Postby Don » Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:36 pm
Hey Danny,
Long time, no post....sorry about that. Not sure what I did wrong before but defeating earth ground with a 2-prong adapter has made my reverb dead quiet. On the reissue, Fender uses the same isolating method described in your link. I knew that before I started building the Weber kit but figured enough people have built the Weber that it would have been corrected by now if it was identified as a problem. Whether it is a problem or not could depend on how the amp is wired, too. Anyway, like you, I need to do a fairly large rebuild someday. Until then it's working and sounding great.
Right now I have a vintage '64 and a reissue (these belong to a friend), and my Weber kit all sitting in my guitar room for some experimentation and comparison. I'm having a blast playing with them but have been surprised how little they differ in sound. If I set all the controls to "6" on all of them, the vintage unit is brightest/sharpest of the bunch. Frankly, I liked the Weber best of all in that test for it's springy yet smoother sound. However, with some adjustments to the controls I can make them all sound identical to my ear, within the range of "just a little depth" to full-on drippy surf settings. I think there are too many variables with tubes, pans, tolerance creep, etc., to make any objective claims about one being better than the others. Anyway, the Weber being lower cost than the other options no longer feels like a compromise to me...it's right in there with the real deal.
Don