I owned one of these amps and loved it.It sounded so good that I never worried about my sound and was free to just play. The secret to these and a lot of small amps is the right replacement speaker.Something more efficient than the original speaker that doesn't sound too brittle or sterile.I stuck an 80 watt Celestion in mine which was a nice balance.
I've got this amp for 3 ou 4 years. It's a wonderful amp. Just 20w, but loud enough in a small room (60-80 persons). For larger rooms, generally you add a microphone. The stock speaker was just in the middle range of sound quality. I changed it with a Jensen P12N (alnico). The sound is loud (may be less than a ceramic one, but once again, enough for a small room). In changed also some tubes with NOS. The choice was hard. Each tube have his own character. It's place (v1,v2,..) is also very important. but finally, I've got the sound I like. The clean channel is wonderful, articulate, round (not fat, trebles are presents), and the pots treble/bass act really. You can boost it or add an overdrive in front, and it's a dream. The drive channel is very good for a little crunch. It is very influenced by the choice of the tubes. Pots reacts in a very good range. You can easily add more drive in treble, mid or bass. The sound is more dynamic than the overdrive produced by an overdrive pedal.The only complaint is you can't have saturations. You need an external pedal. And then, you had to roll off the trebles, because the Jensen keeps trebles up to about 7kHz. Tip for every owner of this magic and rare amp : You can use the in/out from the reverb channel to connect effects (reverb, delay,etc.) in parallel. So the reverb pot will act as an insert mix effects. Finally you've got a parallel tube insert channel ! Very good for a 30 years old amp !
That is a treasure. The only Rivera gear I steward is a rock crusher recording.. and it facilitates so much tasty tone on every amp I have.. I'm praying for a mini now for 4 ohm support completely passive for my vintage combo gear. Thankyou for sharing something Mr Rivera designed 😀
bought my Deluxe reverb II new in 1985 for $450, as it came with a voltage selector for 110/240, however never got the footswitch for it. Love this amp. Great for small to midsize venues, and takes well to pedals, along with a noise gate, becomes ultra quiet. Never sell it.
Andy, James D. Jones, retired engineer again. I have your exact amp except with a JBL DF 120 , 12 inch speaker. I put new match set of electro Haronix tubes in it , ... 2 - 6V6 and 5, 12AX7's for preamp and one (1) 12 AU 7 fror reverb pre amp. Sounds perfect. What I like about rivera's design it makes aor can make the amp SOUND like a 40 watt amp. with smooth distortion. I noticed you are dem'ing with an older PRS ,probably HFS and Bass Vintage Humbuckers in your Custom 24 or 22. It does sound good. If you still own the amp can U play thru a Strat and a tele on a new video. I know this was done some time ago. But you video was the best ,still is on U Tube. Thank U my musical friend. Good demo.
Yep - this is the one I've had from new - bought it sometime in about 1983 I think from Kingfisher Music in Camberley, Surrey. Really never considered selling it because it seems to do just about everything you'd want - including doing some service as an acoustic amp for my Takamine.
Good demo Andy ! I have an '83 Fender deluxe Reverb 2 with a JBL DF120 12 inch spker. Love amp 60 yer engineer, in bands 50 years, I 'm comparing to PRSArchon 50 2 channel amp. no reverb though. I don't play much grunge (I like some of the music and it's heaviness) but am no good at it. The Archon is FOR that heavy ,drop tune sound and the clean is also excellent with a master volume on both the clean and the 5 stage gain. I have decided the 83 Fender still suits me better.
3:40 Slight factual correction: Rivera started modding Fenders and Marshalls at Valley Arts. A Rivera modified Deluxe Reverb was the preferred session amp for Steve Lukather up until the early 80's. Jay Graydon had a Rivera modded Princeton. Countless other first call session guitarists had a Rivera modded Fender in their line up during that time. After that Rivera went to Fender from 82-84 designing amps (not making them) under the supervision of Chief Engineer Ed Jahns. (You're correct that Fender got him on board in order to compete with Boogie.) Then from the mid eighties, Rivera went out on his own and set up Rivera amplification.
Nice, I own a Concert amp and a Twin II myself, the same period; great amps. If I play a Sanatana-act I use the twin II; immediat feedback and that typicle Santana sound of the 70's. My settings: turn the eq's; treble mid bass all the way to 10, pull midknob, volume at 10, gain at 5, master at 3 / 5. Get all the sounds you want with the volume on your guitar. Great lick at 4.23 btw.
