Does 50 Years Make A Difference? Comparing A Vintage With A Modern Guitar Amp

Every day we’re presented with a choice – whether to use or buy a vintage piece of gear versus it’s modern equivalent or clone. Most of the time there’s a difference between them, although to many it may be small enough not to matter. In other cases it’s so blatant as to make the modern piece a totally different experience.

We see this with microphones, mic preamps, EQs, effects (almost any hardware audio gear for that matter), and definitely guitar amps. In this video we hear the differences between a brand new Fender Deluxe Reverb amplifier and its 1967 vintage predecessor.

Keep in the mind that the amps are set up exactly the same. You’re going to hear a difference, but then you ask yourself, “Is it enough to pay more than double the price of a new amp?”

As in all cases of new versus vintage, a big part is the maintenance costs involved with keeping a decades-old piece working (can you even get the parts?), but then again, a vintage piece usually keeps increasing in value, while the new one usually decreases right away (and sometimes by a lot).

That said, this video by Rhett Shull is worth taking a look and listen to, even if you’re not a guitar player (you might be thinking of buying one for your studio).