Concerned about the future of America--Super Reverbs too heavy?

[in a vacuum]

I stopped in at a music store that I worked at in the late 70s and early 1980s. There were four Fender Super Reverb amplifiers sitting there for sale. I haven't really kept up with the market and said something like, "Must be nice to have that many Super Reverbs--I bet they will sale like hot cakes". My old buddy smirked an said that a couple of them had been there for a year (priced $800-$1000) and went on to speculate that they were just too heavy--musicians weren't willing to move such a heavy amplifier.

Heavy? I can understand someone with a physical disability needing a lighter amp, but I see way too many guitarists who should spend more time practicing and less time in the gym lifting weights, who could easily lift and move these wonderful amplifiers.

I could even understand someone not wanting one of the large folded horn Acoutic Control bass cabinets because it would require a gas guzzling van to move, but a Super Reverb--it fits in my Toyota Corolla!

We have become a nation of wimps.

[JoeM]

I think there is a trend for smaller amps. I have a SFSR that I got for $250.00. It's been up for sale a few times for around $500.00. I get a ton of inquiries, but most seem to want dead stock - so no takers. Now the amp just sits in the closet. I dont want to lug it anymore either, so I guess that just makes me a wimp too!

A lot of bands mic the amp anyway, so why pack a large amp? Back when I gigged, not too many of the bands I played with miked any of the rhythm section, so a Super Reverb, or even a Twin were more usable.

[Enzo]

Lemme get this straight. If Megan Fox is attractive, I am OK to like it, but if she packs on an extra 100 pounds and I don;t like it, I'm a wimp?

[bob p]

Not everybody who plays guitar looks like Zaak Wylde. Or wants to.

[in a vacuum]

Just to show you how "removed" I am from main stream culture, I had to Google "Zack Wylde" and "Megan Fox" just to understand these responses. I guess what urks me is that we will go to the gym and work out for "body image" reasons, but when it comes to doing real manual work like moving a 65 pound Fender Super Reverb it is too much of a hassle. I worked on farms when I was a teenager. Loading 250 30 lb bails of hay a day, moving 80 pound bags of concrete, splitting and stacking firewood, digging post holes and sweating like a pig (all for $2 an hour) was nothing. I guess that is why my friend's response at the store was such a surprise. It just never occurred to me that a Super Reverb was heavy.

Back then we also took pride in our backline on stage with those Kustom 200 amps with the 3-15" speaker cabinets in pearl white. The big amps were part of the image.

[Enzo]

Actually I had to think for a moment to come up with some current hottie. Megan Fox has been in the media lately.

I was on the road back in the late 1960s, we toured with a full size Hamond B3 with Leslie, and then the keyboard guy wanted a piano too, so we started carrying with us a full size upright piano, all 900 some pounds of it. I could lift the Leslie off the 4-1/2 foot tail of the equipment truck by myself. It took two of us to get the B3 off just due to its size. The piano? Well that took the whole band. I was probably mostly showing off, but I sometimes turned the two Marshall 4x12 cabs on their sides, grabbed a handle in each hand and walked along with TWO of the damned things at once. But I am no hero. It's not about what we CAN lift, it is about what makes sense. When you are lifting 80 pound bags of cement, I bet you don;t hold them at arms length. I bet also, when you set them down, you are not concerned with cracking a tube or bouncing a reverb pan to bits.

I bet you used a tractor. Not because you were lazy, but because plowing by hand is far less efficient. Why not make those hay bales 90 pounds each, then you'd only have to move 80 of them or so. You could, but the reason you don;t is not laziness, it is because the 30 pound size makes more sense.

When I was active in the coin industry, I moved pool tables and I moved jukeboxes. Pool tables are a hunk of slate with a wooden housing - weighs a lot. I can slam those around no sweat. The jukebox? It weighs a lot too, but no slamming those around if you want them to work. Once a month or so a semi pulled up with a couple tons of salt pellets for our water softeners in our coin laundromats. We all lined up and unloaded the thing one 80 pound bag at a time. I have a Peavey Mace here in the shop, it weighs a freaking ton. Can I lift it? Sure, of course I can. But the amp is too heavy. I don't want to HAVE to lift it. I got nothing to prove, I've done lifting, but I don't want everything to be a contest. Ever play a guitar that felt "too heavy?"

[Chuck H]

Ok, ok, ok...

There is a wide gray line here. If an amp sounds the way you like and only weighs 35lbs, fine. If your compromising tone because of weight, and you'd rather sound like a Super Reverb, and you don't suffer from some kind of disability, then your a wimp.

Point is if your able bodied and you care to play with an inspiring stage sound then you should use what sounds best, within reason. I mean, there is a common sense line to be drawn, but sans any extreme weight choosing to use a light amp over a heavier one, if it's at the expense of tone, and you are able bodied, is rock and roll blasphemy.

JM2C

Chuck

[bob p]

I used to carry around an Acoustic 371. It was the size of a refrigerator, and moving it was a logistical nightmare. I needed a truck or a full size station wagon to move it. At least it had tilt back wheels. Back then I had to lug around a Fender Rhodes too. That was a 2 man lift. But you know what the biggest PITA was? The keyboardist's 180 watt Super Twin Reverb. That little 2x12 with EV speakers was one heavy mother. Small enough to look like one guy should handle it, but a real PITA when it came to going up and down the basement stairs.

