Up for sale, a 1947 Fender Dual Professional tube amplifier in excellent condition and in perfect working order. Easily one of the rarest and most impactful amps ever produced by the fledgling Fender company in the '40s, the Dual Professional was only available for one year before being redubbed the "Super." This particular Professional has been fully restored and recently serviced so as to be faithful to original factory specifications.
Likely a salesman sample, this Dual Pro was the property of Ray Massie, a Fender representative at the time of this amp's production, and this amp features Massie's name on a small piece of paper similar to a tube chart inside the speaker cab. Massie went on to produce a series of amplifiers under his own name after his tenure at Fender, and this Dual Pro is a small but notable piece of Fender and Massie history.
As noted in Fender's Soul of Tone tube amp book, the Dual Professional is a milestone in Fender amp production and introduced more long lasting features to Fender's amp lineup than any amp that would follow in its footsteps. It was the first amp to be covered in tweed, the first with a chrome, top facing control panel, and the world's first guitar amp with more than one speaker. Other innovations pioneered on the Dual Professional include finger jointed pine cabinet construction, the on/off switch, jewel lamp, and eyelet boards for mounting the components in the circuit.
Most importantly, this amp lives up to its legacy by producing a rich, dynamic, and detailed tone indicative of the Tweed era of production. The octal preamp tubes give this amp a warmth and midrange roundness lacking in the later narrow panel amps, and while the amp does have a smooth and nuanced clean sound at low volumes, its the thick, roaring overdrive where the amp truly excels. With individual "Mic" and "Inst" Volume controls as well as a master Tone knob and additional low gain input, the Dual Pro has a clean, simple layout that makes it easy to dial in an array of early Fender tones. As with all the early Fender circuits, the two Volume controls are highly interactive as well (even when the channels aren't bridged), and this extra bit of versatility helps in finding just the right amount of drive and bite.
The circuit has just been completely refurbished by our techs here at Mike & Mike's Guitar Bar, using the highest quality components available, and with an eye towards originality. Mallory caps were used in the preamp and many of the original resistors are still intact. The power amp features Sprague Atom filter caps, and all three of the original Stackpole pots are intact, dating to the 36th week of 1946. The power transformer is original as well, manufactured by Altec Lansing and dating to the 10th week of 1947. This amp was designed for use with dual output transformers, and while they aren't in the Mercury Magnetics catalog, they did have the specs on hand and were able to provide us with a matched pair wound to original Fender specifications. These transformers were mounted on each speaker frame as originally intended.
The speakers are the original Jensen P10Rs which date to the early weeks of 1948. While the Dual Professional was only offered in 1947 and never even made it into the Fender catalog due to the extremely low production numbers, the fact that this was a sales sample likely means that it was fitted with the P10R speakers to advertise the next iteration of the Dual Pro, the V Front Super. Both speakers have been reconed and retain their original bell covers, with clean green frames on both speakers and one of the gold Jensen foil labels still completely intact (the other label is partially intact and faded).
The amp has been professionally retweeded and regrilled, and the tweed used is the diagonal tweed pattern used on later Fender tweed amps, given that the vertical tweed originally used on the Dual Professional is not widely available. The retweed is decades old at this point and was lightly lacquered in the past to give it the proper appearance. The original tube chart is intact inside the cab, as well as the small "Dual Professional" badge on the face of the amplifier. Virtually all of the original white silkscreen lettering has faded from the faceplate, but the "Fender" name can still be faintly seen. The large chrome strip separating the speaker baffles is also original, and the leather handle is a vintage replacement.
This is a very special amplifier and a small piece Fender history, not to mention that it delivers a range of classic early Fender Tweed tones!
