'57 Deluxe Amplifier

Fender amp-heads, rejoice! In a nod to countless requests from fans worldwide, Fender will begin producing authentic, hand-wired recreations of the amazing '57 Deluxe™ guitar amp. This highly-collectible, 12-watt, all-tube amplifier with 12" speaker will be hand-built, one by one, at the Fender factory in Corona, Calif.

For the uninitiated, the original Fender Deluxe™ amps of the 1950s were medium-powered units designed to let guitarists "hold their own" in a small group. As blues, western, and rockabilly bands began getting louder and wilder, the overdriven tone of a cranked-up Deluxe found its way onto countless live and recorded performances. Over the past five decades, players of every conceivable style have employed '50s-era Deluxe amps for their unmistakable warm, rich tube tone.

'57 Deluxe "We are really proud to be giving discerning guitarists and tube amp enthusiasts what they've been asking for," noted Fender's Marketing Manager of Amplifiers, Shane Nicholas. "This is such a soulful, timeless amp, so we took great pains to nail the perfect sound and vibe."

Like the original models, the '57 Deluxe recreation will feature a hand-wired, all-tube late 1950s 5E3 circuit design, 12" Alnico-magnet Jensen® P-12Q speaker, a 5Y3GT rectifier tube (to provide natural "sag") and a finger-joined solid pine cabinet to resonate with a warm, woody tone. And cosmetically, this lacquered tweed amp is virtually undistinguishable from the original, save for a "standby" switch in place of the 1950s-issue "polarity" switch.

But the '57 Deluxe is really all about its tone—packing tons of harmonically rich clean sounds at lower volumes, and a fat, compressed, wildly distorted sound that's completely inspiring (and easy to record) when you turn it up.

"Set the knobs half-way up, and it provides gorgeous clean or overdriven tones depending on picking dynamics," confirmed Nicholas. "But when this amp is cranked, it distorts like a sweating, snorting pig."

The '57 Deluxe will be available beginning in February 2007.