Difference between old Fender evil twin (red knob) and the current evil twin

[adam32790]

I was wondering what the difference between the old Fender "evil Twin" aka red knob and the current evil twin that Fender is selling. Is there a significant difference in tone or sound that sets them apart or are they the same. I've heard that one has a higher gain channel. I am asking because I have a Fender Hot Rod Deville and am wondering if it is a good idea to trade for a Late 80's early 90's Evil twin that's the same as the Red Knob but has Black knobs. And I was also wondering how the clean and gain channels compare between the twin and the Hot Rod Deville 212.

Please let me know.

Tyler

[darrellcheng]

disclaimer: These are just my opinions, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

www.ampwares.com has alot of info

Dont get the Hot Rod series, they have serious known problems, like weak resistors, shotty speakers and input jacks, cheap failing relays. My band's guitarist has one and it has been nothing but trouble. I've also serviced a Hot Rod deluxe that just simply ran too hot and the components will unsolder themselves. They are also made in mexico where the evil twins are made in usa. They don't sound bad, they are just a maintenance headache.

I dont have experience with the old red knob twin, i suspect they are of higher quality though, because the '94 protube twin amp [PTTA] has really thin wiring and also cheap-o parts, and then the newer PTTA (with trem) has pc board mounted sockets and just a poorer design in general, although trem is nice, the newer one is a servicing nightmare. But all that said, its a great versatile amp with tons of features and basically every thing i need/want all in one amp (except for trem). I own the '94 ptta, and it sounds good, it's got pretty good fender clean and fender reverb. The distortion might seem crappy for some, but I dont use it that often, and it sounds good to me, i guess it depends what kind of breakup you want, this doesnt have the late compressed break up a lot of blues players love, I use my 8 watt for that. BTW dont use the 1/4 power switch, it honestly doesnt do much, 3db difference, and it tends to fail, and has often, just leave it at 100 watts.

The biasing is a joke on these amps IMO, they tell you to bias really cold on the Hot rods, but really hot on the evil twins. Dont trust those values on the back. Use a bias calculator and plate voltage to get the right bias (from a red plated experience)

With all this said, personally I'm a vintage fender junkie, and if I could start over again, I would first get a smaller handwired vintage like a champ or a princeton, vibrolux, pro-reverb. You can really get a feel for the play in volume and tone with these amps, they are easy to service and will last you a long time. They will retain and gain value and mod easily if you're into that. You'd be surprised how loud 10, 25 watts is! if you like the idea of a distortion switching, try the rivera series fenders, the princeton II, twin reverb II, deluxe II. Those are quality handwired amps as well and any tech will be happy to service these amps, and probably charge you less because the vintage amps are all so similar and it will take him (or her) much less time to fix it. It's also easier for you to look inside and folow a schemo and understand your amp.

Good luck

[EffectsGuru]

I'm not into new Fender amps... they just don't make good amps anymore (in my opinion, based on my personal experience). I think you would be better off getting a vintage Fender amp if you must have a fender. But if you look on Ebay you could get a higher quality amp (used) for close to the same amount of money.