Fender Bronco Amp?

[FuseG4]

Played a (late 60's?) Fender Silverface Bronco amp today. 1 12ax7 in the preamp, a 12ax7 trem driver, one 6v6, and one 5y3 rec. volume, treble, bass, speed and intensity knobs. Didn't see a standby switch. 2 inputs, I think i used the left one. Whichever that is.

Whooowee what a nice sound for a little 8" speaker! Clean, clean, clean up until about 9 or 10, then you can slam on it for just a lil dirt. It was a fantastic, shimmery clean for such a tiny amp. The tremolo was great. for what was supposed to be a "student" amp, this thing kicked ass!

So, this is the same thing as a SF vibrochamp? Looks like it but I'm no amp expert.

Anyone here own one of these?

Would it be hard to convert it into a head, or to rewire for a "speaker out"? i'm thinking something like this thing would make a friggin sweet-ass bedroom-noodling device but it sure would rule with a 12" speaker. Or should I just get a SF Deluxe at that point? The simplicity of the Bronco just spoke to me.

 

[Low_fidelity2100]

Re: Fender Bronco Amp?

Yes, its the same amp as a SF Vibrochamp, same circuit. No idea why they had two of the same model with two different names...Buy yeah, same amp different name.

Anyways, They're great amps...I've owned two Vibro champs, one stock and one that was stuck in a larger cab to accomidate a 10" weber speaker...The stock one was great, pretty much just like you described, I was running the original RCA tubes in both of them, an got a bit more dirt than your describing (started getting gritty around 6 or so), but over all same deal.
The one with the 10" speaker sorta kicked the living **** out of the stock one though. All the things ya like about the 8" version, just thicker fatter and a bit louder. Just beautiful.
Plus the VC/Bronco has my personal favorite trem circuit ever the Bias Vary tremolo...The trem actually shifts the bias of the output tube to create the tremolo effect, and it sounds simply beautiful. Can't get it to go super fast or hard like other trem designs, but what it lacks in speed, it makes up for in sheer amazing beauty. Seriously the trem is the only thing that made me hang onto mine for as long as I did.

They're great amps, disregarding price..when ya realize ya can snag em as cheap as you can, That just makes it an even better deal. Sometimes I still wish I had mine, they're great for recording...But ultimately I decided I have no use for several small amps, when I could use the money tied up in them to purchase stuff I can actually gig with...So I sold mine. But if you've got a few other amps for gigging, and can spare the cash, I'd highly recommend picking it up. Definitely sounds alot different from a Deluxe, or Princeton.

 

[FuseG4]

Re: Fender Bronco Amp?

Yeah maybe the one I played could use some more robust tubes and a lil work, maybe then a tad more gain woud issue forth.
So that's what bias tremolo sounds like... yeah it's totally different from reissue deluxe and twin reverbs and such.
I wonder how the ceriatone vibrochamp clone is? Having something like that in head form would really rule... maybe I should look into that?