. The whole thing will be self correcting as those of us from older cohorts age out of the population.

[rmp]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

It's possible that Fender will continue to have success with the Tonemasters over the long term and 20 years from now old-timers will tell "walking uphill both ways to school" stories about the days when a TMDR had tubes and no attenuator so couldn't get a decent tone at low volumes. The kids will just roll their eyes.

haha! yea, I think so too Brent.

Of course fender will continue to have success but the tone master series will just be replaced with the next shiny object.

Once these things all go end of life - and they will, they mostly like will be hard to get fixed if there's problems.

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

Sure, there will always be vacuum tubes around. But the question is at what cost. At some point (I'm guessing years rather than decades) they are going to be priced at "rare and exotic" levels. Will you really want to spend a hundred bucks or more every time a preamp tube goes out? Or five hundred for a matched pair of power tubes? Just to keep a decades-old amp functioning for a few more years?

At some point replacement parts get so expensive there's no real difference between available and unavailable. I mean heck, if Fender quits making Tonemaster parts you'll always be able to source an old Tonemaster to salvage parts from, it might cost you more than a new amp but someone will sell you one at some price. Tubes will be there sooner than you think.

But as for the whole fear of not being able to get parts for a 20-year-old Tonemaster, to me that's not a drawback at all. If you can't get your money's worth out of a guitar amp in 10 or 15 years you really ought not buy it in the first place. It's a piece mass-produced electronic gear. Use it for a decade and buy another one.

I think the whole obsession with keeping half-century old amps functioning is a generational thing and will not really apply to any great number of people born after 1980 or so. The whole thing will be self correcting as those of us from older cohorts age out of the population.

It is surely NOT a generational thing, there are many new upstart players that know the difference between the iphone like amps, and the real deal, and they will keep the vacuum tube people in business. And the companies making these tubes need to be competitive price-wise or they won't thrive.

As for the cost, the cost price of these newly built tube amps are (if adjusted for inflation) actually are cheaper than many vintage amps were when they were new. A Princeton Reverb in 1965 cost $169 which is about $1600 in today's money. There are many handbuilt Princeton amps that you can get for that kind of money. And prices of most of the tubes needed have already come back down from the supply scare. Yes tube prices, like anything else, will be subject to inflation, but I feel your exaggerating the cost, and they will always be easier to get than some digital board for a modelling amp. And I will pass on sourcing parts for a tonemaster from another tonemaster soon to break!

But as for the whole fear of not being able to get parts for a 20-year-old Tonemaster, to me that's not a drawback at all. If you can't get your money's worth out of a guitar amp in 10 or 15 years you really ought not buy it in the first place. It's a piece mass-produced electronic gear. Use it for a decade and buy another one.

That's not the issue, of course if you want to consider a guitar amp expendable like an iphone, well that's your money. As a matter of fact, many iphones cost as much or more than these tonemasters. And I can also see old or injured people with bad backs lining up for these lightweight tonemasters.

But the truth is these amps are build with no regard for longevity. And mass production is not the problem, there are some decent mass produced amps out there. For example, Mesa Boogie, are making tube amps that will last many years.

The original idea of your post was it was not a safe bet to count on vacuum tube technology not being around in 20 years.

But not only are there great "vintage" tube amps, there are just as many new companies building amps with the same kind of build quality and "tone" as the originals. And they will be around for many years, and their business is booming.

So pay now for the expendable digital amp, but then pay later to replace it.

I've been gigging for at least 40 years solid (full time professionally for the last 22 years), and I love that I can use an amp that I loved back then, and still love. Companies like Clark, Victoria, Tophat, Vintage Sound, Allen, and so many more, are building amps as good as many vintage originals. As a matter of fact, I own a Clark, Victoria, and a Tophat. I also own hand-built amps from some friends that build dead nuts replicas of classic amps. Why do I own so many tube amps? Well I collect them. I own a recording studio, and I like having many flavors of vintage designs for recording. It's also a hobby of mine, where I've learned to appreciate the different designs and also learned maintain them.

That's why I countered your opinion. I person like me can never think that the modelling style digital amps will replace a well built tube amp. They will live side by side, but will be liked/loved for different reasons.

There are always differing opinions. And as I said earlier, if people consider an amplifier purchase as an expendable item, more power to them, but that's what they are getting, an expendable item. But to get the light weight, lower price, and convenience, you have to let go of better tone, better build quality, and most importantly serviceability.

