Fender Super Reverb Amplifier Modification
July 8th, 2010
This feature was submitted by Guitar Jar contributor: Steve Coates
If any of you own/have owned a Fender Super Reverb you’ll be aware that it gets pretty loud when asked to. It has to be said; I more or less bought the amp after hearing Derek Trucks’ guitar tone on his album ‘Songlines‘. When I eventually tried the amp I was not disappointed – it sounds incredible! Only thing is… Where on earth can you go that you can turn the amp up enough to get ‘that’ tone?!
I’m sure, if you’ve played live, you’ll recognise the familiar comment from the sound guy something along the lines of “can you turn your amp down so I can be more in control please”. A variation I got recently was; “excuse me, you know this isn’t Knebworth, right?”. So… after much procrastination, deliberation and research; I decided to do something!
The idea was to simply remove two of the speakers from the amp – in theory producing less volume and earlier breakup. Not only do you reduce the speaker area and bass tones, the tubes are pushed harder when seeing a 4 ohm load instead of 2. I was hoping to achieve a ‘sweet spot’ at lower volumes.
Sounds simple and straightforward enough, right? Yea. This modification doesn’t require a soldering iron or even a screwdriver it was simply a case of unplugging two of the speakers and bang (well hopefully not!).
Anyway, check out the video to hear the amp before and after the mod to give you an insight into the difference this can make. (Apologies for the camera’s heavy compression there was seemingly no way of turning it off!)
Enjoy… Oh! One more thing, it sounds awesome! Just like having the same amp but without the ear-aching volume!
This feature was submitted by Guitar Jar contributor: Steve Coates
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Nice one Steve – I’m always a bit hesitant about pulling out speakers and all that but you can hear the difference between the “before” and “after” – sounds much more crunchy now at lower volumes. Nice bit of sustain in there too (nice guitar btw).
Cheers man. I know what you mean but it was ridiculously loud before. I don’t think I’d played a gig where I could have the volume any higher than 4! (that rhymes)
I don’t think the ‘after’ vid really shows off how good this sounds – I think it actually distorts the camera a little but yea it sounds lovely. I can get some proper SRV style tones with a strat and it sounds full and tight with the Les Paul.
So it doesn’t do the amp any damage disconnecting the other speakers? Which speakers did you disconnect – do you have just the top two speakers active now?
I had a look around and did some research and apparently you can run just one speaker in the Super Reverb – I couldn’t be certain about other amps tho! Good point actually…
DISCLAIMER: This is just a suggestion! If you destroy your amp doing this mod don’t be sending me the bill! ha.
I have the top right and bottom left connected now to get a nice spread across the cabinet and also as good weight distribution. I considered the top two but it might have been a bit too top heavy..
I’ll keep you posted if I’ve made a huge mistake and blown my amp up!