Just got back from manny's

[proaudioguy]

 Now Sam ash, aka the Borg.  Played a 79 strat through a 67 Delux reverb.  I wanted to give them $2400. Right then and there.  I never went over about 3 or 4.  The amp sounded stereo.  Very good verb and very sweet sound.  Made the guitar sound better than it did. Right next to I was a reissue which I also tried and it was aweful.  The verb was mid heavy with no top end at all. Also the amp was microphonic trying to feed back when I unPlugged the guitar.  It was like a broken amp.  Could have been a bad tube I guess.  I am going to attempt to have a closer look at that Delux tomorrow night.  I'm in Manhattan for most of this week.  Wish I had my guitar to try out.  I felt wierd playing a different one.  I have the chance to pickup a fender elite strat for about $800.  Looks to be in good shape.  Worth it?  It's one of those odd guitars that one of my music heros played. I heard one on YouTube clean and it was amazing.  I had never heard one clean before.

[proaudioguy]

Today I went
To Rudy's. Checked out the dejavibe. Darn near bought it. Also got to play an Eric Johnson strat. Really well made guitar!  Plastic nut is disappointing. If the standard strats were made this well I suspect fender would sell a lot more. My neck has never been able to get that flat. Going to have to get it checked out. I highly recomend that Ej model if you want a 50s style, but new strat.   Also went back to Sam ash and Played a really nice custom shop tele (I wanted to give them the $3600.) through that ole 67 DR. I turned it around and Pulled V2 and V6....RCA and GE!  If this is the reason it sounds so good I have to get some NOS tubes. I'd really like to buy this amp from the owner as I think it's on consignment. They want a bit too much for it. Work is really boring but I'm really enjoying my evenings in NYC.

[HotBluePlates]

Also went back to Sam ash and Played a really nice custom shop tele (I wanted to give them the $3600.) through that ole 67 DR. I turned it around and Pulled V2 and V6....RCA and GE!  If this is the reason it sounds so good I have to get some NOS tubes.

Very well could be. That and the old speaker.

There's something about the balance of parts in those amps, especially with a speaker that's got 30+ years of age on it, that really sounds good.

But I haven't bought any vintage amps since about 2000, when I sold the last of the ones I had. I recall blackface DR's bringing in the neighborhood of $1200 then; I'd gotten a blackface Princeton Reverb about 7 years earlier for $450. Night and day difference playing through a new amp, then one of those.

But I'm satisfied that I can get 90% of that sound with homebrew amps I've built. If I had an original for side-by-side listening, I could probably dial-in the sound to 99%. But every one of those old amps has a slightly different character, depending on how everything aged.

Excepting resale value, if it's cheaper to build then buy... well I'm gonna build.