I love tube amps, and I seriously doubt that any digital modelling amp will replace them. Digital modelling amps out now, will be replaced by the flavor of the minute. And I've directly A/B's a Tonemaster DR against the real deal, and it was no contest, the original Deluxe Reverb slayed it, especially when turned up to real world gigging volume. So as I said in my earlier post, I will bet on the vacuum tubes for the next 20 years!

Originally Posted by rmp

...Once these things all go end of life - and they will, they mostly like will be hard to get fixed if there's problems.

That's pretty much my point. My old tube amps are still as easy to maintain as they were in the 50's, and just as easy to get parts for. As a matter of fact, you could easily build a Princeton from new parts, and could find EVERY part online in just a few hours.

[Brent Hutto]

What you're calling "easy to maintain" is your life-long accommodation to the fact that tube amps require maintenance, replacement of consumable parts and occasional attention from some guy with a soldering iron and knowledge of what he's doing.

The whole point of what you disparage as "disposable" technology is, in the vast majority of cases (99% maybe?) they will function with zero replacements, zero attention from a soldering iron guy, zero failures, no maintenance whatsoever for at least 10-20 years. If a Tonemaster style device is cared for reasonably well in terms of physical and electrical abuse the chances of needing any repair in the rest of your (or my) natural life is pretty small.

I definitely think it's a generational thing. If a 20-something year old guitar player today really thinks a Tonemaster Deluxe Reverb sounds good, he ain't gonna blink at the thought that when he's 50 years old it might conk out one day and he won't be able to pay someone to solder in a new cap here or replace a tube socket there to get it back up and running.

Now maybe a lot of 20-something year olds feel the mojo from those glowing tubes just like the old guys. If so I'm sure they'll happily buy a "real" amp from Fender. But that's gotta be a tiny minority.

[raysachs]

Originally Posted by rockabilly69

It is surely NOT a generational thing, there are many new upstart players that know the difference between the iphone like amps, and the real deal, and they will keep the vacuum tube people in business. And the companies making these tubes need to be competitive price-wise or they won't thrive.

But when tube amps were earning their reputation, nearly all of the electronic gear we (or our parents) were all running was tube based. There was a huge market for vacuum tubes, of which guitar amplifiers were no doubt a minuscule part. Tube makers weren’t staying in business to produce tubes for guitar amps - amp makers were using tubes because that was what there was. Today, nearly NOTHING still runs on tubes, the markets for nostalgia items like guitar amps are very small, and I seriously doubt tube makers can “thrive” in this environment. Some of them may get by making tubes as a small part of a larger business, but the days of mass produced tubes that run nearly all of our electronic gear are loooong gone and not coming back. Amp makers are understandably working on making alternatives as good as they can, anticipating a day when tubes will either not be available, or will be prohibitively expensive. And based on the progress they’ve made in the last several years, I’d say they're doing a fine job of it.

-Ray

[Brent Hutto]

Originally Posted by raysachs

But when tube amps were earning their reputation, nearly all of the electronic gear we (or our parents) were all running was tube based. There was a huge market for vacuum tubes, of which guitar mollifies were no doubt a minuscule part. Tube makers weren’t staying in business to produce tubes for guitar amps - amp makers were using tubes because that was what there was. Today, nearly NOTHING still runs on tubes, the markets for nostalgia items like guitar amps are very small, and I seriously doubt tube makers can “thrive” in this environment. Some of them may get by making tubes as a small part of a larger business, but the days of mass produced tubes that run nearly all of our electronic gear are loooong gone and not coming back. Amp makers are understandably working on making alternatives as good as they can. And based on the progress they’ve made in the last several years, I’d say they're doing a fine job of it.

-Ray

I'd imagine Fender's medium-term plan, say 10 years from now, is to keep making at least a few tube amps as long as there are any tubes available, even at very high cost. But that will be the boutique/premium option (can we call it the "Dentist" end of the market?) while the bread and butter amp range for working musicians are all digital recreations of all the classic tube amps.

And of course there will no doubt be die-hards in the year 2050 still running their early 21st-century reissues of mid-20th-century tube designs, scouring the globe for the few remaining usable tube sets.

[loco gringo]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

occasional attention from some guy with a soldering iron and knowledge of what he's doing.

And you have to find one of those guys, hopefully in your town.

