The Clark also runs at a lower voltage similar to the original Fender circuit at 1950's USA voltage levels: with a Mullard 5AR4 it hits about 375 volts on the power tube plate when biased at 42 milliamps. Inside it is built like a tank! It really has superb quality construction and very high end parts throughout. But the Fender remains with cheaper parts on the board. I got the Fender to sound very good, but it took speaker and tube swaps. I then bought a Clark bandmaster (Tyger). I returned it to stock speakers and tubes. What a pain! After the second repair I sold it. Leave the top speaker as the original Jensen OR replace with a smaller depth weber 10" Or an Eminence legend.I have since moved on from the Fender reissue as mine blew two caps! I returned it to the original authorised seller for repair under warranty each time. Clarks work is impeccable and I know I pissed him off when I told him I didn't like his Bassman compared to the originals for this potentiometer reason, although I did complement him on his superb work Chicago Blues box got this right as well with the Buddy Guy Amp. No No go on that the correct pots are vital. Peaple argue well just turn it up to make up the difference it is all the same it is just a potentiometer. I have since changed pots in my Bandmaster clone and Victoria 80412 to the 50,s style pots FENDER KNOWS THIS AND THEY GET THIS RIGHT ON THEIR RE-ISSUES. this is potentiometer differences I just wish I knew this before selling my old Victoria 45410 which I thought had this great soft not so loud tone. A 50s Bassman in volume 4 is really pretty LOUD. In the 50s the pots audio taper was different so that the volume came up very quickly. This just incorrect, What I was noticing was the potentiometers. I previously quoted that I thought my Victoria 45410 was underpowered. I also own two Clark amps and one Victoria and one Tungsten amp in addition to many old Fenders. That is the honest assessment from this 64 year old weekend warrior guitar player who has played 2 + nights a week with old Fender amps since the 1960's. It has the sound of the old Fender tweed amps. The amp's build quality was very good as well. It may not have the most popular flavor of the month reissue "vintage correct tone caps", but that new Mercury Magnetics output transformer has everything going on that the old Triad transformers had. The distortion was very smooth when cranked. Well I must say, it sounded like we had one of my old 1950's Fender amps. We then put some (VERY well broken in) Weber 10A125-O speakers. It sounded pretty good with stock RI Jensen (F) speakers.to my surprise. We put in a NOS JAN Philips 5U4 rectifier with NOS Raytheon long black plate 12AX7's across the board. We retubed it with original 1950's NOS Tung Sol 5881 tubes and removed the tube cage. He payed about $2500, no sales tax and I understand shipping was about $30. I played a new Bandmaster last weekend that my friend ordered online. A new Victoria would probably cost as much (or more?) than the new Fender. While the quoted statement statement is technically correct, it would be more equitable to compare new prices to new prices, and used to used. To be fair, if you waited until there are some used '57 reissue Fender Bandmasters on ebay, they would probably sell for about the same as the used Victoria.
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