I really struggled through a lot of shitty reverb units over the past 4 years. Two Fender '63 Reverb reissues, a couple of vintage Premier tanks, a custom unit built by a local amp builder. Two problems always seemed to surface: radio frequency interference and too much "ice pick" treble in the tone. My conclusion: there is a lot of variability in tube reverbs, and getting a good one is a real crap shoot.

About 5 months ago, I was searching for a solution, and the Guyatone 3000 reverb was the object of my on-going hunt. But, while crusing eBay, I found a Weber kit reverb, and I took a flyer and bought it. It was my good fortune to get it for the less than the price of the kit itself: Weber sells these for about $415, add $25 for the aged tweed I got. I got it for about $350, built.

Although a little pricier than a Fender reissue, with the Weber, you get something much closer to the actual Fender original. The kit allows you to build a hand-wired 6G15-type reverb unit. I can't comment on the difficulty of building one, but I am sure anyone with basic electronics and soldering skills can do one of these in a weekend.

The quality of the unit seems very high; anyone who knows Weber products can vouch that Ted Weber is meticulous in building vintage-type speakers and gear with true dedication to quality and authenticity.

The Weber unit has the depth of reverb response that one might expect in a vintage Fender unit. While it is still trebly, it is not nearly so much as my reissue units were, and has none of the radio frequency issues, unless one attaches a pedal - the pedal controls seem to act as an antenna. I have finally found the lush reverb sound I had been seeking.

The quality of the box, the hardware, and the chicken-knob controls are all first-rate. The finished kit looks great. If you are looking for really good vintage reverb, you can't go wrong with the Weber 5G15 kit. It is like having a vintage unit, at half the cost!

Gavin

Stigger, no they are not shit. they are great! some people have some issues with 'em, the same goes for any kind of tank. some tanks benefit from tube or pan upgrade, some from the tone-cap upgrade. but in any case, don 't forget that most of the 'reverb tank-talk' is about one tank to another, and not about 'tanks' in general. the differences between tanks are minor if you compare it to a digital reverb unit, or onboard reverb of an amp. So your new toy might be considered less than a proffesionally restored original '64 unit with NOS tubes and tolex glued on with authentic leo fender boogies, yeah. but it is still THE surf reverb as it is stock, uncomparable with anything else, and you'll be happy with it straight from the box, trust me. Maybe, a big maybe, you might want to make some uprades after a year or so, tubes mainly and perhaps the cab thing, or a different tray. but it's all about the last mile of the marathon, not about the marathon itself.

I'll post my comments on gav's review in another post.
WR

Rules to live by #314:
"When in Italy, if the menu says something's grilled, don't assume it is."

https://www.facebook.com/The-Malbehavers-286429584796173/

Gav,

great review! I have a weber kit reverb, built it myself, and I am very happy with it. but, i have to make some comments. are you sure that your kit is actually entirelly built from kit parts? it seems like almost NOBODY uses all the kit parts... I think you should check, and mainly because of what I 'll say next. you simply might not be reviewing a 'true' weber kit.

now, I might seem to be putting down the weber kit i what follows, be sure i 'm not trying to, my only point is that if you get the kit, do some part substitutions. if you order the kit withhou anticipating those, you'll be very disappointed. apart form that, I stll think the weber kit is indeed the best buy on the market, IF you can put one together (or are a lucky bastard like you! )

anyway, here it goes....

• weber is considered one of the best speaker builders, true, and he considered to make (i.e., order) very good (not the best) transformers. his chassis are also fine, as are the boards.

• the kits, however, are popular mainly because they are very cheap in comparison to other kit manufactorers. this is because Weber's philosophy is to look for 'cheap but good' parts, no 'brands' - but he claims they are good stuff.

• as far as sound quality goes, these are things to look out for:
  metal resistors instead of the carbon comp of early days. AND modern caps instead of orange drops or something like that. Weber claims they sound as good, many peple n his forum disagrree - I left the kit parts in, sounds okay to me, i'm not a specialist anway, and i wanted metal resistors anyway (more quiet and safer than). I 'm btw only rehashing stuff from the weber forum here, i 'm not into it enough to get into resistor and cap stuff, just for completeness sake.

• that's different with the tubes. Weber standard sends brandless chino tubes, claims they are good and guesses (rightfully so) that the average kit builder wants to put in his own fave bulb anyway. BUT, the tubes that were sent with my unit were simply not good. they didn't hum or his, but they sounded very muffled, changing the tubes made the reverb sound A LOT better.

as for the build quality - weber kits are notorious for including some very crappy parts,as far as build quality goes, talking about the inputs, the pots, switches, pilot light, and, to a lesser degree, tube sockets. Having bought the bare kit (not an assambled one) I can testify that some of these parts are indeed absolute crap. the inputs and tube sockets seem fine to me, though they might wear faster than quality parts. (I must say, I've owned two post 1990 Fender amps, and both had the inputs crap out on me). however, the pilot light, the mains switch and the pots are crap beyond belief. up to the point where I personally don't feel safe using them, I don't want parts getting loose in there with hunderds of volts going around.

just my two and half cent. and to repeat, this is NOT putting te Weber kit down, it's just saying, be prepared to invest another $50 or so (incl. tubes) to make it a great unit.

WR

PS, I can't comment on the cab, I ordered the kit without a cab, and built my own. here's some pics of the guts, for who wants to build one, so you know what your getting into.

Rules to live by #314:
"When in Italy, if the menu says something's grilled, don't assume it is."

https://www.facebook.com/The-Malbehavers-286429584796173/

Yeah it could go in either category.

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Hey guys, thanks for the reviews.
For some time I have been contemplating getting a kit, so I can have 2 reverb units and thus can kick_the_reverb without the everpresent fear of getting stranded reverbless at mid gig.

In the past, I helped my former band members order kits - first one was STF electronics - I think they stopped selling it and now collaborate with Weber. I wasn't real impressed with that kit, mostly cheapo components, similar to what Wannes described.
Then I tried doing some research and pieced togther a kit for the guy that replaced me in the former band, I had him order components from different suppliers, I think a hoffman board, NOS tubes, etc.
You know what? in the end my reissue tank still sounded better.
It could be that the the trays of the later kits sounded bad (my reverb tank is from the late 1990's), or it could be the way they mounted them (screwed down).

Anyway, I think it's good to know that the Weber kit is a good option, IF you are aware of all the points Wannes mentioned...I know it made me rethink the whole thing.

Thanks,
Ran

The Scimitars

I figured Id bring this thread back up to the top..

I was just at ted weber's site and I noticed that they now have an a la carte system, where you can leave out parts of the kit(s). You can now not only ditch the cab (build one yourself) but also tubes (you're gonna switch those anyway) and, if you want to sub, switches, pots, caps and resistors.

that's making it a far more inetrsting deal. To top it, Weber is offering a 10% discount on all orders till Xmas. If you're considering building a kit, now's the time!

WR

Rules to live by #314:
"When in Italy, if the menu says something's grilled, don't assume it is."

https://www.facebook.com/The-Malbehavers-286429584796173/

Love the Fury Logo man, too friggin cool.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

Jeff(bigtikidude)

Excellent job!

-Kyle

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Looks great Don! the Logo is awesome!!!

Rules to live by #314:
"When in Italy, if the menu says something's grilled, don't assume it is."

https://www.facebook.com/The-Malbehavers-286429584796173/

has anyone attempted the ReVibe?

i'm so interested in that, except, it looks a little complicated for a mere pedal tinkerer such as i.