[glaze3]

I'm with Rockabilly on this one. My son and his friends all play guitar and when they are at my house all they want to play through are my Mesa's and Twin Reverb. Sometimes I oblige, but usually just tell them to play the Katana. They have all said numerous times that while the Katana is fine for practice they want to play a "real" amp. While most of the digital amps sound okay there's just something about a tube amp that will always be the top choice for any stage setting. You can believe all you want about new technology taking over the tube amp market, but the realization is that they sell because they're much cheaper and those that can't afford tubes or someone that is just dipping their toes into electrics are buying them just looking forward to the day they can buy a nice tube amp.

[FrankHudson]

I invoke the maxim: predictions are hard, especially about the future.

My susceptions are that it will be somewhere between everything happy for tubes in (picking a date...) 2050 and near complete unavailability. This is a big forum, it's plausible that someone here really knows what goes into tube manufacture, how easy it is to "scale down" -- and while less likely, it's possible that someone here even knows things about the internal plans and financials of the current tube makers. I'm going to take a leap of faith though and assume those responding so far don't.

Things I have actual knowledge/experience with:

People have quite different aims and expectations with guitar amp sounds. Rockabilly69 upthread says their real Deluxe Reverb "slays" a Tonemaster DR for sound. "Slays" is objective technical term we can all agree on but it's possible that his experience with his example DR and someone else's or someone else's aims and expectations judging the slayablity situation between two alternatives might be different. As I read him, I think Rockabilly69 would agree with this.

I know that unless I am granted rock star roadie support, I'm not buying a plus 45 pound amp ever again. Even my 40 pound Hot Rod Deluxe is pushing it, and the tube Fender DRRI is close to that. My body just can't make reasonable use of them, and that's not prediction, that's empirical fact. Early in the thread I noted this is a great reason to consider the Tonemaster Twin Reverb or DR, but it's less of a inducement to a Tonemaster Princeton.

I also like the idea of durability and repairability. My observation of society is that I'm swimming against the tide on those matters. Right now we have a choice with guitar amps. I've chosen both.

My experience with tube and cap life on my pre-CBS Princeton bought used when they were cheap is this. I never was an every-week gigger, and I've always had at least two amps, but I've had mine serviced three times in forty years, and it was out of service for a couple of those years while I waited to be able to afford to take it to a place I trusted to fix it right. My Mustang III second generation is getting less use currently, but it's at about 10 years old if I recall correctly. For several years it was my most used amp for reasons that have changed for me. I had a Vox modeling amp before the Mustang III. It had a short life with a couple of glitches that cut short my use of it. My Hot Rod Deluxe, more than 20 years in, not a lick of service, same tubes. My 4x10 Blues Deville, currently non-working. I keep it in my studio space and dread the thought of getting a hand cart in there and then up the stairs for me to find out what's up. I tell myself I'd still crouch down behind it if my studio is ever in the path of a tornado.

At my age, there is no hard objective value to what my amps serviceability will be in 2050. which doesn't eliminate the tube amp or the less serviceable modeler. If I wanted a Twin or Super Reverb, I'd be in the market for a Tonemaster. If I wanted a DR, I'd strongly consider the Tonemaster. I own a "real" Princeton, but if I needed to replace it, I likely go with one of the tube models of that type, though I'm open to considering the TM --there were once some practical reasons for me to use the Mustang III on its Princeton setting after all.

[Brent Hutto]

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

Brent Hutto upthread says their real Deluxe Reverb "slays" a Tonemaster DR for sound.

I believe that quote was from someone else.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

I believe that quote was from someone else.

You're right. I originally wrote "someone upthread," but it seemed so vague, but then I choose wrong.

Rockabilly69 had the "slayer" comparison. My apologies.

[rmp]

Originally Posted by Brent Hutto

I believe that quote was from someone else.

who ever quoted that

wasn't the same experience at all with my sons TUBE DR and my Blonde TMDR


Not sure what they were hearing but--- I can tell yea, to us (and my kid has amazing hearing) it was at BEST negligible. just my 2 cents.

we did not DIME them tho, so that could be something.

[dnf777]

Delivery date for the Princeton TM just pushed back to early November.

FWIW, my very first amp that I got from Santa Clause (Peavy Backstage 30) will turn 42 this December. Still works like the day it came off the Sleigh. Just a few squirts of De-Oxit on scratchy pots and a purely elective upgrade to an Eminence Rajun Cajun recently, and its never failed.