I got one of these babies recently for $350. I knew what it was worth but the person I bought it from didn't. I urged him to at least do an internet search but he couldn't be bothered. I think $350 was what he paid for it when he bought it some years before and for some reason he'd come to dislike it.... like couldn't wait to get rid of it. Anyway the transaction was over within a few minutes. And it was a few hours later the amp was in my possession and I've been loving it every since. I am particularly fond of small Fender tube amps so the Deluxe II and an old tweed Blues Jr. pretty much have me covered.
I hate to make you sick But my brother bought me a Deluxe Verb 2 about 7 yrs ago he found it at a Good Will store and bought it for a whopping 10 bucks Did I mention how much I love my older Bro what a guy watching out for his guitar playing Little brother. Last of the pt to pt wired Fenders And God Bless Ed Jahns The Designer of this little Tone Monster
I owned one of these amps and loved it a lot.It's probably worth mentioning that the cabinet is bigger than the original Deluxe and therefore emits a fatter more resonant sound.I also found that replacing the original speaker boosted the amp's over all punch considerably.I used my Deluxe almost exclusively in small room gig situations for years and it rarely let me down.In fact that much sound coming out of such a compact amp used to elicit a lot of wonderment and praise from other players.
The cabinet is the exact cabinet that the Concert comes in. My Concert has 2x10 while my DRII is 1x12. It takes just a few minutes to switch them out, then I can have a DRII with 2 Jensen Alnico 10's and my Concert with then have a orange basket 12" JBL D120f.. Great swtichup from time to time
Great amp, with an incredible lead tone. Nice playing too. I've always been more a Fender player than British amp player. I find Fenders all around more usable, and far better pedal platforms. I find that you can get a lot more body behind every note than with British amps, which tend to thin out too much for me. I've also used Boogies, which are, of course, based more on Fenders than British amps.
I'm a big fan of the Concert, and Deluxe reverb II. They get some great tones without being harshly treble as the original deluxe. They definitely benefit from a better speaker, and a lot of volume though... Neither of these are my favorites for in the house, but they sing on the stage. Only thing I miss is the tremolo on them. These days my main is a 69 Bandmaster Reverb converted to AB763, with the slow tremolo mod. Its like a poor man's vibrolux, just heavier with 12" and a 10" in my cab.
I have the same Flip. Don't think that would do it. Anyway, thanks for the reply. Next time I see one of these (if ever), I will definitely check it out. Seems like they are pretty rare.
+stewart keyes Years ago I had a Concert amp (always called it my BB King Amp) - 4 10's as I recall and about 30 + watts. I've always felt like Fender should pay me for publicly telling this story but, I was on my way with a friend to a new year's eve gig and on the way he had to slam the brakes on his car. We had a lot of gear in the car so the hatch didn't close. My Concert Amp went flying out the back and onto the road. Ran to rescue it, noticed the pilot light had been smashed and a couple of knobs. Got it to the gig fearing the worst and not only did it work, a noise that had started to become irritating had disappeared completely. If nothing else it says a Fender Amp can "take a lickin' and keep on tickin'".
That's a steal at $599. GC has some great deals that I also have taken advantage of. Ther's no reason why you can't sell that for $1200 on ebay but you'll probably want to keep it.
Agreed great video. I'd venture to say though that it's mostly your guitar that sounds so good. That's a great sounding guitar you've got. I owned an '83 Deluxe Reverb II for all of one month and could never get the spank and quack that you're getting in this video. The overdrive channel was just way too flubby and unfocused in mine.
Nearest new amp like this is probably that little Valve Princeton or the reissue Deluxe - but I think those are both PCB based and not hard wired like this one. This is easily repairable for ever. OR - you could go for a Rivera amp built by the guy who designed this one - that would be my route if I needed to replace this one with something similar.
Yep - agree with everything you say and demo. Got one of these new in 1982 and will never get sell it. It's just a great amp that can do almost anything. The one thing it really isn't designed for is the heavy Mesa Boogie / Van Halen thing - but that's not my thing anyway. But you can see in the demo its no slouch. Great for an acoustic guitar as well. It has such a nice tone everything sounds great - this would be the go to amp for demoing $50 guitars in a shop. Ha! Poor customer.
I have heard the Super Sonic and it sounds great. I am sure they are very similiar but would need a side by side comparison. I don't know about build quality either. The handwired DR could be dropped down the stairs and still work.
