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Are Hand Wired Amps Really Better?

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[Applause] [Music]

[Music]

for instance

for instance um got two amps that look identical

identical

really almost so this is a

65 reissue princeton reverb

this is kind of your standard reissue

black face fender and then this is a 1964

1964

custom hand wired princeton so the

difference between the two

is actually way more than it looks like

but even though they share the same

controls the circuit is slightly

different the components are different

and i think you'll see that they react

quite a bit different as well

to how you play how the knobs work

everything else

so price is quite a bit different too so

i guess you have to decide on that

so i guess the main thing we're testing

out today is hand wired versus non-hand

wired right

yeah yeah this is fender's

hand-wired version of this amplifier the

speakers are different um but beyond

that i mean they are

very much for instance and both of them

share the same tube complement

you know same power same control layout

everything so

for someone who doesn't know about hand

wired versus non-handwired what what's

the difference

mainly like what are you getting in a

non-hand wired amp

and what are you getting in a hand-wired

amp well

properly non-hand wired amp is

perfectly fine there's nothing wrong

with them they i mean it's

you design a circuit and if you can lay

it out on a pc board

on some kind of circuit board you can

replicate that over and over and over

without any questions right

the beauty of handward stuff it's easy

to work on it's hard to break

um it looks super cool but tonally i

don't know that you're gonna get any

like huge

wind just because something's hand wired

these two particular amps

do sound quite a bit different but i

think there's more a foot

than just the hand wired aspect of it uh

we won't be able to see the circuit

without pulling the chassis out which we

that's beautiful wow

i do love looking hand wired amps it's

so cool

i mean even if there was no difference

other than that just for the sheer fact

of just craftsmanship that's impressive

okay so i have to interrupt the video

here because

something cool happened yesterday when

we were at righteous guitars

shooting this video i posted a story on

my instagram showing the guts

of the two amps and i got a reply from a

subscriber here on the channel robert

pierce now

robert has been subscribed to this

channel for a really long time he's a

good friend

of the channel and he actually works at

fender in california

building amps and he uh he actually built

built

that amp he made the amp he wired the

amp that we're using in this video i

thought that was

super cool so i'll have his instagram

link down below you guys can go uh give

him a shout out and

you're about to hear his handiwork all

all right so what's going on here well

first off

i'm blown away that to me this is

beautiful for a guitar

geek that's gorgeous job they did wiring

that up

this is great too you know but what

you're seeing here is if you look at the

actual components right

you can see this like this cap it's

directly wired to a turret

that's joining it to its next component

so each of these are joined together

by a hard wired solder point right

every wire is soldered directly to the

next piece

all the potentiometers right here let's

say you drop your amp right and then you

bang one of your pots this isn't

attached to any kind of circuit board to break

break

or damage as opposed to

let's say you drop this or bang into it

these potentiometers are wired directly

this board you may damage that board

which means that needs to be replaced as

opposed to just going to your local shop

and grabbing the part and putting it in there

there

you'll notice here this is still a clean

design but it's traced out on the back

so there's a

it's more of a board so it'll look kind

of more like this

and they're joining things together with

these clips instead of actually hand

soldering it they just have a little

little guy that they can dip in a solder bath

bath

and then come back through and plug them

in this is not a bad looking

amplifier and in fact this is a really

good amp but they do share a lot of similarities

similarities

they're clearly not the same type of

components though these caps

yeah they're very similar but if you

start looking at the rest of it

where they've kind of just used more you

know out of the box type of stuff

over there they clearly spent some money

you know using

branded nicer versions of a lot of those parts

parts

so overall that's just a much cleaner

look to me i mean look at this

like is that functional yeah it's functional

functional

the one over here though while it's the

same thing look how tight and clean it is

that's a stupid detail but it makes a

difference there was more attention paid

to that amp at the final assembly than

there was to this amplifier

do you have a different speaker there's

an el nico speaker in the hand wire and

there's a ceramic

you know so we will need to we'll need

to run them through the same speaker

don't tell me what you thought because i

don't want any

confirmation bias okay good so what i'll

do we'll shoot them out

in there yes and then you and i will get

together and compare notes and see if we

thought the same things

is that great sounds perfect all right

so so i should point out

that uh we did just pull the chassis out

of both of these amps

don't do that at home amplifiers and amp

circuits are

crazy dangerous the capacitors inside

both of those amps can hold enough

charge to

really really do some damage so uh you

know i would not

recommend cracking your amp open at home

and taking a look at it

just uh use your imagination or watch

watch this video again if you want to

know more about it so we're putting

these back in

the uh the cabinets we just noticed that

this is the hand wired one

that's the non-hand wired they're the

same part number

same transformers which is really cool yeah

yeah

so bold move right we'll see uh we'll

see what what impact that has and the

same tubes

same tubes yeah so same tubes same

transformers it really does come down to

the circuit wiring and the speakers

and the cabinets but we're gonna we're

gonna play them through both speakers

so we can compare them direct head to

head so we're trying to isolate

just this we got going on here

speakers

okay so we're gonna shoot these two out

i'm playing my strat which conveniently

was already here because i have the guys

that right just plick it for me uh and

we're gonna start with

the non-hand wired normal off the shelf princeton

princeton

we're gonna start with both amp on five

so this is volume five treble five

base five and we're gonna compare the

two flat line

then we'll get into swapping speakers

and seeing how close we can get them if

at all i think there's going to be quite

a bit of difference here especially in

the reverb and the tremolo sounds but

[Music] so

so [Music]

