65 FENDER BANDMASTER FULL
65 FENDER BANDMASTER SERIES

Though so much comes into play with this. They are not true point to point amps, The life expectancy on the boards is 5-years. The point to point amps are easy to trouble shoot and they will last a lifetime. I wouldn't part with either and have owned them for years. As for their Tone I play a Bandmaster/Reverb 68 head with a 212 cab and a 67 Twin Reverb. The reason those amps became legendary is because they were great amps and they still are reissue or not. Believe me I was there when the legend began. Unless you are into collecting vintage amps I'd go for the reissue. If he is letting it go cheap, that price may be fair as well as long as you keep in mind that unless you are a bit of an electronic guru you can spend a ton of bucks bringing the amp up to snuff. If he is asking a price that is fairly high, that price may be fair depending on the condition of his vintage amp. So the bottom line is, for the most part they all sound like they are supposed to.

Because of the exactness of PCB production the new ones all seem to sound exactly alike. Hell, often the old ones didn't sound exactly like each other. Because the old ones were hand wired and the electronics tolerances were not as tight as the new PCB's there is just no way the reissues are going to sound exactly like any given vintage Black Face. Arguing about whether the old ones sound better than the reissues is dust in the wind. The band I was with gigged 4 nights a week for 2 years strait so I got to know the amp pretty well. I started out playing a Black Face Bandmaster in 69.

Sold the Marshall, kept the Bandmaster and have never regretted it.

65 FENDER BANDMASTER FULL

Took me about 1 hour with a soldering iron to do mine about a year or so ago.ĭuring the 70s I also had a Marshall Super Lead full stack I used for a lot of gigs. The only thing that you need to be aware of is if the one you find has not had the electrolytics replaced, that will need to be done. Tubes are a lot easier to come by than they were 10-15 years ago, and if something does go wrong it is easy to repair. Used to turn everything up to 10 in my younger years and it never complained. From my own experience (still playing on the 65 Bandmaster I bought used in '71) it plays very nicely clean, does not complain with pedals, and once the volumn knob exceeds around 5-6 the tube overdrive is very nice. As I recall, the same basic design was also used in the twin and super reverb models. Even the silverface CBS Bandmasters were not changed from the original Fender designs, and the tonal qualities of this design have been copied but not duplicated.

65 FENDER BANDMASTER SERIES

I would like to add a slightly related question.

65 fender bandmaster