Fender Tone Master Deluxe Reverb Blonde

The classic Deluxe Reverb sound and feel in a 100-watt digital amp that weighs half as much, with the modern conveniences (XLR out, IR cab sims, power scaling) you'd want on a gig.

We're tube geeks here at The Music Emporium, no question - so when a new digital amp claiming to equal the tone and feel of a real tube amp comes along, we'll admit we're skeptical (okay, we're tone snobs about it). In all seriousness, we're also open-minded which is good, because we'd have missed the splender of the Tone Master series.

A digital take on a Fender classic, the Tone Master Deluxe Reverb Blonde uses serious processing power to do one thing well: faithfully recreate the circuit and 22-watt output of the original Deluxe Reverb tube amp. A 100-watt digital power section handles the heavy lifting, giving you the headroom and dynamic feel of the real thing, while a resonant pine cabinet and a Celestion NEO Creamback speaker bring a little extra rock 'n' roll character to the voicing. Plug in, and what comes out sounds and responds remarkably close to the all-tube Deluxe Reverb that's defined that 22-watt American sound for decades.

Why We Love This

A few things have been tuned for modern players. The virtual bright cap on the Vibrato channel has been removed, which gives you more usable territory when stacking overdrive or distortion pedals in front. The reverb control now offers finer adjustment at lower settings - useful if you live in the world of subtle spring rather than full-on surf. And maybe most notably for anyone who's hauled a real Deluxe up a flight of stairs: the Tone Master weighs about half what the tube version does.

The blonde vinyl covering nods to early-'60s Fender amps without trying too hard, and the front panel is identical to the tube version, including Fender's industry-standard reverb and tremolo. Around back, you get the kind of modern conveniences that make this amp work for stage and studio alike: an output power selector with full power and five attenuated settings, a balanced XLR line out with cabinet IRs (captured with a Shure SM57 and Sennheiser MD421), a mute switch for silent stage or direct recording, and a USB port for firmware updates.