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I had a friend's stock 1975 PR. I asked him if I could borrow it to see what all the hype was about concerning the Holy-Gail-vintage-point-to-point-wired Fenders. As he wasn't using it, he was more than happy to oblige. He brings it over, we plug it in, it sounds like crap compared to mine! He looked very disappointed. It's possible that it may have just needed some new tubes or maybe a cap job, but that's another issue.
At that point, I had only changed the 6V6 tubes in mine. When I discovered the farty sound with the volume up past five, I decided I'd check his to see if it did as well. Sure enough, it did exactly the same thing. So I pluged my speaker into his cab, his into mine, no difference. And that is when I started to make the mods. No, it's not a vibration, and its not a rattle. If you go to youtube and watch the videos I put up you can hear it. In one of the vids I took the speaker right out of the cab to demonstrate that it is not cabinet related. After I discovered the sound in my amp, which was about 3 weeks or month after buying it, I went around to three different music stores in the city and tested out their floor model PRRIs. They all did the same thing.
I look at it this way, many players swap out tubes and speakers after buying an amp, so that would be considered a normal mod, and in fact, a speaker swap is not even really considered a mod. You don't necessarily have to change the OT, and in fact, I might suggest that you do that last. It's not an expensive component, but it does improve the sound. What you will see by putting the 12AY7 into V1 is that there is a noticeable drop in volume, which should be expected as you are reducing the head room of the amp. By putting the TO20 in, you're simply pushing the volume back up, as well as tighening up the bass a bit. By the way, if it is any consollation, the engineer who desiged the TO20 (BillM Audio in New Jersey, USA) got the OT specs from Fender, it's based on an OT from a Deluxe Reverb, which apparently many players would put in their PR's back in the day for the same reason as we do it to the re-issues today: to make it better!
My amp is still a Fender PRRI, it's just had some changes made to it. If you haven't already, you should check out Fender Telecaster® Electric Guitar Central -- No. 1 in the World, and do a search on the forum for PRRI, you'll find some interesting threads, and an entire discussion by various members on this exact issue. Have fun, you won't regret the changes once you do them, and once they're done, it'll be a thing of the past. And yes, isn't that Celestion G10 Gold something incredible? Pricey yes, but I certainly have no regrets plunking down $240CDN for it, and I'll likely do it on the next amp that I buy. It has become my go-to speaker! However, I can see why amp manufacturers don't put it in their cabs. Can you imagine what people would think of paying $1200 for the PRRI?
At that point, I had only changed the 6V6 tubes in mine. When I discovered the farty sound with the volume up past five, I decided I'd check his to see if it did as well. Sure enough, it did exactly the same thing. So I pluged my speaker into his cab, his into mine, no difference. And that is when I started to make the mods. No, it's not a vibration, and its not a rattle. If you go to youtube and watch the videos I put up you can hear it. In one of the vids I took the speaker right out of the cab to demonstrate that it is not cabinet related. After I discovered the sound in my amp, which was about 3 weeks or month after buying it, I went around to three different music stores in the city and tested out their floor model PRRIs. They all did the same thing.
I look at it this way, many players swap out tubes and speakers after buying an amp, so that would be considered a normal mod, and in fact, a speaker swap is not even really considered a mod. You don't necessarily have to change the OT, and in fact, I might suggest that you do that last. It's not an expensive component, but it does improve the sound. What you will see by putting the 12AY7 into V1 is that there is a noticeable drop in volume, which should be expected as you are reducing the head room of the amp. By putting the TO20 in, you're simply pushing the volume back up, as well as tighening up the bass a bit. By the way, if it is any consollation, the engineer who desiged the TO20 (BillM Audio in New Jersey, USA) got the OT specs from Fender, it's based on an OT from a Deluxe Reverb, which apparently many players would put in their PR's back in the day for the same reason as we do it to the re-issues today: to make it better!
My amp is still a Fender PRRI, it's just had some changes made to it. If you haven't already, you should check out Fender Telecaster® Electric Guitar Central -- No. 1 in the World, and do a search on the forum for PRRI, you'll find some interesting threads, and an entire discussion by various members on this exact issue. Have fun, you won't regret the changes once you do them, and once they're done, it'll be a thing of the past. And yes, isn't that Celestion G10 Gold something incredible? Pricey yes, but I certainly have no regrets plunking down $240CDN for it, and I'll likely do it on the next amp that I buy. It has become my go-to speaker! However, I can see why amp manufacturers don't put it in their cabs. Can you imagine what people would think of paying $1200 for the PRRI?
I've been toying with the idea of getting a second amp, one that has a few more bells and whistles. The Mesa Boogie Lonestar Special has caught my attention as it has the Fender clean tone, but also earlier gain options on the second channel. If Fender had a mutli wattage option on their Supersonic, I likely would have bought that amp as the first channel is Fender classic.
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