The noise I get on this vid is caused by older single coil pups. I am also facing the amp directly at close range. The footswitch never gets used as we can get everything we need from the guitar volume control using channel 2. You can buy a new Two Rock but it is just a clone.
Hi Andrew, I'm considering buying one of these off of craiglist and would like to know your opinion on whether or not this would be a good amp for a jazz tone? Ultimately I will know when I plug my guitar in and try it out for myself, but if you'd like to chime in, I'd love to know what you think. Thanks, Max
***** The first channel has a great full, clean tone with a lot of low end. Channel 2 can get you some good Larry Carlton tones as well. I think it is a very versatile amp with an appealing sonic character.
Hi, Do you know what the difference is between this and the Fender Harvard reverb II? The reason I ask is that I'm watching one on ebay and I can't find a decent recording of the Harvard. In fact there's only one and the recording sounds awful ! Cheers Gary
I've never played a Harvard II but after a little research I found that is a solid state amp from the 1980's with a 10" inch speaker. I think the tone of it would be dramatically different from an all tube amp with a 12".
I owned one of these amps and loved it.It sounded so good that I never worried about my sound and was free to just play. The secret to these and a lot of small amps is the right replacement speaker.Something more efficient than the original speaker that doesn't sound too brittle or sterile.I stuck an 80 watt Celestion in mine which was a nice balance.
I've got this amp for 3 ou 4 years. It's a wonderful amp. Just 20w, but loud enough in a small room (60-80 persons). For larger rooms, generally you add a microphone.
The stock speaker was just in the middle range of sound quality. I changed it with a Jensen P12N (alnico). The sound is loud (may be less than a ceramic one, but once again, enough for a small room). In changed also some tubes with NOS. The choice was hard. Each tube have his own character. It's place (v1,v2,..) is also very important. but finally, I've got the sound I like.
The clean channel is wonderful, articulate, round (not fat, trebles are presents), and the pots treble/bass act really. You can boost it or add an overdrive in front, and it's a dream.
The drive channel is very good for a little crunch. It is very influenced by the choice of the tubes. Pots reacts in a very good range. You can easily add more drive in treble, mid or bass. The sound is more dynamic than the overdrive produced by an overdrive pedal.The only complaint is you can't have saturations. You need an external pedal. And then, you had to roll off the trebles, because the Jensen keeps trebles up to about 7kHz.
Tip for every owner of this magic and rare amp : You can use the in/out from the reverb channel to connect effects (reverb, delay,etc.) in parallel. So the reverb pot will act as an insert mix effects. Finally you've got a parallel tube insert channel ! Very good for a 30 years old amp !
I've got one of those Deluxe Reverb MK II amps. I bought mine new back in 84, they sure haven't lost any value.
Sweet one, my man. Paul Rivera pure tone.
That is a treasure. The only Rivera gear I steward is a rock crusher recording.. and it facilitates so much tasty tone on every amp I have.. I'm praying for a mini now for 4 ohm support completely passive for my vintage combo gear.
Thankyou for sharing something Mr Rivera designed 😀
Bloody great video. Excellent description and really cool playing.
Thanks for having us in your home!
bought my Deluxe reverb II new in 1985 for $450, as it came with a voltage selector for 110/240, however never got the footswitch for it. Love this amp. Great for small to midsize venues, and takes well to pedals, along with a noise gate, becomes ultra quiet. Never sell it.
Andy, James D. Jones, retired engineer again. I have your exact amp except with a JBL DF 120 , 12 inch speaker. I put new match set of electro Haronix tubes in it , ... 2 - 6V6 and 5, 12AX7's for preamp and one (1) 12 AU 7 fror reverb pre amp. Sounds perfect. What I like about rivera's design it makes aor can make the amp SOUND like a 40 watt amp. with smooth distortion. I noticed you are dem'ing with an older PRS ,probably HFS and Bass Vintage Humbuckers in your Custom 24 or 22. It does sound good. If you still own the amp can U play thru a Strat and a tele on a new video. I know this was done some time ago. But you video was the best ,still is on U Tube. Thank U my musical friend. Good demo.
Yep - this is the one I've had from new - bought it sometime in about 1983 I think from Kingfisher Music in Camberley, Surrey. Really never considered selling it because it seems to do just about everything you'd want - including doing some service as an acoustic amp for my Takamine.
