What's with the earlier tweed Fenders?

[Bear]

There was an old V-front super, 49-53-ish, that made its way through the local Craigslist a while back. I wasn't the one to get it, but it got me salivating and interesting in the model and older tweed Fenders, generally.

Is there any good article out on circuit evolution of tweed Fenders? Other info/guidance/good set of collected clips?

I know Mark Fowler's 5B6 build thread but I've got no good idea of how it sounds relative to the more ubiquitous 5F6a circuit.

[M Fowler]

I haven't build a whole lot more lately but been collecting info.

Here is a Harvard 5F10 layout and board layout.

[tubeswell]

5b6's sound a lot more primitive (think Howlin' Wolf sounds) esp with the right combination of speaker. I have a .mp3 of a 5b6 built by one of the guys at ampage - if you PM me with you email addy, I can flick it to you. (Its too big to post here)

[Cliff Schecht]

I built a 5C3 and think its a great sounding circuit. Like others said the old Deluxe circuits have a certain older more open sound that is spot on for blues. I love to use mine with slide, its got a singing quality with the right speaker. The cathode bias + 5y3 rectifier combo give a good amount of sag and compression at full on volume (which is surprisingly loud).

These amps are picky about tubes and heater noise though. I recently discovered DC heaters and when done right, it's very quiet. Input section lead dress is also critical, if you are using a chassis grounding scheme then the input jacks need to be isolated and grounded preferably at the input tube cathode resistors ground.