Telecaster Guitar Forum - View Single Post - The Fender Princeton (non-reverb) Thread

DW18 · April 15th, 2009, 07:10 PM

I bought this Princeton non-reverb for $250.00. When I tried out the Princeton I wasn’t too impressed, but I had read that with a little work, the Princeton could have a very nice clean sound at low volume for playing around the house so I bought it. This Princeton was real grungy and dirty, so I took everything totally apart for cleaning and inspection. While I had the chassis out I cleaned what I could, used a compressor carefully blowing a ton of dust out of the amp, and after discharging the caps, tightened the tube socket pins. I also cleaned all the grunge off the tubes as well checking the tube pins for rust or corrosion. I found that it had 2 - GE 6v6’s, one RCA 12ax7 and one Ei 12ax7. I know I need a 7025 in the Princeton, but the Ei 12ax7 seems to work fine in that position. After a few hours of cleaning, I had the grill cloth looking better and the knobs and Tolex actually has a bit of a shine to it. I carefully put everything back together and plugged in my Guild S-100. I don’t know what I did, but the amp seemed much, much better than when I tried it out before. It now had more volume, no hum, and it was more defined and cleaner. I started to think about changing the speaker. The original is an Oxford and is the weakest part of the amp. Just for kicks, I decided to make and use a long speaker extension cable and hook up the 12” Jensen C12K that is in my DRRI. The DRRI sounds best when I can turn it up to 6 – 7 but I can’t do that often at home when everyone is there. I need a good sounding, lower power amp for home use, like the Princeton.

Wow, holy cow, what a change that Jensen made!!! I know that a lot of people end up putting 12-inch speakers in their Princeton amps and now I know why. If you have an older all original 60’s Princeton, then stick with something like a 10” Rajun Cajun. Keep the old speaker in case someday you sell it to someone who wants only an all-original un modified amp. My 70 something Princeton may not be much sought after so I didn’t think twice about enlarging the particleboard face to accommodate the Jensen. For me it is now a great amp and has the tone I like in a small package, I think I’ll keep it! Here are the picture links.

http://s130.photobucket.com/albums/p...cetonFront.jpg

http://s130.photobucket.com/albums/p...ncetonBack.jpg

http://s130.photobucket.com/albums/p...onTagBoard.jpg

April 15th, 2009, 07:10 PM	#48 (permalink)
DW18 NEW MEMBER! Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Ithaca Age: 54 Posts: 2	I bought this Princeton non-reverb for $250.00. When I tried out the Princeton I wasn’t too impressed, but I had read that with a little work, the Princeton could have a very nice clean sound at low volume for playing around the house so I bought it. This Princeton was real grungy and dirty, so I took everything totally apart for cleaning and inspection. While I had the chassis out I cleaned what I could, used a compressor carefully blowing a ton of dust out of the amp, and after discharging the caps, tightened the tube socket pins. I also cleaned all the grunge off the tubes as well checking the tube pins for rust or corrosion. I found that it had 2 - GE 6v6’s, one RCA 12ax7 and one Ei 12ax7. I know I need a 7025 in the Princeton, but the Ei 12ax7 seems to work fine in that position. After a few hours of cleaning, I had the grill cloth looking better and the knobs and Tolex actually has a bit of a shine to it. I carefully put everything back together and plugged in my Guild S-100. I don’t know what I did, but the amp seemed much, much better than when I tried it out before. It now had more volume, no hum, and it was more defined and cleaner. I started to think about changing the speaker. The original is an Oxford and is the weakest part of the amp. Just for kicks, I decided to make and use a long speaker extension cable and hook up the 12” Jensen C12K that is in my DRRI. The DRRI sounds best when I can turn it up to 6 – 7 but I can’t do that often at home when everyone is there. I need a good sounding, lower power amp for home use, like the Princeton. Wow, holy cow, what a change that Jensen made!!! I know that a lot of people end up putting 12-inch speakers in their Princeton amps and now I know why. If you have an older all original 60’s Princeton, then stick with something like a 10” Rajun Cajun. Keep the old speaker in case someday you sell it to someone who wants only an all-original un modified amp. My 70 something Princeton may not be much sought after so I didn’t think twice about enlarging the particleboard face to accommodate the Jensen. For me it is now a great amp and has the tone I like in a small package, I think I’ll keep it! Here are the picture links. http://s130.photobucket.com/albums/p...cetonFront.jpg http://s130.photobucket.com/albums/p...ncetonBack.jpg http://s130.photobucket.com/albums/p...onTagBoard.jpg Last edited by DW18; April 15th, 2009 at 07:16 PM. Reason: correct image links