Good demo Andy ! I have an '83 Fender deluxe Reverb 2 with a JBL DF120 12 inch spker. Love amp 60 yer engineer, in bands 50 years, I 'm comparing to PRSArchon 50 2 channel amp. no reverb though. I don't play much grunge (I like some of the music and it's heaviness) but am no good at it. The Archon is FOR that heavy ,drop tune sound and the clean is also excellent with a master volume on both the clean and the 5 stage gain. I have decided the 83 Fender still suits me better.
Great demo and playing. Love your touch. Just spotted one in 2017 for $675. Gonna have to jump on it. Thank you for taking the time to share.
Great price! Because it's older check that the caps don't start crapping out on you. Orange drop caps are a great replacement.
3:40 Slight factual correction: Rivera started modding Fenders and Marshalls at Valley Arts. A Rivera modified Deluxe Reverb was the preferred session amp for Steve Lukather up until the early 80's. Jay Graydon had a Rivera modded Princeton. Countless other first call session guitarists had a Rivera modded Fender in their line up during that time. After that Rivera went to Fender from 82-84 designing amps (not making them) under the supervision of Chief Engineer Ed Jahns. (You're correct that Fender got him on board in order to compete with Boogie.) Then from the mid eighties, Rivera went out on his own and set up Rivera amplification.
Great amp, I had the concert from that Rivera series of the early 80's,which I regrettably sold a few years ago.
Nice, I own a Concert amp and a Twin II myself, the same period; great amps. If I play a Sanatana-act I use the twin II; immediat feedback and that typicle Santana sound of the 70's.
My settings: turn the eq's; treble mid bass all the way to 10, pull midknob, volume at 10, gain at 5, master at 3 / 5. Get all the sounds you want with the volume on your guitar. Great lick at 4.23 btw.
I got one of these babies recently for $350. I knew what it was worth but the person I bought it from didn't. I urged him to at least do an internet search but he couldn't be bothered. I think $350 was what he paid for it when he bought it some years before and for some reason he'd come to dislike it.... like couldn't wait to get rid of it. Anyway the transaction was over within a few minutes. And it was a few hours later the amp was in my possession and I've been loving it every since. I am particularly fond of small Fender tube amps so the Deluxe II and an old tweed Blues Jr. pretty much have me covered.
I hate to make you sick But my brother bought me a Deluxe Verb 2 about 7 yrs ago he found it at a Good Will store and bought it for a whopping 10 bucks Did I mention how much I love my older Bro what a guy watching out for his guitar playing Little brother. Last of the pt to pt wired Fenders And God Bless Ed Jahns The Designer of this little Tone Monster
Lucky one!
I owned one of these amps and loved it a lot.It's probably worth mentioning that the cabinet is bigger than the original Deluxe and therefore emits a fatter more resonant sound.I also found that replacing the original speaker boosted the amp's over all punch considerably.I used my Deluxe almost exclusively in small room gig situations for years and it rarely let me down.In fact that much sound coming out of such a compact amp used to elicit a lot of wonderment and praise from other players.
The cabinet is the exact cabinet that the Concert comes in. My Concert has 2x10 while my DRII is 1x12. It takes just a few minutes to switch them out, then I can have a DRII with 2 Jensen Alnico 10's and my Concert with then have a orange basket 12" JBL D120f.. Great swtichup from time to time
I love it! I bet the 2x10's sound sweet in the Deluxe II
Great amp, with an incredible lead tone. Nice playing too. I've always been more a Fender player than British amp player. I find Fenders all around more usable, and far better pedal platforms. I find that you can get a lot more body behind every note than with British amps, which tend to thin out too much for me. I've also used Boogies, which are, of course, based more on Fenders than British amps.
I'm diggin' the amp a lot, but you have some nice feel to your playing as well!
Awesome tone killer chops sounds good
I got the Princeton Reverb II....my go to rig
BTW - it's a mighty loud 22 watts! Big enough for a rock audience of about 200 or a jazz/swing band crowd of 500 - 1000
I'm a big fan of the Concert, and Deluxe reverb II. They get some great tones without being harshly treble as the original deluxe. They definitely benefit from a better speaker, and a lot of volume though... Neither of these are my favorites for in the house, but they sing on the stage. Only thing I miss is the tremolo on them. These days my main is a 69 Bandmaster Reverb converted to AB763, with the slow tremolo mod. Its like a poor man's vibrolux, just heavier with 12" and a 10" in my cab.
I have the same Flip. Don't think that would do it. Anyway, thanks for the reply. Next time I see one of these (if ever), I will definitely check it out. Seems like they are pretty rare.
