Found this cheap amp by fender to be a nice bedroom amp, afther a few mods. I did a shoot out between small 5 watt amps, and this was the best potential (and probably the cheapest).
The first issue to be corrected was the baffle and grill cloth (the original was pure crap and was flapping with vibration). So I had to take the baffle out, made a thin frame to sit on top of the baffle and raise the cloth a little, and replaced the "cheap couch" fabic with some brown diamond grill cloth left over I had arround. Nice look, and great tone improvement (by itself this was a tone mod!).
I realised that the speaker was really bad, but I didnt want to spend a lot of money on a new one, so I got a 6" modern Jensen very cheap, and that made quite a change. Same tone signature, with a bit more volume and smoother tone. I belive that an alnico would be best...but I'll leave it like that for now....still have to break in the speaker a little more.
Tubes where chinese crap, really, really bad. Replaced them with JJ's wich was an improvment, but NOS is defenatelly best. So I was lucky and got a nice NOS Brimar 12ax7 really cheap on ebay, and a nice NOS american 6v6gt also really cheap. This made a big change from the JJ's.
The circuit was good for a few tweaks. I replaced the Negative feedback resistor with a pot under the chassis (the stock value is a bit too stiff and closed for my taste) so I can change value according to situation or guitar. I realised that 100k was the best range for a pot in this position.
Replaced the treble cap (wich was ceramic) with a switchable 100pf polystyrene or 500pf silver mica. sweeter treble, and the 500pf pushes a bit of high mids.
Replaced the cathode bypass cap on v1a with switchable 10uf or 3.3uf. that attenuated the bass a bit and gave me an additional position for less bass.
At the end a bit of work and little cash, it became a nice sounding bedroom and practice amp, and is very light to carry arround, that also sounds good with a 1x12 cab if I need extra punch, without being too loud.
