Hello and welcome to this week's article!
Today we have another legacy review, of one of the most popular practice amps of the years in which I have started playing guitar (early/mid 90s): the Fender Princeton 112 plus!
The Princeton 112 was the Fender entry level solid state amp of the '90s (it has been produced from 1993 to 1997), and it was a 40w solid state guitar combo which featured the classic "Blackface" styling and 2 channels with separate eq, but the version that was most popular around young guitarists was the 65w version, called Princeton 112 Plus, which allowed the players to have enough volume also for small gigs with a live drumset.
The layout is quite simple: 2 channels with separate eq, effects loop, spring reverb and headphone out, while in the back the combo is "open back" and features a Fender 12 inches speaker.
The sound is not very tube-like, a bit because of the lack of technology in the early '90s, a bit because it didn't even try, it was boldly a solid state amp, but the timbre of the tone is actually very "Fenderish": the cleans are very bright, with a strong accent to the top end and very well defined, while the overdrive channel is designed to be able to achieve also heavy metal tones without the need of an external overdrive, it also features a "countour" control to scoop the mids.
The amp actually gives its best with the clean channel, which has a lot of headroom and a pleasant "Fender" vibe which still today is very usable, but the distorted one has unfortunately quite some noise and it's equally high oriented, ending up sounding a bit like a razor.
Does it still deserve today to be played?
Maybe if you find it in good conditions and for less than 100$, otherwise there are today a lot of good cheap alternatives.
Thumbs down!
Specs:
- 65 watt
- 2 channels with separate eq
- 1x12" Fender speaker
- Open back
- FX Loop
- Headphone out
- Size: 48 x 43 x 23 cm
- Weight: 8kg
- Spring reverb
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Thank you this was very helpful. Ive recently began to collect amps and learn about them at yhe same time. All my questions were abseered with this blog. Thumbs up.
ReplyDeleteyou're welcome :)
DeleteJust scored a 112 from my nighbor, I like my Mustang much better.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clear and concise review- well done. Sounds good, looks better having the silver grill!
ReplyDelete