The new Jazz Series amps are essentially handwired blackface era recreations that have been modified specifically for the Jazz guitarists. As you may know, the tones that Jazz guitarists use are considerably different than those used by Rock and Country genres. The Vintage Sound Jazz series amps use the same top-notch components and construction as the rest of the Vintage Sound lineup, but they are specifically voiced for the discriminating Jazz musician.

The Vintage Sound Jazz20 is a custom 1x12 combo amplifier that caters specifically to the Jazz guitarist. It's essentially an all hand-wired, all USA made, super-modified Fender Princeton Reverb with the tremolo removed and custom voiced for Jazz. It's based on the "blackface" Fender Princeton Reverb (AA1164) used from 1964-1967, but with several major and significant upgrades (read more below).

With it's beefier output transformer, the Jazz20 has a considerable amount of warm, clean headroom, and noticeably more than a typical blackface Princeton Reverb. 

Upgrades!

1) The most obvious difference is the 12" speaker upgrade. The Princeton Reverb came with a 10" stock speaker, and many people modded them to replace the 10" baffle with a 12" so they could get a standard sized speaker in there. (more on the speaker we chose below)

2) Custom tonestack voicing. Rick Hayes at Vintage Sound has worked for many years with jazz guitarists all over the country refining thevoicing for his Jazz seriesamps. 

3) The reverb circuit is vastly upgraded. The stock reverb on a Princeton was a small 9" pan spring reverb. The Jazz20 uses a large 17" spring reverb pan that's the same size as the one used in the Twin Reverb! The reverb circuit also includes a very nifty reverb dwell control for varying the decay time giving you more control over the reverb effect. 

4) A "MIDDLE" tone control has been added that Princeton Reverb amps didn't have. This addition does nothing to hurt the integrity of the circuit or tone. The original Fender circuit actually had a "fixed mid" that was set permanently at 6.8k. Vintage Sound removed this resistor from the circuit and replaced it with a much more versatile 10k pot. You now have the ability to adjust this frequency range without compromising the original tone. If you want it to sound precisely like a blackface Princeton Reverb, just turn the port to around one o'clock on the dial and you're there. You want to scoop the mids a touch, pull back. Warm the tone a bit, turn up. 

5) The addition of a Standby Switch. The original Princeton Reverb didn't have one. This one does.

6) The output transformer has been upgraded and beefed up to give you 20 watts (instead of 12 in a stock Princeton Reverb) so it has a good bit more clean headroom on tap than a vintage PR. This also allows you to change out the power tubes to 6L6's for a different tone and response. Overall, we recommend staying with 6V6 tubes, but the 6L6 tubes will deliver slightly more bass, but will be a bit more stiff in response. Stiffness isn't a bad thing if that's what you are going after, but the majority of people will prefer the slightly softer response of the 6V6 tubes. Naturally, your mileage may vary.

7) External Bias Points have been added so as to more easily bias the amp when you swap out tubes.

8) Removal of the tremolo circuit. Since tremolo is rarely used in Jazz, this was omitted from the signal path. 

9) Addition of an overall Presence control. What? Even more control of you tone? That's right!

10) The new MV version 2019 has a modified „Trainwreck“ Post Phase Inverter Master Volume WITHOUT any tone loss!!!

So, as you can see, the Jazz 20 has manyupgrades overthe original Princeton Reverb circuit. As well, all Vintage Sound amps are point-to-point hand-wired using top quality filter caps and electrolytics, carbon comp resistors, Orange Drop tone caps, solid core push back wire, and custom transformers that are hand wound in the USA.