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--- In , John McCorvey
<eddiekatcher@y...> wrote:
> I've had experience with both the Vibro King and the
> Dual Professional. And while they do have a "3-knob"
> reverb built on the front end, neither of them were
> any match for any of my stand alone reverbs....I spent
> a fair amount of time mulling through the enclosed
> schematics that came witht the Dual Professional and I
> could never figure how Fender could call that circuit
> a true reverb tank circuit. They both sounded pretty
> good until you plugged in the real thing and
> bang.....real reverb!!!!!I'll say one thing for that
> Dual Professional Amp, It was the loudest Fender amp
> I've ever had, and I have some really hot/tweaked
> Dual Showman Reverb heads....I put the DP chassis in a
> Showman head type cab and used it to power a Dual
> Showman bottom with 2 EV-15L's. That was one awesome
> combination. However, the Dual Pro Amp was somewhat
> sterile and didn't push back and sing the way most
> great Fender amps do when they are really
> cooking....But it was LOUD, and it was CLEAN!.....The
> reverb though, just didn't quite cut it.....Eddie K
Hmmm, well, I must say that my own experience with my Dual
Professional is very different from Eddie's. I bought mine some
eight or nine months ago (used on eBay - it's a '96) and it's been
my primary gigging and recording amp since then. I think the
speakers and tubes are such a big component of the sound of any
amps, and maybe this is why I like it so much while Eddie didn't
care for it much. The stock Celestion Vintage 30s in that amp broke
up very easilly and when you turned the amp up past 7, it started
sounding like Jimmy Page. I replaced the Celestions with Weber's
copies of JBL D120Fs, together with the aluminum dust cap. Since
then the amp has been sounding incredible, as good as any Fender amp
I've ever played. It is a bit cleaner than a Showman, but since
when is this a problem for surf music?
As far as the reverb, my main reverb unit for the last ten years has
been a blonde reissue with the cap mod and NOS tubes. I connected
it to the Dual Pro and then I switched between the onboard reverb
and the reverb box - I could tell no difference. My own impression
has been that Fender did a fantastic job with the onboard reverb
unit for the Dual Pro (though it uses different tubes - a 6V6 and a
two 12AX7s, rather than 6K6, 12AT7 and 12AX7), and I've played
several gigs with that amp using the onboard reverb with very
satisfying results. I also recorded with it as my primary amp two
weeks ago with equally satisfying results. I wonder if the tubes
used make a big difference for the reverb? (I swapped mine out with
the JJ tubes, which I highly recommend.) Also, it is possible there
is a fair amount of variation between the Dual Pro's reverb units
and I just lucked out.
Ivan
