Fender red knob "The Twin" amp - thoughts?

[laurie]

I have a chance to pick one up reasonably priced. Anyone have one or have used one? Thoughts?

[sclitheroe]

The RE-20 compact will sound great with it

[Pepe]

A band mate of one of my bosses had an old Fender Twin Reverb. I liked it a lot.

[laurie]

The RE-20 compact will sound great with it

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[Luke Drifter]

people often confuse the Red knob twin with the evil. The evil was a later black knob thing designed by Randall ( i think) .

i have never tried an evil, but i had a red knob Dual Showman (basically the twin in head form) and it was a fantastic super loud clean amp. tested at 130Watts. heaos of switchable functionality and really well built. I never had a problem with it. id buy another in a heartbeat

[visserman]

I have a chance to pick one up reasonably priced. Anyone have one or have used one? Thoughts?

Have used them many times in the early 90s, as that was the amp you saw in venues when people could not bring their own amp.
I believe it is the one with the red controls, but not sure.
I think the difference lies in that the one with red controls does have more power, but it is simply has the sound of a twin with added (useful) features.

I think you know the sound of a twin eh? Why not try it before you buy it, if that is a option??

Luke Drifter mentioned Paul Rivera, who used to design amps for fender at the back end of the CBS period, early 80s.
I have a London Reverb from this period, also designed by Rivera, and basically it is a Twin, with lots more options and very useful features.
It is not valve and does have one 12 inch speaker instead of the two 12s a Twin has.
Just mention this because I am not aware of Rivera also being behind the Red control Twin, but it could be true who knows eh?.

I can remember there was a page full of all the models Paul Rivera, cannot find it today but I found something here on Reverb about the Red knob Twin:

https://reverb.com/uk/item/48697750-fen ... 0-s-rivera

[Luke Drifter]

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... ns.275059/

quote John Phillips:

These amps were not designed by Rivera nor have anything to do with the ones he did design for Fender, whatsoever.

Rivera designed (or more accurately, supervised) the 'II' series of 1982-1985, which included the Concert and Twin Reverb II. These are the last PTP-wired amps Fender made (apart from the recent Custom Shop amps).

Fender then ceased amp production for about three years when CBS sold the company.

The Red-Knob series were the new FMIC's first amp line, introduced in 1988, and have nothing in common with any previous Fender, in any way from the circuit design to the build methods. They were designed as new from the ground up.

I don't know why people get the Rivera and Red-Knob series confused, they're about as different as any amps ever made by two different companies, let alone ones that say Fender on.

Also, these amps are not the 'Evil Twin', which came afterwards and is different again (much better-sounding IMO), although it retains some of the good features - yes, there are some! - introduced on the Red-Knobs... like a quarter-power switch, external bias test points and adjusters, multi-impedance selectable outputs, and a three-level FX loop.

[fuzzbuzzfuzz]

Incredibly loud clean amps, you'll certainly need (or like) some pre-amp pedals and drives to soften the impact of any fuzz hitting the front end.

[laurie]

Hmmm.... yeeeeessss.... but my enquiry was from February last year. The opportunity is long gone

[laurie]

I forgot I started this thread back in 2022.

I eventually did come into possession of this very amp. After a couple of years it failed and had a massive repair quote - much more than the amp was worth. The owner let me have it for repair/parts.

I've been slowly reconditioning it. Here is part of the work I'm doing on it.
http://www.bossareaforum.com/Forum/view ... =14&t=1086
http://www.bossareaforum.com/Forum/view ... =14&t=1087

Needs:

• The burned PCB work mentioned in the thread above.

• All new electrolytic caps.

• New power tubes.

• New power tube sockets (pins are really loose).

• New front-panel switches.

• New PCB mount jacks.

• Better/higher power resistors where they have drifted or burned.

• Plus a bunch of other general maintenance.