Princeton Chorus question.

[jh45gun]

I know I have asked this before but now I have more info hopefully to go on. We played a gig tonite 4 piece and I let my old bass player who was playing rythem to nite use my Princeton Chorus. Now here is the background which some of you already know. I got this amp because the music store figured it was screwed up. So they stole the speakers out of it and the reverb tank. I took the ten inch speakers out of my Kustom PA speakers and put them into this amp and then put in an other reverb tank and cleaned the jacks and pots. I do not know how it should sound origional as it is not. I bought Eminence Beta 250 watt speakers to go into the Kustom cabs I took the speakers out of to put into the amp. they were 60 watt speakers so I have two 60 watt speakers in the amp which is supposed to be 2x25 watts. They are 8 ohm which is what the amp calls for. Now for the PA system we used tonite we used my Kustom cabs with a 100 watt Peavey PA head (the 4 channel one) and my old Fender 4 channel PA head running the monitors. (3 of them by running them through one channel. The guys in the band were impressed as the Beta 250 watt speakers kicked butt as the Peavey PA head was on One half for all 4 vocal mikes so we were running the vocal mikes at 50 watts give or take with a bass player using a Evans 4x ten cab and head I do not know what his volume was it it was not quiet and a loud drummer though he had nothing miked. My amp set up is a Silvertone 1472 with a preamp out modification into a Traynor Mono Block Bass Head running a 2x12 home made cab with Eminence 12 inch speakers that came out of a Fender Twin that I bought from a member here. This system Kicks I had my Silvertone set on 3 and my Mono Block set on 2. Pedals are a Digitech PR 80 and a Behringer wah Pedal. We had to adjust my Digitech gain to 45 and 50 as my higher settings were too much gain even set at 3 on my Silvertone and my Monoblock at 2. Guitar is a Peavey Reactor Tele. Now I know this is hard to answer as your not there but my Princeton was set on 7 for the rythem player and he was using a Digitech PR 50 with the gain set on 45 for most of his settings on the pedal. Treble was on 7 bass 3 and mids about 6. He did not use the gain channel as like me I prefer the Digitech for my dirty sounds. So I know this is hard to answer but those of you who have the Princeton Chorus from the info I gave you is this realistic for volume or should I be getting more. Like I said hard to compare to my Silvertone as I know Tube amps have more watts for what they are compared to solid state and running that tube amp into my Monoblock its loud even idleing. Like I said the Silvertone was on 3 and the Monoblock on Two and I had plenty of volume. I was pretty impressed with the Eminence Beta Tens like I said we were playing in a average size bar and while the drums were not miked and neither were any of the amps we had more then enough volume. Just curious for what I described if the Princeton volume at 7 would be about right considering it was in a 4 piece setting. Like I said my amp setup is pretty loud even at lower settings. I know Fender says the Princeton amp is LOUD but I have nothing to go by as I never heard a origional one. Note: Rythem player was using the bass players guitar which was an other Peavey Reactor Tele that was customized with a new bridge and pickguard with 2 Humbucking pickups instead of the standard pickups that came with it. Jim

[Bluesbob]

My boy has a band with bass and one or two other guitar players. He took his MIJ Tele and his Princeton chorus to band practice a few times, but was complaining about not having enough volume. This amp is supposedly 65 watts per channel, and I have played through it at low volumes and it can make some nice sounds. But he wasn't happy so I let him use my 60 watt Son of Boogie the other day. He loved it and said he had no problems being heard above (drowning out?) the other guys. I don't know about the speakers making much difference, his Princeton Chorus is loaded with Jensen MODs. I think it runs out of gas past a certain volume level. I try never to push any amp beyond 5 (OK maybe 6) on the volume control. Especially Fenders, which seem to reach their limit at about 5. After that it's just gain rather than volume, not necessarily a bad thing, just not for me. If I need more volume I use a bigger amp. Maybe sell the Princeton (I saw where one sold for $230.00 on ebay this week) and buy something a little brawnier. I paid $300.00 for the Boogie but that was a while ago. Sorry if this isn't much help, but it's the best advice I could think of. With the volume set at 7and using a guitar with humbuckers, it's probably just a matter of time before the power transistors go.

[jh45gun]

Thanks for the reply. I doubt I will sell it as I got it for nothing and if nothing else it makes a good practice amp plus I hate to let them speakers go as I could use them for a monitor if need be.

[sprokett]

I have owned several princeton choruses over the years. My experience is that red knobs tend to fair better in the volume area. In higher volume settings I would use the gain channel with volume at 10 and the use the gain for the volume control. Eq settings of bass 7 mid 4 and treble 5-6 always seemed to work better for me

[Deaf Eddie]

Remember, this amp is rated at 25wrms (yeah, times two) and that's ALL YOU GET. LOVE the tone, but they are just a bit underpowered for most gigging needs.

I gig with a PAIR of Princeton Chorus amps, and find that with my band (we're a 4+1, not loud, with keys, bass, and drums) the volume is JUST adequate for small to medium rooms. Mine are both reloaded with new Eminence speakers (Ragin' Cajuns and Ramrods), so I'm getting all they've got to give. If we had another guitar player, I'd just have to use a bigger amp, I'm sure.

Now, I used to think that with a stereo amp, you could just assume that you would add the two sides together (25+25=50 watts, or for a JC120, 60+60=120 watts) to get an idea of the output, but now I know better. It may sound a bit fuller with the two 25 watt amps (stereo), but the second 25 watt amp certainly does NOT double the output volume.

In fact, even though running my two amps (one is slaved) looks like 100 watts on paper (4x25=100 watts), it's hardly any louder at all with the second amp connected - which seems like it should double the power. But, it just don't work like that - the dang science gets in the way. Running both amps, I still don't get much more volume out of the setup than I would expect with just a single (mono) 25 watt amp - just much better TONE.

So, I'm just using the second amp to fill in the tone, and lately, instead of stacking them, I've taken to placing one on each side of the stage, which my bandmates say they like a lot better, and we think fills the room at a lower volume (always an issue).

So, if you think it's only as loud as a 25 watt amp should be, then you're getting all you can get out of your Princeton Chorus.

[jh45gun]

Thanks for the info Deaf Eddie I do know if I run my Silvertone 1472 that I have modded with a Preamp line out and if I run that line out into the normal jack of the clean channel I can get it to get some decent volumes out of it. So I wonder if a Clean Boost pedal in front of it would work or an other preamp in line first?

[Deaf Eddie]

... I wonder if a Clean Boost pedal in front of it would work or an other preamp in line first?

A preamp or booster pedal might work for you, IF you're "almost there"...

My "gig rig" pedal board has a stomp-box compressor that I use for a gain boost, and with my settings it kicks up the volume on my solos just enough so that I don't have to do anything but stomp on the pedal. We're not THAT loud, but you can certainly tell that we're playing from the next room...