Now the guys who moved B3 to gigs -- those were real men. I think most of the B3 got cut down to make them easier to move. Enzo, you should have told your keyboardist to buy a Rhodes piano. The kind that had chrome legs, not the kind that had the giant speaker cabinet. That's a lot easier to move than a piano! I've moved pianos before, and if my keyboard player told me he wanted us to move a real piano to the gigs, I would have told him he was crazy.

Keyboard players have it a lot easier today now that everything is electronic and more compact. I play with smaller gear now. Heads and cabs are separated for weight reasons. No sense having to lift both at once. Today a Super Reverb looks heavy to me.

[Enzo]

Compared to the upright piano, sure, but the Rhodes is no lightweight. We couldn;t afford a Rhodes back then. They were new then, no 30 year old beaters floating around. I knew a number of guys with chopper B3s. I was just licky he didn;t have a C3.

We had a guy join us for a while from the greater Leon Russell family, Bobby something, he demanded we carry a medium sized grand around with us. I didn;t like him, or his piano. that relationship didn't last long.


talk about going soft, we had some nice padded covers for the B3 and Leslie, giant gig-bags more or less. After setup, I found that I could lay the pile of covers out backstage and they were real comfortable for taking a nap.


Now I am gonna go nuts until I can remember Bobby who.

[J M Fahey]

All you said is right, but I don't think those SR don't sell just because of their weight.
I think the broader picture is "because *nobody famous* uses them", remembering to think from a kid's point of view.
They want what they see on MTV or heavily advertised/sponsored on guitar magazines or their online equivalents.
The fact those SR have a *killer* sound does not get into the picture.
"If they were *that* good Zakk Wylde would use them, wouldn't he?", that's the inescapable logic.
Oh wel, we were kids too and did the same.
In '68 we wanted Rickenbacker guitars, Höfner violin basses (hint hint), and started to be aware of Les Pauls (now I'm dating myself quite precisely).
¿A Gibson hollowbody? ¿An Ampeg what ? ....
PS: i guess the only ones who even ask about those SR are Tele or Strat toting , beer gut, greybeard musicians.

[bob p]

Enzo, your keyboardist made you tote around a Grand Piano? I'm surprised that his membership survived the first setup.

As a "graybeard", my back tells me that the same power amp head sitting on top of an open backed speaker cabinet sounds better than the all-in-one Super Reverb -- no matter what the ears have to say about it.

Didn't Fender make some really ridiculously sized "combo" amps that were total flops? I remember the Super Six Reverb had 6 speakers in it. Today nobody wants them. Wasn't there a combo amp that had 8 speakers? I tried to check but I can't get the field guide to load today...

[JoeM]

Didn't Fender make some really ridiculously sized "combo" amps that were total flops? I remember the Super Six Reverb had 6 speakers in it. Today nobody wants them. Wasn't there a combo amp that had 8 speakers? I tried to check but I can't get the field guide to load today...

Yeah, Fender made the Super Six with 6 10s and the Quad Reverb with 4 12s. I was at the local store I deal with this last week and they had some bass rig that used an Ampeg SVT cab with 8 10s.

[MWJB]

What J M Fahey says...

Many of those "beer gut, greybeard musicians" have also discovered that they're no longer invincible and are keen not to bring on another bout of lumbago...but casters & breaking the amps down to head & cab format are a practical possibility.

The younger, fitter generation typically are often looking for more "features" (drive, more drive, more drive with extra drive on top and a side salad of drive, perhaps modelling capabilities) but any 2x6L6, 50-60W, 4x10" amp is going to weigh in the ball park of a SR (agree too with Chuck) ...does the OP's buddy sell any Hot Rod Deville's & the like?

...I too doubt that weight is primarily the reason that they don't shift.

[Mark Hammer]

1) Megan Fox is now officially out of circulation, such that I imagine a lot of young men can now get theirs back.

2) With time, and especially with the advent of means for making smaller amps sound huge, and making huge-sounding PAs get smaller, people find they just don't need big amps the way they thought they did before. It is also the case that the contemporary player generally wants their amp to sound dirty at moderate volumes, rather than being loud and moving lots of air with minimal risk of clipping. It is also probably fair to say that many players are a little more realistic about whether their future lies in smaller intimate clubs or arenas. If they really DID need a big amp, they'd get one. You will note that Marshall stacks, and their functional equivalents from other manufacturers, show negligible decline in sales, and believe me, I'd rather hoist a Super any day of the week than a 4 x 12 stack with no amp and heavy transformer factoring into its weight. You can stick a Super in the backseat of your compact car, but a 4 x 12 stack will definitely want a van, or a 4x4 at least.

3) How much of the weight in a SR is actually made up of the two additional speakers and the extra cabinet needed to house them? Not that much, really, since it's an open-back cab, and the speakers are only 10".

[drewl]

Back in the old days with huge tube oscilloscopes, we used to joke that Techs back then were real men!
A huge 545 Tektronix tube scope was a "portable" unit for the big techs of yore!

As far as amps, I figure if the Beatles could schlep around AC30's as skinny kids, then I won't complain about moving anything as heavy.