Fender Princeton 68 Custom..?

Rooster2710

Argh...!! Went to try it out and it had been sold...!!
Report would be great..!!

@p90fool Random question....... What is the inside like..? Ie the build quality etc of the board and soldering...

Of course sound / video clips would be greatly appreciated...!

p90fool

Well it's brand new and I haven't pulled it apart yet, but I've no reason to assume that it's any different from the standard PRRI, in fact it uses the same board.

I actually bought the last one at Peach in Essex when I noticed the the new batch arrival dates were being amended all the time at all the other dealers. It's changed from 10th of January to the 10th of March in the last couple of weeks, so if you find one, grab it!

Ok, no clips yet as I've just completely stripped my studio for a much-needed update, but here are a few thoughts;

It sounds great! Ok that's a bit vague, but it sounds like a good Princeton. I went for this model because of the speaker and the reduced NFB. I love my Teles but mainly play a Les Paul or hollowbodies these days, so I wanted a Princeton which was less likely to mush out with fatter pickups. I haven't played the 65 PRRI for a while but the 68 seems to have a touch more (welcome) midrange from its Celestion. It's still pretty scooped by any other standard though, so Tubescreamers absolutely excel with it.

You can hear what they sound like on various Youtube clips, but what they don't convey is the feel or dynamics. Where it really shines for me is when, say, using a bridge humbucker set totally clean you can just play, no spikiness, no harsh or overloud notes, you just play clean electric guitar like it's an acoustic and concentrate on the music, and there really aren't many amps which can do that for me. A lot is said about "sag" or natural compression with other amps, but this is the most naturally musical one I've had for a while.

I'm guessing it'll mic up well too, you can point it directly at your head and it still sounds smooth. It's just as well, you'll need to, it really isn't very loud. It's hard to be objective about volume until I try it in a band context, but compared to my Pro Junior it doesn't have a lot of headroom. I may throw in a Ragin Cajun if I start using it outside the studio, they're about 5dB more sensitive then the Celestion that's in there now.

As it stands it's a nice amp, which sounds an awful lot bigger than it really is, in fact nothing at all like a 12w amp with a 10" speaker should really. I've always had a bit of a chortle when Blues Junior owners talk about "Fender cleans", they really have no idea how deep and rich that really is compared to those boxy EL84-powered things.

Princetons are not perfect at everything though, and this one is no different. For good or ill, it feels very "vintage" when you really crank it. Depending on pickup type and output it can all get a little chaotic, just like most genuine 60s small combos. It can be farty and buzzy and just a little messy if you push it too hard, but a lot of that disappears if you use an extension cab instead. I quite like it though, I have racks of gear which do "post-production bland" very well, so cranking this thing with P90s in an empty room just makes me smile.

As far as the Bassman thing is concerned, I'm not sure what that means. I had a Reissue, and I've been using JTM45s for decades, with 2x12, 4x10 and 4x12 cabs and I still don't really know what "Bassman tone" actually is. I haven't looked at the 68 Custom schematic yet, but whatever they've tweaked it's really just a Princeton, so within it's obvious size/power limitations I can't imagine anyone who likes old-fangled valve amps not loving it.

In short, I think this one's a keeper. I have plenty of other amps I use for work, but I can see me noodling gently away with a Les Paul through this thing for years to come.

ICBM

To be fair to them, they don't claim this one sounds like a Bassman - it's the Deluxe and Twin where they(still wrongly) claim that. Watching too many demo videos it's easy to get confused .

Don't believe Eminence's sensitivity figures compared to Celestion's either - they're wildly optimistic, or measured using a skewed 'average' which borders on marketing BS… from experience you need to knock off about 3dB difference between the two, so if the Ragin' Cajun is supposedly 5dB more sensitive, it may actually be just a tiny bit louder. (Likewise their power ratings, although that's not going to matter here.)

p90fool

ICBM said:

Don't believe Eminence's sensitivity figures compared to Celestion's either - they're wildly optimistic, or measured using a skewed 'average' which borders on marketing BS… from experience you need to knock off about 3dB difference between the two, so if the Ragin' Cajun is supposedly 5dB more sensitive, it may actually be just a tiny bit louder.

Ah, I wondered if that was the case, I knew their power handling claims were optimistic.
I have a 1x12 with a Celestion Classic Lead 80, that's pretty loud, I'll see how much difference that makes