I've had my '68 CDR for about 3 months now. I've yet to gig it, but it's a phenomenal amp, and I really like the sound.
However. It is noisy (not that bad, but noticeable); it is mass-produced and thusly potentially unreliable.
Laney Lionhearts have always had my eye, especially as I used to own an LC50 that I adored.
So - is it ridiculous to have a mass-produced Fender amp that costs £800-£1k when I could have an arguably similar sounding, British made mass-produced amp for £500?
Should I sell the Fender, and buy a Lionheart plus a reactive load thingy so I can play/record silently at home?
Has anyone had both amps in the room for comparison? I'm told the Lionhearts take pedals really well which is comforting; the reason I got rid of my LC50 was because it didn't really take pedals very well (to my ears). I've since had an HRD before flipping that for the current '68 Custom Deluxe Reverb in search of warmer clean tones.
I probably won't action this for a while as I want to have the Fender for at least a year before I get rid of it; plus I can't be arsed with the hassle of selling and buying amps after only just going through it.
So yeah. Advice appreciated. Cheers!
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That said, It does sound good with all the drive pedals I've used (but it crunches and compresses rather than getting louder, so if you want a volume boost you'll need to put it in the loop) and hasn't given me any problems in the two years I've owned it.
FWIW, the stock effects loop is shit. It's a parallel loop, apparently poorly implemented, so when you use certain effects (every digital pedal I tried...) you get a huge volume drop and an odd sort of filtering effect that makes the amp essentially useless. You can mod it to series by removing a single SMD resistor (which is a pig to get to and involves dismantling the amp), but then you'll need to bridge the loop with a patch cable whenever you aren't using it.
I don't think "mass produced = unreliable" is fair either. Mass produced products from well trained workers in a properly equipped factory may well be more reliable than considerably more expensive kitchen-table bodge jobs from some "boutique" manufacturers.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
The power amp of course is different.
If you have the serial loop mod, a jumper wire can be added to the loop sockets themselves so that a patch lead in the loop isn't required.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
I don't care much for channel two except for setting it at light breakup which sounds very nice.
Ive had Fenders in the past but this takes pedals better, for my needs.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
And yes, now that you mention it, I don't think I've found much use for the drive channel past about noon- it definitely excels at low-gain "dirty-clean" sounds up to sort of AC/DC crunch. The higher end of the gain range gets a bit mushy. Even so, it's still got a much more useable, controllable range of gain tones than a SF RI Fender. If you need really grindy distortion or really long sustain without silly volume you'll need a pedal. The good news is that everything I've tried sounds good with it- Tubescreamer, RAT, Zendrive, Screwdriver...
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
As I recall, the loop connections were on a smaller separate PCB which was slightly less faffy to remove than the main one.
At that point (I'd only just got the amp) I was eager to play and happy to leave it in the state it was in- it worked, nothing I'd read about the mod seemed very conclusive that you could jumper the loop socket like that, and I had a teeny-tiny patch cable handy.
One of these days I'll crack it open again and see what I got wrong.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
I wouldn't be too worried about reliability - I got my 65 second hand about 5 years ago, used daily at home and at higher volumes semi-regularly and I've only had to replace a handful of valves so far.
Prior to me owning it, it was sat for at least a few years in a poorly heated workshop. Not sure when exactly it was made but it's certainly pre 2008 (change of tremolo circuit), and a recent full service didn't turn up any issues.
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Apparently there's an info sheet of some kind from Fender on how to adjust the circuit board trem which they give to amp techs on request
I use a Soul Food, an EMMA Stinkbug, an OCD V4, and a Musket Fuzz V2, along with a Zcat Qmod, EHX DMM, and a modded Crybaby, and all work brilliantly. Combined with the drive channel gain set to about 4-4.5 you can get most sounds from clean to "classic British" lead sounds, though not modern metal (the EL84s don't have enough "push" for that).
I wasn't impressed with the '68 CDR, it was noisy and ice-picky. The '68 CPR was much nicer, so I wouldn't write off having a Fender entirely.
but old-school flavoured laneys a love or hate thing & they only do their thing. you can't dial fender tones into a laney (or into an old marshall, either). you just end up with muffled flatness if you try.
so if you want a mid-between brit& american 'm not sure you could do it with a laney LC (VC may be brighter). maybe a blackstar or something. they can do dark & bright, if that makes sense.
I bought an M5 recently and built myself an order switcher pedal so I could use the M5 pre- or post-dirt depending on what effect it was set for. I've only tried it at home volume so far- the difference is fairly small between having effects before the amp dirt (usually set to about 10-11 o'clock) and after, but it's there. It's most noticeable with delays IMO- because compression is inherent even with low levels of distortion your repeats sound louder for longer with a dirty amp than they would through a cleaner one.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
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If space, volume and money don't rule it out, that would probably sound like the absolute bollocks.
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View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
I'd suggest trading the Custom Deluxe for a Princeton Deluxe with cash your way, then put that towards an L5.
I had a bit of a play through it too, although at very low volume (Mrs_bob was watching telly). I reckon with the tone up full and the mids dialled right out it does a passable imitation of a Fender amp. Higher gain settings are more useable than I'd thought- they need very different EQ settings to what sounds good on the lower gain settings, but with @normula1 's comments about the drive channel preamp being based on a JCM800 in mind, I had more of an idea of what it was meant to sound like at full chat, and it does.
Oh, and FWIW I only had to remove six screws to get the chassis out, then unscrew the send, return and footswitch jack sockets to get the little daughter PCB out. The main PCB would have involved further faff.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.