Black Faced and Silver Faced Fender Amps

Great Vintage Amplifiers From Fender

One of the real marques in guitar amplifiers is of course the Fender. Leo Fender began to produce amps in the 1940's (around 1946) so they've been around along time.

Obviously the very early amps are very desirable and are highly sought after, but in the 60's along came a newer design, in fact very much a similar style Fender guitar amps are made today. These amps also included the new and latest effect – Reverb!

Fender produced amps like the Deluxe Reverb, Super Reverb and Twin Reverb, some models remaining unchanged for around 10 years or so, which is rather a strange concept by today's standards. These days many manufacturers change designs purely as a marketing ploy, not because there's any real improvement in sound. Anyway back to the plot. Part of the design or style of these amps was their 'black face' which just meant the control panel was a black. The picture up above this paragragh shows you what they looked like. These amps were made between 1963 and 1967 and have a black Tolex covering and were fitted with Jensen Speakers. 'Newer' amps can be recognised by the colour of the control panel which was changed to silver, hence the name 'silver faced'.

In 1965 or 1967 depending on who you believe, CBS bought out Fender and along with the buyout CBS introduced changes to the design of the electronics to improve stability and reduce distortion. Unfortunately these changes altered the sound that many musicians were used to and loved. Gone were the smooth highs and 'musical' distortion' of the old amps and consequently sales fell dramatically.

Fortunately these changes can be reversed so if you are looking for a vintage Fender and want the famous pre CBS sound, you can save yourself some money by finding a good silver faced amp which will be very much cheaper than an original black face and getting it modified back to the original design. Check out the article on buying a used guitar amp on this site as this will help you choose wisely. There are reliable service departments around who will carry out the changes for you.