Late 50's tweed 2X12?

[luthierwnc]

Hi Guys,

I just came by a pair of Jensen P12Ns on the Bay. Date code late March 1962 from a Baldwin organ. I bid before I actually knew what I would do with them. In the corners of my memory (a dusty place) I seem to remember Fender had a 5F6-A chassis in a 2X12 combo. Basically a half-power Twin. They didn't do well and very few were made. I can't remember what they were called. Does anybody know the name? Thanks, Skip

[Chuck H]

AFAIK only two Fender 2x12 tweed combo amps were ever standard in their lineup. The Twin and the Super. BUT... That doesn't mean there was never a 2x12 5F6A that left the Fullerton plant as it was made there. There are still occasional reports of odd ball amps that Fender made only a couple of or even just one. But I don't know of any standard Fender amp that was a 2X12 combo with a 5F6A circuit. That absolutely shouldn't stop you from building one.

EDIT: It occurs to me that the 5F6A requires a 2 ohm load. Fender only used 8 ohm 12's. So without a change of output transformer there would be an impedance mismatch. Any amp with a different OT wouldn't be a 5F6A. Fender would have changed the designation.

[wyatt]

Hi Guys,

I just came by a pair of Jensen P12Ns on the Bay. Date code late March 1962 from a Baldwin organ. I bid before I actually knew what I would do with them. In the corners of my memory (a dusty place) I seem to remember Fender had a 5F6-A chassis in a 2X12 combo. Basically a half-power Twin. They didn't do well and very few were made. I can't remember what they were called. Does anybody know the name? Thanks, Skip

They did not.

The low-powered Twin (5E8a) was the 2x12 version of 5E6a Bassman. Exact same amp, different output transformer.

But when Fender jumped the the 5F6a, which was a ground-breaking design, they also made the major shift of making the Twin an 80-watt amp, and introduced the 5F8a. It has the same preamp and PI as the 5F6a, but twice the power amp.

[Tom Phillips]

… I can't remember what they were called. Does anybody know the name? Thanks, Skip

It was just called the “Twin” and sometimes “Twin 12” in the Fender promotional literature of the day.

I the 1957 Fender catalog the words “Fender Twin-Amp” were on the cabinet badge and “Twin Amp” was printed on the catalog page. It was featured as the top of the line amp with the Bassman second. The list price for the Twin and the Bassman were identical at $339.50. The Twin was 20 ½” high x 24” wide x 10 ½” deep with the speakers mounted on the diagonal. (This was the narrow panel version of 1957. Previous versions varied) For comparison the 1957 Bassman was 23” high x 22 ½” wide x 10 ½” deep

The amp went though several evolutions after the initial release in 1952 and in 1958 the Twin was upgraded to a quad of power tubes. Some time after that people started calling the original Twin the “Low power Twin.”

Tom