Fender Rivera Era Concert

[Chuck H]

What did he do different?

Well I'd have to compare the schematics to tell you that. But I'm sure he did plenty different. I'm not even a pro amp designer and I have several different whole amp circuits and all require a rework of the preamp to get to the desired end result. Even a designer like Bruce Zinky who designed the Fender Prosonic, an amp that served as the design platform for all Fender high gain channels for the following five years (and IS an excellent high gain preamp IME) decided in the end that he doesn't like that design and did entirely different designs with his later work. Also, an amp is a whole system. What works for one amp doesn't typically just shoe horn into another and often an entirely different approach is needed..

[soundmasterg]

I had a Rivera era Fender Super Champ that I traded for a Rickenbacker 4001 bass around 1992, and a Rivera era Fender Concert that I got disgusted with the tone and traded plus cash for a 1993 Korg Vox AC30TBX brand new and never looked back. The Concert was a swiss army knife with poor wiring practices that didn't do anything very well. The Super Champ was better, but as I learned about how to fix and build my own amps I've built better sounding stuff. That said, the Rivera era stuff is better than most of the current offerings from Fender, both in sound and wiring practices, excepting some of the vintage reissues. I don't know of any specific mods, but you could probably rewire the whole amp with a vintage circuit and be miles ahead of what they were stock.

Greg