Hand-wired PTP Fenders

W

Wildwind

Experienced
Just curious - tried Googling this, didn't have much luck.

The Fender amps modeled in the Axe II - were Fenders hand-wired or PTP (if there's a difference - not my strong suit) back then?

If anyone knows about the various Marshall's and Voxes, I'd be interested in those as well. Thanks!
 
Hand wired fenders equals vintage fenders. Accept no substitutes.

That being said amp designer and builder George Alessandro (Clapton/Joe Perry etc) does offer PTP rewiring of fender amps. The deluxe that he does sounds pretty sweet. All you do is buy whatever used RI fender amp you can snag for the cheapest price and send it to him and he will pull out all those nasty circuit boards out and rewire PTP to original issue specs.
 
I'll add that PTP and Hand-wired are not the same thing. VERY VERY Few actual amps were made PTP which involves actually soldering components (resistors, caps..etc) to each other's leads directly instead of how "Hand-wired" does it through eyelet boards and turret boards.

PTP guts are extremely messy and look like rats nests...

SOME fenders in the early 70s were PTP, but only the lowest of the low like the Musicmaster Bass amp and such...

Hand wired is the way to go.
 
Hard to find all those old wax coated/paper and foil capacitors and ceramic disc. All the new stuff uses tantalum and mylar caps. The old leaky caps added noise.
 
been using the Super Reverb model lately for my live gigs and it's awesome. Wasn't crazy about it at first, but then re-examined my preset and found some "why-the-hell-did-I-do-that" settings, and once those were rectified, the tone-gods shone down on me with their splendour. Sounds *very* close to my glorious '66 SR.
 
Gamedojo said:
I'll add that PTP and Hand-wired are not the same thing. VERY VERY Few actual amps were made PTP which involves actually soldering components (resistors, caps..etc) to each other's leads directly instead of how "Hand-wired" does it through eyelet boards and turret boards. PTP guts are extremely messy and look like rats nests...
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You mean like this?



I think it looks beautiful!

1333112044-924JPG_m.jpg




Also I thought when you hand wire something "point to point" you have a set of components that are physically mounted to a chasis and then you go about the process of wiring from one point to the next, or "point to point."
So to me I always thought you "hard wired" an amp PTP and used the terms interchangably.


Also the above is a gut shot of one of the amps in the Fractal FW10 -- can you guess which one?
 
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Handwired can be done many ways.

A true PTP would look something like this:

6T9-Tube-Amp-point-to-point.jpg


In general it's not a very sensible way to make an amp. For most people a turret/eyelet board makes much more sense. The one LVC posted is an eyelet board. A turret board would look like this:

IMG_2997.jpg


In any case the only real benefit of handwired, regardless of how the components are arranged, is that they're easier to repair and modify than PCB amps. Soundwise there is no difference outside some crazy layout induced sound anomalies in PTP wired stuff, provided that both amps use equal quality components. Lots of amp manufacturers skimp on component and board quality a bit because the cheaper stuff is generally good enough. Those that don't have PCB-based amps that are as reliable and as good sounding as the handwired stuff.
 
Cainer said:
been using the Super Reverb model lately for my live gigs and it's awesome. Wasn't crazy about it at first, but then re-examined my preset and found some "why-the-hell-did-I-do-that" settings, and once those were rectified, the tone-gods shone down on me with their splendour. Sounds *very* close to my glorious '66 SR.
Click to expand...

Same here

65 Super Reverb
Vibroverb (Brownface)

The two amps I have been using on gigs.

when I feel like gigging with my Suhr tele - the patch with the Super Reverb gets used that night

When I feel like taking out one of my Tyler Elites -- the "Brownface" amp gets the gig
 
I was using the Super Reverb and liked it a lot. Tonight I changed to the Twin - which I thought sounded even better, but didn't work as well. I think I need to dig into settings myself. If anyone who knows Supers has a great preset, I'd love to give it a try. I never owned one, had a great SF Twin long ago. And a Bandmaster, but don't remember anything other than how great they sounded with my old SG.

Very cool pics of amp guts. I have seen the rats nest look too, but those shown are works of art, just gorgeous.
 
After years of amps:

To me it's all semi-vaporware. There are amps that tout 'P2P' and/or 'handwired' and the tonal advantages therein, and in a blind test, most people could not discern the difference between that and a mass produced board amp.

That being said, I'll say that 'as a group' the point to point were better sounding, more consistent, and were WAY more reliable. Would I pay $4k for a handwired Plexi over a off the assembly line one for $1600? Nope. But as in all things, I'd have to hear it first...then I just might cough up that 4k.
 
electronpirate said:
After years of amps:

To me it's all semi-vaporware. There are amps that tout 'P2P' and/or 'handwired' and the tonal advantages therein, and in a blind test, most people could not discern the difference between that and a mass produced board amp.

That being said, I'll say that 'as a group' the point to point were better sounding, more consistent, and were WAY more reliable. Would I pay $4k for a handwired Plexi over a off the assembly line one for $1600? Nope. But as in all things, I'd have to hear it first...then I just might cough up that 4k.
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$1000 - you can buy a Metropolis amp Plexi kit and put it together yourself. It might sound daunting, but I built one about 5 years ago and had no prior experience (and it actually works).
It's a great way to learn how tube amps work, and I actually understand some of the advanced parameters in the Axe amp section.
 
electronpirate said:
After years of amps:

To me it's all semi-vaporware. There are amps that tout 'P2P' and/or 'handwired' and the tonal advantages therein, and in a blind test, most people could not discern the difference between that and a mass produced board amp.
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^^^ This.

If you sell large quantities of amps, it's cheaper to use a mass-produced PC board.

If you sell small numbers of amps, it's cheaper to hand-wire them.

Boutique amps are sold in small quantities, so it's cheaper to wire them by hand. And that's how the "hand-wired sounds better" myth started.
 
Wildwind said:
If anyone who knows Supers has a great preset, I'd love to give it a try.
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Nothing special - but here is the one I used at my gig last week. Pretty basic.

I EQ the Amp when I get to the room and I like running it a little hot so I can roll back my vol pot on my guitar.

Since I don't have an MFC yet ... I have 6 scenes setup so I can switch from :

1. Clean
2. clean/comp
3. clean Delay
4. Clean/Phaser
5. Drive
6. Drive/delay

Hopefully I downloaded the preset correctly via USB -- it is attached.
 

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LVC said:
Same here

65 Super Reverb
Vibroverb (Brownface)

The two amps I have been using on gigs.

when I feel like gigging with my Suhr tele - the patch with the Super Reverb gets used that night

When I feel like taking out one of my Tyler Elites -- the "Brownface" amp gets the gig
Click to expand...

Hey LVC

Did you try the SR with the 2x12 Boutique(RW)? You said you would try for lunch :)

Just wondered if anybody else liked it...
 
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