The Fender Princeton

The return of a legend.

Background:

2007 sees the release of Fender's new flagship guitar amplifier: The Princeton Recording Amplifier. Originally released in the 70's as the Princeton Reverb this 15W amplifier became extremely popular with recording artists of the time because of it's small size and yet it had a big sound. The concept that a valve amplifier sounds better when overdriven means that loud volumes are an unfortunate by-product. Many companies try to get around this by cutting down on the overall output power of an amplifier, so that the desired overdrive can be achieved at reasonable volumes.

Fast-forward to today and modern digital technology means that this primitive way of producing guitar tones has largely been forgotten and indeed, many guitarists today are frightened to turn up their amps too loud for fear of them exploding!

But when it really comes down to it, you simply cannot beat an old-style valve amplifier, with the volume whacked up to ten and no-one around to complain! Unfortunately, there is always someone around. Even when you hire out a dingy unit in some old mill (for an arm and a leg every week as well) there inevitably someone around who will complain. Only in the realms of soundproofed recording studios and rehearsal rooms do these volumes really get reached for any period of time.

What this means, is that you have to settle for an emulation of the feeling you get when you're stood in front of an amp that's vibrating across the floor. You have to settle for a moped instead of the Harley Davidson so to speak.

Well, not any more.

There are amps out there with ridiculously low voltage outputs. It's not uncommon these days to see valve amplifiers with 5 or 6 watts of output power only. These amps are an affordable and convenient way of getting into the recording amp market. Only trouble with them is... they're a bit limp. The Fender Princeton, aims to allow the user to have 15 Watts of power, and to use all 15 of them. Without annoying anyone.

How?

Trans-impedance-attenuation. We're not sure exactly what that means, and in fairness, we think Fender made it up. But what we do know, is that it works! Essentially, the "TIA" acts as a volume control for the speaker output of the amplifier. This means that we can have an overdriven power amp section to the amplifier causing overdrive, whilst keeping the volume levels low.

Our thoughts: On receiving the amplifier it was setup and plugged in almost the moment it came out of the box. Due to last minute modifications at Fender's end, the reception of these amps was later than planned and with all of the hype on Fender's website we were eager to find out more.

On first impressions the amp is typical Fender, Black vinyl, Grey cloth, silver logo... you know the deal. Despite the high-tech nature of this amplifier Fender have managed to keep the layout and organisation of the Front panel simple and effective. Four "speed dials" on the top portion of the front panel control the master volume of the amp, Treble, Bass and Reverb. Below this main panel is a second panel which introduces us to the in-built Compressor and overdrive pedals. engage-able by either a small switch or the included footswitch the dials here are more akin to something you would find on a high-end stereo system. Surprisingly they still manage to fit the overall aesthetic and feel extremely chunky and robust. Then there's the big dial, similar to the jog wheel on a video remote, which controls the TIA.

The back panel again follows typical Fender conventions, FX loop, it's volume controls, extension cab and speaker outs are all there and typical of smaller Fender amps, there's just the one power switch, no Standby.

For the purposes of this review I tried the amp with a Fender Classic Player 60's Strat and a Gibson Les Paul Std.

With all the dials set to five (except for the power attenuator and reverb which were set to full and off respecitvely) the basic sound of the clean amp is extremely sweet and clear. The lack of a Middle control is a little frustrating to those used to having one but to be honest, you can get round it with a bit of fiddling with the treble and bass controls. Naturally, being a Blues Rock enthusiast, the next thing to hear is everything set to ten, using the guitar's volume control as a tonal control. Let me tell you... This amp is responsive. It's reaction to playing dynamics is surprisingly good considering it's power output which can often be a little flat in amps this size to my ears.

I then started to fiddle with the power attenuator and after a little while found a setting that sounded right. It must be said that from about the 50% level down to off lacks some definition but this will always be the case. At lower volumes there simply isn't enough air being moved by the speaker to create the clarity and precision of playing much louder.

Bringing the reverb up to level didn't bring any suprises, luscious Fender reverb came forward and if you ever tried an original Princeton you won't be disappointed by this one. At this point I swapped the Strat for the Gibson and things started to sound more to my taste, the amplifier completely changed it's character and went from what felt like a comparatively meek thing to something much bigger. Often when making such a swap of guitars the situation simply gets louder and more distorted, here... The Princeton almost anticipated the change and acted accordingly. The amps transition from clean to overdriven was much more blurred (the way I personally like it) and the definition was all there. It would appear that this amp will become a favorite of tone freaks simply because of it's responsiveness.

The in built compressor is a simple affair with only a sensitivity and level control. I don't often use compressors outside of the recording studio and because of this I used it here, it must be said that whilst playing chords gently on a clean setting the compressor works much more pleasantly than with an overdriven sound. The in built overdrive unit was much more useful in it's application and proved to be just as straight forward to use as the compressor. Fender distortions have never been to my taste, the distortion unit found in the Princeton left me wanting just a little bit more. For a clean sound, Fender have the market nailed. For a lovely reactive natural overdrive, Fender hold their own. Their distortions have always, to my ears, lacked the "oomph" of their major competitors.

Don't let this put you off. This amp aims to tick as many boxes as possible and please the "I want a box to do everything I want" crowd without alienating the tone purists and it has to be said that it manages to do both. For those with a penchant for silly amounts of gain and growl, stick a high-gain distortion unit in front of it. Fender make no claims to be the masters of high gain amplifier technology, and that's because they don't need to.

For the recording guitarist the Princeton is an amazing amplifier. For the tonal purist that's after classic valve overdrive and doesn't need bags of gain the amp is must have. For heavy metal guitarists, you probably already have a stomp pedal that gives you the levels of gain you already like, stick it in front of the Princeton and you have the perfect low volume recording setup.

This amp simply does something that nothing else on the market can do and because of that I can recommend it to anyone. Come visit us in store to try the Princeton or have it demonstrated for you!