![fender bandmaster tweed fender bandmaster tweed](http://www.ampaholics.org.uk/BAND%20MASTER.jpg)
I reckon the most defining "tweed" characteristic is the saggy drive sound produced by 5e3 deluxes. Ie the brown caps dont sound as nice as modern mallorys or orange spagues. I truly believe you'll thank me one day.I agree with this somewhat in principle, but sometimes old components sound better when replaced. I also own two Clark amps and one Victoria and one Tungsten amp in addition to many old Fenders.Hey if it's a non modified drip edge, just leave it stock. That is the honest assessment from this 64 year old weekend warrior guitar player who has played 2 + nights a week with old Fender amps since the 1960's. It has the sound of the old Fender tweed amps. The amp's build quality was very good as well. It may not have the most popular flavor of the month reissue "vintage correct tone caps", but that new Mercury Magnetics output transformer has everything going on that the old Triad transformers had. The distortion was very smooth when cranked. Well I must say, it sounded like we had one of my old 1950's Fender amps. We then put some (VERY well broken in) Weber 10A125-O speakers. It sounded pretty good with stock RI Jensen (F) speakers.to my surprise. We put in a NOS JAN Philips 5U4 rectifier with NOS Raytheon long black plate 12AX7's across the board. We retubed it with original 1950's NOS Tung Sol 5881 tubes and removed the tube cage. He payed about $2500, no sales tax and I understand shipping was about $30.
![fender bandmaster tweed fender bandmaster tweed](https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/s--c1Az12KO--/f_auto,t_supersize/v1561716321/nwmsqp2ym3azpjblekou.jpg)
I played a new Bandmaster last weekend that my friend ordered online. A new Victoria would probably cost as much (or more?) than the new Fender. While the quoted statement statement is technically correct, it would be more equitable to compare new prices to new prices, and used to used. To be fair, if you waited until there are some used '57 reissue Fender Bandmasters on ebay, they would probably sell for about the same as the used Victoria. When I'm done even though it will be a recover, I'll have less in it than a new Bandmaster and it will be the real deal in a very similar model amp.
![fender bandmaster tweed fender bandmaster tweed](https://reverb-res.cloudinary.com/image/upload/a_exif,c_limit,fl_progressive,h_620,q_85,w_620/v1388775774/d5eqmfzkuxaqvgyuslq8.jpg)
Now that I've got the chassis working I'm glad I went this route. I have the original cab off to be restored to it's original tweed glory, and bought a Mojotone 15 to 12 adapter ring as I plan to first try running a 12" in it.
![fender bandmaster tweed fender bandmaster tweed](https://guitarpoint.de/app/uploads/products/1956-fender-bandmaster-5e7-tweed/1956-Fender-Bandmaster-S00679-7-scaled-2048x1362.jpg)
Luckily the original OT and choke were good, though I shrink wrapped the tattered cloth leads on them for safety. I reused the brown cardboard cap tubes over new Atoms for the cap job. With a new Mercury Magnetics power transformers and recapping of the electrolytics it's playing and sounding great. Even though it had an old recover in black vinyl the baffle is original with nice original cloth. Luckily the Astron signal caps were all there, and other than the missing power tranformer the chassis was just about untouched but dirty and in need of some TLC. I got a recovered (black vinyl) cab, a changed speaker and the chassis wasn't working and missing the power transformer.
#FENDER BANDMASTER TWEED PRO#
I was considering a new Bandmaster but ran into a '59 tweed Pro "project amp" at the 3 Amigos guitar show recently.