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I've got a silver face twin and love it.

The thing to watch is that all silver faces Twins are not created equal.

They start in 1967 (I think) an for about the first year the circuit is identical to the blackface ones, these are though of as best. After that they make a couple of changes to the circuit general wisdom is that these sound really good too to the point where you probably can't tell the difference with out looking at the board.

In about 1972 (again this is from memory so 'I think') they add a master volume and make a few more changes, I've got a '73 and I can vouch for it sill sounding mega at this point in time (it sounded as good if not better than the RIs I tried in shops and only cost my £350 on ebay two years ago) it is believed that fender make more changes the later in the 70s you go with the amp sounding worse each time they make a change. Until 1977 where the output goes from 100 watts RMS to 135 these supposedly sound the worst (and correspondingly tended to have the lowest value).

Also worth thinking about is that the speakers that fender put in the sliver faces were supposedly pretty crappy and particularly in the earlier SFs that is the main difference in sound between them and the BFs. Mine is has a 1973 but has 1974 after market speakers so the first owner obviously cottoned onto this fact early doors. So basically if it has original speakers you might need to upgrade to get it to sound really nice and you may want to jump on one with aftermarket speakers.. which is sort of counter intuitive I guess.

Glad this came up!
Be sure you either play and love a silver face twin before you buy it. I had a late seventies one with master volume, and it was the opposite of a "twin reverb"
It was fart out breakup city. No headroom at all. I ended up swapping it for asilverface bassman because it was cleaner!

But Ive heard more success stories with silver face twins.

I can get some fair breakup from my 74 too when I crank up the channel volume. That's why there is a master volume in there, I suppose. If you're mainly in for the clean, you shouldn't be afraid of the cheaper late 70s one mentioned above. They are known to produce somewhat unharmonic overtones when breaking up, but you don't need to break them up to get the volume. There's more than enough volume left when you set channel volume to 5 or 6 and then adjust Master to your needs.

A mate of mine is selling a Fender Twin (The Evil Twin) [1996] - I can get the details if your interested Gabe?

rps-10 wrote:A mate of mine is selling a Fender Twin (The Evil Twin) [1996] - I can get the details if your interested Gabe?

I'm not really looking at the 90s twins, but thanks anyway

Amp rig I was using at our recording session, 3 of our 4 songs ended up being recorded on the twin.

I want to emulate that... send me your Vox

Ankhanu wrote:I want to emulate that... send me your Vox

Haha if there are some £ involved

Also I just spotted a few lovely 4x10 Bassmans kicking around ebay, in terms of headroom how do they compare? I found the twin I was using when recording although gorgeous sounding blisteringly loud (not always a bad thing in terms of headroom mind).

I own a late 70's Ultralinear Twin Reverb and really like it. It does what the OP said he wanted. It goes loud and stays clean. It is very heavy though, but I love mine.


DSC03677 by Hentai No Baka, on Flickr


DSC03679 by Hentai No Baka, on Flickr

My UL Twin Demo

That's a very nice amp, I've actually been negotiating the purchase of a similar 77' model which looks very nice. Hopefully will be finalised tomorrow - pending on the sale of my Vox.

Gabriel wrote:That's a very nice amp, I've actually been negotiating the purchase of a similar 77' model which looks very nice. Hopefully will be finalised tomorrow - pending on the sale of my Vox.

Thanks! I hope you get it. I don't understand the trash talk on them. Yeah the master volume isn't needed, but it isn't like it doesn't work or anything. The tremolo on mine is very nice and subtle, the reverb is very nice, and it has great tone to me. I guess it is just a matter of taste. These take pedals well too. My favorite line on these amps was, "If you like using pedals for your distortion, this is great." It doesn't seem to break up on it's own, but that is cool by me. I like being able to do loud cleans and toss in distortion with my pedals if/when I want it.

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I just discovered these Ampegs, do want!

Ampeg Gemini II, the 15 inch speaker is the main attraction, plus the breakup sounds awesome (I've spent more time messing with my vox and I think I'd miss having the ability for some breakup.

Do we have these in the UK? Theres loads of them on ebay in america but none in the uk.

Also, what is the general consensus on Musicman 212-75s? There is one for sale at a shop online.

My advice would be that if you've played a Twin and decided that it's the sound for you then it would be better to wait until one comes along rather than take a gamble on an amp you may not like as much and may end up selling in order to buy the Twin you wanted from the start.

^ Yep. Although I do like the Ampegs...

johnnyseven wrote:My advice would be that if you've played a Twin and decided that it's the sound for you then it would be better to wait until one comes along rather than take a gamble on an amp you may not like as much and may end up selling in order to buy the Twin you wanted from the start.

Yeah that's true, sounds a lot like what I'd probably end up doing. Right I best just be a bit more patient.

Tried Gumtree? There are Twins everywhere.

Definitely hold out for a Silverface. Modern amps with circuit board-mounted input jacks break too easily; an old one will last forever.

timhulio wrote:Tried Gumtree? There are Twins everywhere.

Yeah I've been looking, there was a 77' that I've been negotiating on but I still haven't sold my vox yet and the twin was quite expensive.

I've also been talking to someone selling an Ampeg ET2 on musicradar (very tempted).

An Ex Romily Alice (Japanese Voyeurs) 1979 Twin.. just in case you hadn't seen it. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0686964561

Doubt she'll be selling off her Mustangs though, but might be worth watching that account for ex band stuff now they have packed it in.