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Alex73

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About Alex73

  • Birthday 01/19/2022
  1. Myles, Many thanks for your quick answer. After kissing it good-bye and shedding a tear on it, I'll ship the amp to Fender (got an answer from the vendor, since they are closed for summer holidays I'll have to ship it myself...and, too bad, I live in a tiny French apartment, so I had to get rid of the original box!!). I'll buy new power tubes (your advice? JJ 6v6-s? Other?) and re-bias ASAP, but with my current low funds I might have to stick to the GTs for a while...I just hope that Fender is going to replace the stock 6v6s with a pair of matched tubes, before sending the amp back (IYO what are the chances they will do so?) Wow, 20 years ago I would have been so lost...high praises to the power of the web, and higher praises to you for easing guitarists' lives up all over this planet...please, don't tell me you do this for OTHER planets as well!!! Cheers, Alex
  2. Hi Myles, I recently purchased a Fender Princeton Reverb re-issue (the silverface one), and a few days after I took it home, on my first chance to crank up the volume (5 or 6), I started noticing a rattle / hiss on some low and medium frequencies. The noise kicks in only 5-10 min after I turn the power on and stops whenever I touch the stock GT 6v6-s output tube on the left, near the 5AR4 rectifier. I took the chassis out of the cabinet and, although considerably diminished, the noise was still there. I believe that this problem is worsening every day, as now, with the chassis back in, I can hear it even at low volumes (2-3). I guess I am fairly right into thinking that there is a microphonics issue with that power tube. Yesterday, I wrote an email to the vendor (who has not replied yet), asking whether tube replacement in case of defects is covered by the amp's warranty. I expect the answer to be yes...but... I live in France, and if they have to ship the amp back to a Fender tech center it might be weeks before I get it back. Also, I heard/read so much negative stuff on Fender's customer service, I guess I'd have to cross fingers hoping that they acknowledge the problem and don't send the amp back without fixing anything. I could buy a new tube, but GT 6v6-s r4 tubes (yes, mine are rated 4) are currently available around here only in bulks of 4, which I cannot afford right now, nor can I afford having a pair of them shipped from the US (for some reason, the r4 seem to run low on the market these days, and I cannot find any US vendor who would ship a single tube to Europe for a decent price). So...I have 3 questions. My first question is: can I swap the pair of power tubes in the Princeton with any pair of matched "medium rated" GT 6v6-s without having to re-bias, or do I specifically need to get hold of the r4 if I want to avoid re-biasing? Also, I remember reading a post from you where you said that you could name same-quality, same-specs tubes for half the price of what GT tubes sell.... So, here's my second question: is there a brand/model of tubes that I could easily find for a moderate price and that would allow me to replace the pair of GT 6v6-s r4 while sparing me the cost of bringing the amp to a tech to get it re-biased? For instance, since GT 6v6-s seem to be, in fact, re-branded JJs, could I get away with ANY pair of JJ 6v6-s, without caring about the rating, and just swap the tubes with no need to re-bias? I understand that "good-working" tubes are actually only those that fall in the GT medium rating, so would a pair of properly tested JJ 6v6-s naturally fit that rating? My third question: could the problem come from a wrong biasing, which would have led the tube to wear off this soon? If the answer is yes, I guess I would need to have the amp checked anyway, and, for lack of funds, I would have to trust Fender's job (if they do anything at all) until better times come into sight, financially speaking. That would also mean that I'd have to say good-bye to my new amp for some time, just in the middle of our honeymoon! So i really hope that your answer to my third question will be "no check of bias needed, just a tube problem", which in any case doesn't really make me believe in the wonders of GT testing methods. But that's another topic, and, as you pointed out many times in the past, that problem pre-dates by far the GT Fender-era! ~Alex
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