Fender ’68 Custom Vibrolux Reverb...

Joe_Easy

New videos starting to appear...

welshboyo

Very nice....still hankering for the Deluxe Custom, one of these is also on the list now too....

Joe_Easy

Same...was sold on the DR, but for £100 more this just seems to make more sense. Bright cap removed us great for pedals, but being able to switch it is a big bonus. Essentially the same weight, so no issues with portability.

My only reservation is the extra clean headroom in the VR. I was attracted to the DR for the earlier break up, which is relatively true for the VR, but I think it will be around 3dB to 6dB louder than the DR at the point it starts to break up...

ICBM

Joe_Easy said:

Same...was sold on the DR, but for £100 more this just seems to make more sense. Bright cap removed us great for pedals, but being able to switch it is a big bonus. Essentially the same weight, so no issues with portability.

My only reservation is the extra clean headroom in the VR. I was attracted to the DR for the earlier break up, which is relatively true for the VR, but I think it will be around 3dB to 6dB louder than the DR at the point it starts to break up...

Not that much. It does have 50% more power (+2dB) and two speakers (~+2dB), but the speakers are 3dB less sensitive, so I would put it in the 1dB to at most 2dB louder range. From experience of owning both (although not at the same time) I would say that's about accurate. It does have a slightly bigger and bolder tone, so it might seem to have a bit more presence.

I think it should be possible to fit 6V6s in the Vibrolux if you use sturdy ones like JJs, although it would need an alteration to the bias circuit (not difficult). That should drop the power to no more than the DR - they have very similar voltages - and give a softer breakup due to being a bit mismatched with the 4-ohm load.

FreddieVanHalen

I'm also gassing after one of these but not sure I can justify buying one brand new....will just have to keep an eye out for the next few years for the second hand ones...

p90fool

Joe_Easy said:

The vintage channel early in this video is pretty much exactly what my 68 Custom Princeton sounds like.

Joe_Easy

Hopefully will be able to do a side-by-side comparison of the 68 DR vs the 68 VR in the not too distant future...I suspect they'll be tonally quite similar at higher volumes, but interested to hear what difference the SS rectifier in the VR makes against the tube rectifier in the DR...

57Deluxe

...seemingly this has the new 'out of tune' feature too....

Joe_Easy