I recently purchased a "blemished" customer-returned Fender '63 Tube Reverb Unit. I got a great deal: $500 for a basically new unit that's $700 brand new. As far as "blemishes" go, there is one corner where the vinyl covering is scuffed and slightly cracked but it's barely noticeable. The foot switch didn't come with it, but I wouldn't have used it any way. Also, I took the bevel off and it seems that the unit is missing the foam pad that is supposed to protect the springs when moving the unit. I don't think this matters and another owner of this unit says he actually ripped the foam pad out of his because he felt the springs really aren't in any real danger from moving the thing around. Anyway, the unit sounds great. If you want real reverb and your amp doesn't have a tank, this is really the only option out there. Going into buying this unit, I knew it is not made for use with high-gain guitar tones, which is what I use. I had been using the Boss FRV-1 '63 Fender Reverb Pedal for years with a vintage Mesa Boogie combo and Gibson SGs to add a little reverb into the mix. The Boss FRV-1 '63 Fender Reverb Pedal is a nice pedal but still has a digital sound to it. That's why I decided to take a chance on the real '63 Fender reverb tank when I saw the "blemished" unit zZounds had. Here's what I discovered: The unit does indeed work well with a high-gain tone. However, I use just a touch of reverb (dwell and mix set to 3; tone set to 0). Even though I don't use surf levels of… read more reverb, compared to the digital sound that muddied up my tone with the Boss FRV-1 '63 Fender Reverb Pedal, the real tank sound is a night-and-day difference. Of course, if you really want to hear the beauty of the tank, play some surf with a clean tone and push the dwell and mix. What I don't like about the unit is, of course, the $700 price tag for a new one, especially because the construction of the unit is rather cheap: shoddy wooded frame, cheap, thin metal housings. Anyone who owns a Mesa, for instance, knows those things are built like tanks. And for $700, Fender could have put a little more quality into it. Despite this, the tube-driven tone is indeed amazing and I highly recommend the sound this thing makes. Another thing: On message boards most owners of this unit say they immediately replace the 6V6 driver tube with a 6K6 tube on purchase or replace all tubes with NOS tubes to get a more vintage sound. I'm not sure how much that would affect anything, but it sucks that Fender makes such an expensive product that many owners feel compelled to mod on purchase. I think it sounds great for what I do and don't plan to mod it; however, I don't play surf either.

Musical Background:
Guitar, drums

Musical Style:
rock read less