Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue Review: suitable amp for home use?

After recording several tracks plugging my Strat directly into my Apogee converter, I was 99% convinced that I didn't need anymore a bulky amplifier in my apartment to get the perfect sound out of my guitar.

How wrong I was! 

After playing around with a Deluxe Reverb Reissue  owned by a friend of mine who produce music professionally, I bought it for a good price and brought it home. It weights just below 20 Kg, so I was able to carry it myself to my flat on the 4th floor.

The 12" cone provides a beautiful, round, bottom end, which would get lost in some of the smaller combos I have tried in the past, which always sounded a bit "boxy" and capped.

The sound coming out of the amp is open, articulate, dynamic, and full of the subtleties I was missing by using the plugins of my DAW.

With the guitar volume pot maxed out at 10, the Amp is definitely playable in a home environment with the Main volume set around 2. 

I usually turn it to 4 or more if I am playing during the day (weekends). If I play during workday evenings I tend to let it set just below 2.

Even at such a low volume, the amp sound and performance is excellent and ready to be put on a recording: many amps struggle when played at very low levels: not the Deluxe Reverb Reissue.

The clean sounds coming out of the speaker are unmistakably the Fender clean tones associated with such an amp, especially coupled with a single coil guitar.

I feel that the overall tone of the amp is on the bright side, in fact I tend now to use the middle/neck pickup of my Strat, while before I had a predilection for the bridge/middle position (when plugged into a A/D converter). I find that now too harsh and trebly if used with the Deluxe Reverb.

For crunches or dirtier sounds, you will have to push the amp very hard to volumes unsuitable for home use. I  think this is the case of every valve amp with a wattage above 5W. The 22 Watts of the Deluxe Reverb give plenty of headroom and volume, so if you want distortion or overdrive, just put a pedal in front of the amp (like a Boss OD3 or a Tube Screamer), it will push the amp into heaven territory, while retaining the dynamic quality of your sound.

The Reverb effect is simply fantastic, miles away from plug-ins and digital reverbs.

The Tremolo is nice too, I tend to keep the speed quite low, the control for the tremolo speed goes up to extreme rates.

I am going to experiment and start to Mic the Amp for recording my future guitar parts, and integrate that into my new pieces.

For the moment, I can affirm with certainty that going back to play a good valve amp has given me great pleasure and new excitement, something that I lost a bit with my former signal chain (guitar- A/D converter- laptop connected to monitors).

Playing with guitar and amp is more intuitive, direct, and responsive to my hands, head and feelings.