Deciding between a Fender & a Supro

[joeroa]

I'm interested in upgrading my amp. Right now I have a Jet City combo that has a nice drive sound, but dark and muddy cleans that I really can't stand. I typically never have a totally clean tone, but lately I've been really jealous of the beautiful clean tones certain guys are able to get. I play mostly alternative stuff from Television to the Strokes to Radiohead, as well as your standard classic rock songs for another outfit.

 

I'm torn between a Deluxe Reverb of some kind and the Supro Titan. The Titan has more headroom I hear, which might be nice since I will be relying on my pedalboard for drive & distortion. I'm open to other suggestions as well, but I'd like to keep the price around $1200 and below. There's a used Titan by me for $1000, which is very tempting.

 

Any thoughts?

[WRGKMC]

Have you thought about a Speaker upgrade first? For the prices Blackstar sells these amps they likely have a low end budget speaker. (unless its a head and you're using a can where you know the speaker is good)

 

If you lack high end, you can easily solve that problem for a much less expensive cost. Parts Express has some nice deals on Celestin and Eminence. I'd look closely at the speaker specifications and their Frequency response charts. http://www.parts-express.com/cat/gui...ar-speakers/37

 

The other item is their SPL levels. The higher the number the louder the speaker decibels for the same wattage. I have 4 of these in my Marshall cab which sound fabulous with whatever head I use. They are a cross between a British and American tone so I can hit both extremes. http://www.parts-express.com/celesti...-75w--294-2318

 

If you're wanting a nice American tone these might do the job. the speaker has a good response up to 5K which would surely sound better then most stock speakers. http://www.parts-express.com/eminenc...8-ohm--290-820 There's many others too. If you have specific artists you like copying then a little detective work into what they use goes a long way.

 

If you find you simply want to upgrade your price range and possibly the type of music you play would be helpful.

Fenders are always a good choice in tube amps. I'm not overly thrilled with their solid state gear. My Marshall Valvestate blows the doors off of Fender in sound and build quality. Vox is miles ahead too. There are a few exceptions. I've played through some of their older solid state black faced twins that weren't bad.

 

Their tube amps come in a range of sizes and types but other then the fact some have reverb and tremolo, the tones from all of them are surprisingly similar. You can break them into two main categories. Their amps that have 6L6 power tubes are in one class. The amps that use 6V6 are in another. They have different kinds of saturation when pushed. Tone stacks are pretty similar in most cases.

 

The Supro are mostly reissues of a vintage amps. I'm not as familiar with their tone. I hear one way back in the 70's and of course Jimmy Page used them on many early Zeppelin albums and got some amazing tones from them using a MK II fuzz pedal.

I was using the Supro amp for the first album and still do. The “Stairway To Heaven” solo was done when I pulled out the Telecaster, which I hadn’t used for a long time, plugged it into the Supro, and away it went again.

The mentioned model was Supro 1690T modified with a small 12 inch speaker.

 

I think the reissues are lower powered in the 30~40W ranges which is ideal for club work. I'd probably want to try one out before spending $1200 for one. They typically cheapen up parts making reissues and if the thing has cheap pots with plastic shafts and budget speakers, I'd likely look else ware. If its true to the originals and it gave me what I want, I'd still have to weigh my options against a nice Bassman 4X10 Blonde Reissue or Twin. I know what those amps can do and I know their build quality.

[Mikeo]

The Deluxe Reverb is a nice basic building block, ya can't go wrong woth it.

 

I also love the new Supro amps.

 

 

Personally if I was doing new, I grab the Deluxe this years and next year add the Supro.

 

At 1500 buck new for the Supro, you're in the grey area where a bit more money you could get a Dr Z

 

http://www.humbuckermusic.com/products/dr-z-maz-18-jr-nr-combo-black-used?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=googlepla&variant=24723155073&gclid=CjwKEAjwgo6_BRC32q6_5s2R-R8SJAB7hTG-vJiWK5PQlwZEgyAyICjZAKgZHwJJZilwGLvMTZO2RBoCzRXw_w cB

 

 

6L6's

http://www.humbuckermusic.com/collections/dr-z-z-28/products/drzz1xinblta

 

[video=youtube;Rv38kL81TZk]

 

 

[DeepEnd]

Have you thought about a Speaker upgrade first? . . .

