I own a 1962 Vibrolux “Brownie” amp that was a Christmas gift to me from my dad, Christmas 1967. My first Amp. It is all original except that I removed and stored the original Oxford speaker and recently replaced it with a 2007 Jensen P12N. It also needed to be recapped to bring it back since the E-Caps were dying off, and a grounded power cable, so there’s that. The thing absolutely sings! It, is my #1 amp If I don’t use my 1964 original BF Deluxe Reverb, or 1966 BF Super Reverb, or one of my two 1960’s Tweed 5E3 Deluxe’s or my Tweed 1962 Champ or my 1968 SF Drip Edge Champ. All my amps are original and I am blessed to possess and perform with some of the greatest amps from one of the greatest amp & guitar designer/builders that ever lived; Leo Fender. I have many other makes and brands to compare with, all of which have great and differing useful sounds and tones. Forever Thank you for my Fenders, Uncle Leo!

If you look at the original schematics, you will see that the brown Vibrolux only had a listed plate voltage of 365! That’s extremely low for a 6L6GC amp. That’s like the voltage in a tweed Deluxe. By comparison most Deluxe Reverbs have a plate voltage of 415-425. That’s why the DR sounded louder. I had one of the brown Vibrolux’s and it sounded anemic to me probably because of the mentioned low plate voltage. 6L6GC’s need to be up in the 435-450 volt range to sound good.

Played one of these last weekend at studio101nola.com… MAN, what a sweet amp! back-to-backed it with my SF Deluxe Reverb, which is also there, and the Vibro just ran RINGS around the DR! The DR did clean chime better, but the Vibro had the sweetest brown tone I have ever heard. One thing did perplex us- by all accounts, the Vibro is a 30-watt amp, the DR 22 watts- but the DR was easily louder and had more head room. Both amps have a confusing history- the DR seems to have been “black faced-” the “Pull-Bright” function is disabled; the Vibro was apparently butchered by some misguided soul who wanted it to sound like a Twin (like I said, misguided) and then put back by a very well-respected amp tech in New Orleans. The only thing we could figure was the Vibro was de-tuned to be more brown, at the expense of power. We thought it was worth the trade-off. Wish I had my Ampeg Jet J12T with me, would have liked to A/B it, too. That amp has actually pissed me off- I though I was done with amp shopping. Now, I want a Vibrolux!