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Impossible.

The various eras sound so different that it's all down to personal preference. Even if you overly generalize Fender amps into eras, it's tough. If you skip the TV front and begin with the classic Tweed and skip over the Brown era and just compare those to the classic Blackface (and throw in Brown and Silverface amps), you're talking night and day amps. The preamp tone stacks are totally different, as are the phase inverters and the rest of the power sections. Early Marshall JTM amps were basically British versions of the Bassman - so how do you compare a Delxue Reverb and a Marshall!

Even within the common "eras", and with similar circuits, the amps are way different. When people thinkabout the classic AB763 (or whatever the exact naming scheme) BF circuits, they think of Twin Reverbs, Pro Reverbs, Super Reverbs, Bandmasters, Vibroluxes, Tremoluxes, Deluxe Reverbs, Princeton Reverbs, etc. Those amps share some similar circuit elements, but they sound vastly different. I can't remember, but of all those big BF amps, only the Twin Reverb had a SS rectifier. I'm pretty sure the Pro, Super and Deluxe all had tube rectifiers. That makes their power sections very different, particularly at high volume. Add in different power transormers and speaker combinations, and it's more different. Heck, some of them had different power tubes too. Both were 1x12" combos, but the Pro Reverb had 40 watts from a pair of 6L6 tubes while Deluxe Reverb had 22 watts from a pair of 6V6. And the Pro wasn't really half a Twin (which had four 6L6 and 2x12"), since it didn't have the SS rectifier, etc., etc., etc...

That's not even talking about the preamp circuits. Some BF Fenders didn't have a Mid control, so you could never turn the Mids all the way down (IIRC, instead of a pot, there was a set resistor that equated to something like 6 or 7 on a normal Mid pot).


All that stuff it the previous two paragraphs pertains to a few amps in the mid '60s BF era. If you like warmer amps with spongier feels, then the Tweed and Brown era were even more different. How does one decide?

Basically, for me, it comes down to what you like. For the iconic, beautiful clean tone, it's personal preference whether you think the 4x12" Super Reverb is better, worse or equal to a 2x12" Twin Reverb. They sound very, very different, so how do you pick?


Best is tough, but IMO, the most distinctive, iconic and/or legendary amps would have to be the narrow panel Bassman and the BF Twin Reverb. That Bassman defines classic country tones and early rock. It's big and fat with a little hair on the edges. You need to roll your guitar volume down to really make it clean up. (Some people like Neil Young might point to the Tweed Deluxe, but IMO, those virtually never clean up at any useful volume). For the ultimate big clean sound in a small package, nothing touches a Twin Reverb. With that amp and your pedals, the sky is the limit. Then again, don't expect it to ever get dirty on it's own - unless you don't value your hearing.