Great Demo!! Very informative. Thank You.
Love this amp !
@2rockjade I have a Princeton Rev II I bought used years ago for $289. , installed an Eminece Red ,white,& blues speaker in it , sounds great.
Great review Andy!
I have a concert from this period.
I think I may need to search for one of these.
+stewart keyes Years ago I had a Concert amp (always called it my BB King Amp) - 4 10's as I recall and about 30 + watts. I've always felt like Fender should pay me for publicly telling this story but, I was on my way with a friend to a new year's eve gig and on the way he had to slam the brakes on his car. We had a lot of gear in the car so the hatch didn't close. My Concert Amp went flying out the back and onto the road. Ran to rescue it, noticed the pilot light had been smashed and a couple of knobs. Got it to the gig fearing the worst and not only did it work, a noise that had started to become irritating had disappeared completely. If nothing else it says a Fender Amp can "take a lickin' and keep on tickin'".
+Brent Pulford Great story Brent!
That's a steal at $599. GC has some great deals that I also have taken advantage of. Ther's no reason why you can't sell that for $1200 on ebay but you'll probably want to keep it.
Agreed great video. I'd venture to say though that it's mostly your guitar that sounds so good. That's a great sounding guitar you've got. I owned an '83 Deluxe Reverb II for all of one month and could never get the spank and quack that you're getting in this video. The overdrive channel was just way too flubby and unfocused in mine.
Minute 2:18 OH YEAH MAN KEEP IT COMING :D ROCKN ROLL BABY :D
Nearest new amp like this is probably that little Valve Princeton or the reissue Deluxe - but I think those are both PCB based and not hard wired like this one. This is easily repairable for ever. OR - you could go for a Rivera amp built by the guy who designed this one - that would be my route if I needed to replace this one with something similar.
Yep - agree with everything you say and demo. Got one of these new in 1982 and will never get sell it. It's just a great amp that can do almost anything. The one thing it really isn't designed for is the heavy Mesa Boogie / Van Halen thing - but that's not my thing anyway. But you can see in the demo its no slouch. Great for an acoustic guitar as well. It has such a nice tone everything sounds great - this would be the go to amp for demoing $50 guitars in a shop. Ha! Poor customer.
Excellent.
I'm sure Paul riviera had a hand in these ? I think these are nicer than originals as they have more on them and still have that nice clean
Nice demo. If it's not a stupid question, is this the ancestor of the Super Sonic - DR + gain channel?
@UKToneKing It is 20W amp.
I have heard the Super Sonic and it sounds great. I am sure they are very similiar but would need a side by side comparison. I don't know about build quality either. The handwired DR could be dropped down the stairs and still work.
The noise I get on this vid is caused by older single coil pups. I am also facing the amp directly at close range. The footswitch never gets used as we can get everything we need from the guitar volume control using channel 2. You can buy a new Two Rock but it is just a clone.
A lot of hum in that video, from amp?
Was this straight in? Sounds very compressed. Also hearing a click that almost sounds like a bad speaker.
Hi Andrew,
I'm considering buying one of these off of craiglist and would like to know your opinion on whether or not this would be a good amp for a jazz tone? Ultimately I will know when I plug my guitar in and try it out for myself, but if you'd like to chime in, I'd love to know what you think.
Thanks,
Max
***** The first channel has a great full, clean tone with a lot of low end. Channel 2 can get you some good Larry Carlton tones as well. I think it is a very versatile amp with an appealing sonic character.
Probably a great amp in person...Very compressed sounding on CZcams though.
Thar was my first impression. I guess he used a compressor.
Is the speaker a square magnet 12" or alnico with a U shaped magnet?
Are the tubes all original?
Hi,
Do you know what the difference is between this and the Fender Harvard reverb II?
The reason I ask is that I'm watching one on ebay and I can't find a decent recording of the Harvard. In fact there's only one and the recording sounds awful !
Cheers
Gary
I've never played a Harvard II but after a little research I found that is a solid state amp from the 1980's with a 10" inch speaker. I think the tone of it would be dramatically different from an all tube amp with a 12".
Andrew Gardiner It still went for a pretty penny or two !
I payed 75$ for this amp in 1986. It needed the tubes changed.
The original CTS is 15watts
Ha!!! I knew that was a PRS.
how many watts is it?
Ηave u got any idea how many watts is the original speaker in these?
200
No tremolo on it?
Beeastman123 No Tremolo. Reverb.
Please play the amp, and stab yabbering