^ This. Jet City uses Eminence speakers so maybe try Celestions or Jensens instead. Given your musical influences I'd lean toward Jensens.

 

Edit: Mikeo and I cross posted. I was referencing WRGKMC's post, not Mikeo's.

[t_e_l_e]

i love the retro look of the supro and from the demo videos i heard they sound really nice, but cheapstake as i am i think they are overpriced.

a princton reverb or deluxe reverb are also not cheap but if you look used can be a lot cheaper...

 

but trying a different speaker first would also be my recommendation. e.g. a celestion vintage 30 can do wonders in removing mud from your sound and give a lot of clean punch

[WRGKMC]

One other item I forgot to mention. If this is a tube amp I suggest you replace the tubes. They will brighten up the preamp over the stock Chinese tubes and try JJ EL34's if it uses them and JJ or Electro Harmonix for the preamp tubes. You may want bright and clean EHX is by far a very bright, loud and full frequency tube without the mud. You could use a JJ for more mellow tone or use one in the Clean and one in the drive channel.

 

The preamp tubes are around $10 each so its less expensive then the speaker and may be all you need to get that blanket off the tone.

 

As far as speakers go The Blackstar site says their extension cab uses a 12" Blackbird 50 Speaker which can mean anything. It could be made in china or a branded speaker made by a number of manufacturers.

 

I came across a thread where the owner complained about the exact same thing.

 

Now onto speakers... everything sound sample wise with the stock speaker seems to lack character (especially in the OD), so I will be changing it out. Any suggestions/experience here (including wattage difference from say, 35watt speaker vs the stock 80wats it comes with (differences-what to expect)? I still want to have nice clean headroom, but able to have some natural breakup when pushed pretty good.

 

Someone else who had swapped speakers mentioned this.

I can tell you that swapping out the stock speaker on my HT-20 made a BIG difference. I first had an Eminence Wizard in it, which was really loud (103.5db sensitivity) and open sounding, added lots of clean headroom, and really brought out the details in the amp. It made it gig worthy. Then i switched to a V30, which i like even better, mainly due to its perchance for great chuggy metal tones. It lost some of the fizz I was getting on the distortion channel and seemed to add some "oomph" in the lower mids. Plus running at 8ohms seemed to help out a bit too.

 

Another poster...

 

The HT range is generally dark sounding, so you keep that in mind while shopping for a speaker...the amps take the Celestion V 30, WGS Vet 30, Celestion K 100 and the Eminence Swamp Thang very very good. That as far as I know....I had a Stage 60 with a pair of WGS Vet 30.........for my type of playing, it was awesome (Metallica, GnR, Blues, Hard Rock, Classic Rock)

[Tomm Williams]

If it's in your search...... Used original Supros can often be found cheaper than the new production. I recently picked up a very nice condition '65 Thunderbolt for $750.

These older Valco amps were also marketed by Gretsch and others. I also have a '68 Gretsch Pro Bass that is supposed to be the same circuit as a Thunderbolt. Even with different speakers, they do sound similar.

I just spotted a 60's era Thunderbolt in Sacramento craigslist for $700, it's still posted.

[DeepEnd]

. . . As far as speakers go The Blackstar site says their extension cab uses a 12" Blackbird 50 Speaker which can mean anything. It could be made in china or a branded speaker made by a number of manufacturers. . . .

Where are you getting Blackstar? The OP has a Jet City combo (emphasis added):

I'm interested in upgrading my amp. Right now I have a Jet City combo that has a nice drive sound' date=' but dark and muddy cleans that I really can't stand. . . .[/quote']

Again, Jet City typically uses Eminence speakers (http://www.jetcityamplification.com/combos), although they could easily be custom made.

[Verne Andru]

AFAIK the new Supro's are Bruce Zinky designs and may or may not be true to the originals. They are also PCB's, not p-t-p like the originals. Not sure if the pots and tubes are PCB mounted on the new ones, but the originals had all the components mounted separately, so that might be something to check.

 

Used Supro's can be found for around $600-ish all day long and you could replace all the components for under $200 if a vintage Supro is what you're after.