I have been wanting one of these for a while now, so I finally ordered one. I returned the Blues Jr. to help finance the purchase of this amp. The very first Princeton Recording-Amp I played at Guitar Center sometime last year was defective, so I waited to see if Fender would resolve what were rumored to be production problems with this amp. It appears that they have now fixed whatever component(s) that caused the amps to stutter, lose volume or simply fail.
I really like the cleans on this amp, but they do strike me as being a bit sterile. The included effects (overdrive and compression) are a bit muddy sounding and somewhat difficult to dial in to a good sounding tone. The reverb is fantastic, however. One of the biggest and coolest features of this amp is its power attenuator. You can crank up the amp's volume to drive the tubes harder and then dial back the attenuator to lower the volume without killing the tone that only hard driven tubes can produce. It works on this amp, but the distorted sounds become very fizzy at lower, attenuated volumes.
The Princeton Recording-Amp has a lot of very cool features, some of which I hope to see in other Fender amps some day, as well as amp models from other makers. Apart from the attenuator, one of those features is the speaker emulated, XLR output. Speaker emulated outputs are great and they allow completely silent recording and can produce a tone close to that of the amp miked up. Very cool.
Overall, I am not too impressed with this amp after spending some time with it. I have decidedto return it and keep looking for something else. I really like the Blues Jr., so maybe I'll just buy that one again.
You won't believe this, but I have returned a Twin Reverb, which lasted only minutes, right out of the box, and a Blues Deluxe almost as fast, now I'm having to return my Blues Deville. Its making snapping and popping noises. I had to change out the preamp tubes twice now in five months. All of these were bought at Guitar Center because I needed the 12 months same as cash. I don't know if they're selling reconditioned products for new or what, but no one I talk to who has Fender amps has had any problems with them. I'm disgusted, but the sound I want comes from a Fender. I don't know what to do.
ReplyDeleteGerry
do you still use this amp? I read about attenuator problems. I'm interested in one, not chance ot trying any out, before buying without testing, I wonder if you have those issues. Thanks
ReplyDelete