Im sure Ill draw the ire of the black panel folks, but the 6G3 sounds better to me at pretty much every volume level. and if you want reverb you have a lot of options these days, including pedals, rack stuff and post-microphone, and with how quiet everything is now, the two things the later amp did better are not really advantages any more, practically.
Agreed. I’m a recording engineer and built a 6g3 and it may be the best recording amp I’ve ever used. I just need to make an attenuator for the output now because it’s still a little too loud!
I like the brownface amps more. Their tone likes my ear more so than the others. The 63 vibroverb has the most beautiful sounding trem circuit I have ever heard. But, I would not turn down the blackface or silverface amps if I came across one of them. I would own any fender from every era if I could. For me they are the sound.
I prefer the clean sound of the 65 (I mean it is THE clean amp) but I definitely prefer the overdriven sound of the 61. I prefer the tremolo sound of the 61 too
Fascinating video, loved the technical detail in the comparison of these two amps. I absolutely love brownface amps, they sound fantastic, much prefer the sound to blackface personally. Its a shame they’ve been pushed to one side as ‘transitional’ models in Fender history rather than being more celebrated in their own rite. We might see more reissues and ‘clones’ on the market if they were.
Brown Deluxe all the way for sure: better overdrive, more dynamics, better tremolo and better looks. You can always add an external 6G15 reverb unit if you need reverb. ;) Both are superb amps for sure, personally I'm just a sucker for Brownface Fenders.
Being a Brown Deluxe owner I'm certainly biased, but there's a big output difference here. A Princeton Reverb would be a better match, even the tremolo works the same way in the PR as the BD.
It would have been nice to hear a 6G15 with the brown deluxe. It would have been a more apples-to-apples comparison. The the 6G15 actually has a tone controls on the reverb.
There’s been a lot of hype around brown panel amps the past few years, but if you hear the Brown’s bright channel back to back with the Black’s normal channel at 3:33, they’re not a million miles off from each other. You think of all the players who refuse to ever plug into a blackface normal channel, yet they covet the Brownface sound, it’s kind of funny.
The best is to run a Brownface together with a Blackface,if you have them.. I am a happy owner of both BrF & BlcF Deluxes and this is what i do..Just Heaven !! I never ever think to sell them.. For live gigs with the band i am going with them both plus a Vox AC 15 using a Fortin Roach 3-Way splitter,all miced..And only 4 pedals(Dunlop Echoplex delay for All- Rangemaster Treble Booster for the Vox-Colombo Pulse Driver for Distortion & Okko Holy Grit for Fuzz tones).. Cheers & Keep Rocking..
Great sounds!! Which one is tonally closer to Tone King Imperial MK II amp? Or both on its 2 channels? would Ruby Celestion be a great match also for Imperial? Thanks!
I believe the lead channel on the Imperial is voiced as a tweed Deluxe, so similar to the brownface (but without the bias tremolo). The Rythm channel is voiced after the vibrato channel on the blackface.
You can definitely hear less lower mids in the Deluxe Reverb which was nice with P90s. The Deluxe sounded good overdriven, but he could have used the bridge pickup and played harder and tighter... I imagine a treble booster in front of it would have sounded awesome.
I can tell you this about that brownface, Im running mine with a external closed back thiele cab and its a completely different amp. Original speakers were weak 25 watt speakers. They sound good but a stronger speaker is better for pedals and effects. Just my opinion.
That's my thought process for these old amps too. When I buy them for my collection, I hope to keep them forever and hopefully pass them onto my kids, if they play guitar too, god willing lol. But if I was ever stuck at rock bottom, it's nice to know these things could be flipped for a profit pretty easily. And while it's still a tough pill to swallow at their current prices, I'm pretty confident that they'll only continue to go up in value as the years go on.
Hi @@duffharris9295 ! That's great news! Would you be so kind and give us a hint (link, perhaps?) where we can buy a cabinet, speaker, transformers, hardware, electronics and a couple of tubes (etc.) for $500? That would be great 👍
