1968 Princeton ‘Silverface’ Reverb Tube Amp Teardown and Repair

QRPHB reprised an old story of the teardown and repair of a vintage Princeton Reverb amp. The blog includes a list of faults discovered during “examination and testing” and then walks through what was done per the repairs. Some of the close-up shots of components and parts are fantastic. And I’m sure it sounds fantastic now as well!

This somewhat rare 1968 silver face Princeton Reverb had aluminum trim surrounding the grill cloth. We verified its age by the output transformer code, the trim and by serial number. This particular amp ran a GZ34 rectifier in the rectifier tube socket.

Boy, it sounded terrible! According to the owner, it sat in a closet for 15 years; but prior to that, some teenagers had borrowed it to “rock it hard”, but brought it back and stated that it did not sound very good. After replacing 4 tubes, the power supply capacitors, the bias capacitor, a B+ chain resistor, and the speaker — this amp sounded pleasant once again.

Read more.


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