Insanely rare Leo Fender built Aims 4x10 guitar speaker Cabinet 1974 -spring reverb and tremolo - Early Super Reverb!

1970'S VINTAGE AIMS VTG 105 4X10 COMBO TUBE AMP, MADE IN THE
USA IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA - PLYWOOD CABINET CONSTRUCTION -

This 1970's Guitar cab makes hens teeth look plentiful. Super rare holy grail guitar combo is about as vibey and cool as they come. I have fender twins, magnatone, shorts, matchless, you name it. This one blows em all out of the water. Fender aficionados, eat your heart out:

This amp houses 4x10’s, 100 watt rms hand wired by legendary Fender amp builders. Aims is one of American craftsmanship’s best kept secrets and a little research reveals these were some of the very best Amps ever made in the old tradition of “money is no object” approach - massive trannys and tons of glass in every stage. Sounds absolutely incredible.

I’ve read online that this company was a pet project for Leo Fender too. The 4x10s sound absolutely amazing and the spring verb and trem just ooze powerful, clean vintage tone. Reminds me of a vintage blackpanel fender twin delux but with a wider, richer soundstage.

Everything works at is should. All original. I loved this amp so much I traded a 1960’s Gibson ES335 for this thing in the early 90’s and have had it ever since.

The VTG 105’s design is similar to other Fender combos of the era. The preamp has a 12AT7 long-tail-pair phase inverter that delivers accurate signal balance and gain to the power tubes, and there’s also an optical tremolo circuit and tube-driven reverb. But there’s one major difference between the Aims and most Fenders you’ll encounter—this 4x10 combo uses 6550 power tubes in a push-pull (class-AB) output section! This single change alone means the VTG yields lots of pronounced volume and crushing low end. And the solid-state rectifier and heavy filtering in the power section ensure the sound is tight and focused, with a very immediate feel in terms of responsiveness. Given the VTG’s pedigree, features, and 4x10 configuration, it’s only natural to wonder how it compares to a Fender Super Reverb. But the fixed-bias 6550s keep it clean at much higher volumes than a Super and give it a gain structure more akin to a Twin Reverb, of which I own both the 70’s Blackface and 70’s silverface (feel free to swing by the studio if you’re near NYC!). In fact, any breakup that’s apparent with this amp seems to stem from the speakers and closed-back cabinet design. Further, although the EQ sections are passive, they have a surprisingly active sound. The bass knob offers deep, deep lows, the treble can go really chimey, and the middle control seems to dynamically affect how the other two EQ controls respond.

And while, circuit-wise, the amp’s sine-wave tremolo and spring reverb are similar in almost every way to what you’d find in a Fender from the same period, the reverb pan is mounted rather intriguingly: The tank is uncovered and the springs are visible, but the pan itself has been rigged with small springs at the points where it attaches to the chassis. This is to prevent mechanical vibrations from, say, a bumped cabinet from transferring to the reverb springs themselves. The sonic results are outstanding. The reverb is lush and warm, and more than capable of defining a small space or instilling surf-y saturation. This was a unique design by Leo Fender and a fascinating peak behind the curtain of what OTHER ideas were swimming around in his head while he was “dealing” with Fender.

Everything is original and the original grill cloth is still there too, it’s just been covered by the cloth you see if famous 20’s-40’s actors. Unique is cool, right? If you want it to be 100% original, this cloth comes right off very easily exposing silver fender type grill cloth which has a small 2” tear in the top right corner but easily replaced with any silver fender grill cloth (identical).

- Local pickup in Nutley NJ at JML STUDIOS, 15-20 minutes from Manhattans Lincoln tunnel (meadowlands area). Trades welcome. Check out all my other unique gear in my shop too!

Thanks for looking