[Music] oh

[Music] [Laughter]

[Laughter] [Music]

[Music] so

so [Music]

[Music]

okay so we kind of compared the two

roughly based on the same

control settings and now i'm going to

dial in a sound that i really like

on the hand wired one and see if i can

match it with the non-hand wired one

and then once we're done with that i'm

going to go and play them through the

same speaker so right now i've got a

sound pulled up

that i like this is probably how i would

run this amp [Music]

[Music] normally

normally

sounds good edge of breakup so if you

dig in it'll it'll

break up

so now let's see if i can get

yes [Music]

[Music]

that's a lot more mid-scooped to me the

non-hand wired version

this has a nice mid-range presence that

i'm really digging overall

to me this one sounds far superior

in the room but that very well could be

because of the speaker

so next what we're going to do is take this

this

speaker cable that ben just made and

we're gonna patch

that amp into that cabinet [Music]

[Music] hmm

okay so it's clear to me

it's clear that the hand wired through

its own cabin speaker sounds best

i think by far and away i 100 agree this amp

amp

sounds quite a bit better than that amp

in every respect the re-rip sounds

better the tremolo sounds better it

breaks up better

the mid-range content is that you could

gig with this amp in a small gig

that would be tough this would be tough

um the same sounds good

i think so too but it's got a mid-scoop

thing and it's too bright

it's very harsh in the top end yeah it's

really bright it's really bright

especially with a strap it's

it's too cool that's right like we

talked talk about like in a fan

environment because of the mid-range

content of that

you'll be able to hear it through the

mix that's going to go away

to me you're just going to get lost

right yeah but

that amp with that speaker and cabinet

you can prove it

big improvement big improvement a lot of

the mid-range came back

tamed a lot of the high end you got a

little bit more of that low end punch

that this amp naturally has

i don't think it was as good as the hand

wire but it was much closer

i felt like it's still pretty bright but it

regained some of the it wasn't scooped

anymore so still

i still thought it was brighter than

this amp overall yeah and it wasn't as

mid-range as that

but man if you have a princeton and you

want a 65 you want to improve it like

instantly go buy it on eco 10 and put it

in there yeah boom that's like that's a

huge improvement

massive improvement and what's the price

difference between these two

thirteen hundred dollars that's thirteen

you can buy two of those for the price

of one of these

yeah that's a substantial part now granted

granted

usa made hand wired in corona california

those are made over right across an

ensenada yeah

um ceramic speaker el nico speaker

circuit board your handwrap i've already said

said

but yeah it's a substantial amount more

money since or not well i think it

depends on what type of gigs you're

doing if you're just going down once a

week to your local

bar why wouldn't you yeah why wouldn't

you use that if you're traveling though

and it's going in and out of trailers

it's going in and out of cases

it's getting moved around by brodies and stagehands

stagehands

that one all day every day because it's

worth the extra focus

that is worth the extra money because

it's easily serviceable

it's it's less likely to have any kind

of catastrophic failure

when the amp is dropped or kicked around

not if well so for example we went to

the speaker

swap out and soldered that real quick

thing together real fast like that

that's how fast you could replace a

potentiometer in this amp right

it's not going to go like that with this

amp right so yeah you're absolutely

right on the road serviceability that's

even just in general a hobbyist could

service this app yep

does hand wire make a difference kind of

i mean i saw my audio though like less

on the sonic side right

yeah it's more about reliability and uh

serviceability yeah yeah

and it looks cool if you ever take the

it looks really cool uh you know what

here is a very valid thing

if you wanted to make that amp your own right

right

this is a very easy ant for your

tinkerer to get in there and change

values of things and modify the crap out

of it

that is not so that that's actually a

super power point you could make this

amp scream you could make it do all

kinds of different stuff

and because of the way it's laid out

those parts i mean it's you can see it

right you can easily learn if you take

something like a champ like this simple

simple circuit

you can kind of figure out how

everything works and what you can change

to modify the amount of gain or how the

tone stack works put a marshall tone

stack in it so there is that side of it

if you're a

tweaker and you really want to make it

your own then there's no question that

right yeah can't see my face

so hand-wired versus non-hand wire it's

an interesting comparison

it's one that i've been wanting to do

for a really long time and i thought the

results were

actually a lot different than i thought

there would be but let me know what you think

think

down in the comments section below this

video which amp did you prefer and did

you think that there's a

1200 price difference between those two amplifiers

amplifiers

if you want to support the channel check

out the links in the description box

down below you can sign up for the green

room down there we now have two levels

of support

for the green room and you can check out

my video courses down below as well

i'll also have affiliate links to the

gear we used in these videos and

these two amps so if you want to check

them out down below you can get more

information on those those are affiliate

links so if you buy something through

that i earn a small commission

which really helps me out in making

these videos anyways that's gonna do it

for today's video

thanks for watching my name is rhett

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YouTube Transcript:
Are Hand Wired Amps Really Better?