don't buy a Fender Blues Junior .....

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Yes, which is why I am comparing them to new practice amps. The silverface Vibro Champs from the seventies are everywhere, and they are not very expensive, so I think that's a fair comparison to a new practice amp, even if you don't get lucky and find a blackface at a good price.
 
Just bought a 3 month old Blues Junior off Craigslist for $360, sound is very respectable for a practice amp. Seller also threw in a Fender platinum cable to sweeten the deal. Apparently she needed the money to get her crappy car back on the road...

Oh well, I guess that some are good and some aren't.
 
stratfan said:
Just bought a 3 month old Blues Junior off Craigslist for $360, sound is very respectable for a practice amp. Seller also threw in a Fender platinum cable to sweeten the deal. Apparently she needed the money to get her crappy car back on the road...

Oh well, I guess that some are good and some aren't.

NOS tweed model Limited Edition or the stock black tolex?
 
Standard black tolex, MIM, with Fender speaker made in USA. Only a couple months old, retails for about $550 and cable is worth about $50
 
stratfan said:
Standard black tolex, MIM, with Fender speaker made in USA. Only a couple months old, retails for about $550 and cable is worth about $50

Cool..... if you want to hot rod it, check out this site devoted to Blues Juniors (explore the categories on the right side under "pages"):

http://billmaudio.com/wp/

Here's a little blurb from the site regarding the two available circuit boards (USA green or MIM cream):

Old BJrs Sound Different
Fender has used two different circuit boards in the Blues Junior. The original green circuit board was in production from 1995 to early 2001. The later cream-colored board has been in production since mid-2001. Although the circuits are virtually identical (except for reverb), the cream board is much brighter, with livelier treble, than the green board. Where applicable, I?ve separated the mods appropriate to each. The green board reverb is prone to hiss and hum. See my Improving Green Board Reverb page. The Green boards were made in USA; production shifted to Mexico in 2001. There is no difference in quality.
 
Thanks for that Marcus.

Right now I am pretty happy with the sound from the Blues Junior. I know its not the best amp in the world, but for <$400, it is fantastic value.

Mine is made in Mexico, with the made in USA Fender speaker.
 
I've been using BJs for years, both cream-board and green-board, and been pretty much satisfied (reverb issues on the old US model are a bit annoying). Recently I've been eyeing up all these little 5-watters and powerscaling amps and was seriously considering making a purchase, but thought I'd have a good listen to the BJ first to make sure I could justify spending the money...

So last night I spent a couple of hours with my Mexican Blues Junior and my ST-55, and I really listened to the tone, and I fiddled with all the controls, and y'know what? No matter how I set it up, no matter what sloppy rubbish I played through it, there wasn't a single moment of bad tone. I sat there playing and thinking, "I f***ing love this amp!". So the 5-watter GAS has gone... for now at least...
 
Gotta be honest - I've never tried a BJ

but just to help with your GAS here's a pic of my tweed power scaled 5 watter :D

IMG_0323.jpg


To echo your sentiment I f***ing love this amp :lol:
 
Off of the Fender track, but when they were blowing out the discontinued Crated V18, you could have scored one for $150. And GC had scratch-and-dent floor demo ones for $99. No way in Heck you'll top that deal. Even if you don't dump another $150 for upgrades and mods, it'll still be as good as any Blues Junior. But spend $$ on some better tubes, speaker, and maybe a circuit upgrade or two, and you have the best 'small' recording amplifier hands down. And you've spent 1/3 the price of a Blues Junior.
The Blues Junior is an OK amplifier as is, but it does become a lot better with Bill M's mods. I won't buy one new, but if a used one came up for a ridiculous price, you'd be crazy not to buy it. Don't let one person's negative opinion turn you off of the potential of a Blues Junior.
 
I dislike Blues Jrs. also. And they come with EL-84s Fender never put in the past,so this is not a classic Fender sound amp.I would prefer 6v6s tubes.

Old Gibsons are very good and matchews P90s well.I own a very old GA-20(circa '51) I got in nasty condition and a friend a really fantastic amp tech got back to work.The old Jensen speaker P12R is great and sweet sounding!
 
And I believe those are two of the real flaws in the Blues Junior. It's hard to believe Fender doesn't have an engineer who understands EL84's, but apparently they don't. And the stock speaker is crap. You can replace the speaker, rebias the EL84's, and maybe monkey with the feedback loop, and achieve that classic Fender sound. That only leaves the OPT, and I don't have a BJ to tell you if Fender got it 'right'.
But for me, the bottom line is this; am I using it live or to record. Obviously this is a recording amplifier, so tweaking it, and using pedals, will make it a great recording tool. And it is just a tool. There are design flaws with every amplifier out there, or there wouldn't be mods for every amplifier out there. Well, I take that back. Peoples tastes change, and that's why you have mods, even as simple as swapping speakers. Regardless of if it is a Plexi or a Blackface Super Reverb, there's nine hundred web sites with mods to make it 'better'. And no one would suggest 'Don't buy a Plexi'. Would they?
Or, of the dozens of vintage Tokai Les Paul type guitars I have owned, every freakin' one had microphonic pickups. I didn't get on every web site forum I belong to and say 'Don't buy a Reborn/Love Rock!'. I looked at the potential, and how it would work for me as a tool.
 
I think comparing guitars to amps is a waste of time, its very easy and cheap to wax pot pickups but there is no cheap fix to an amplifier and it takes a lot more knowledge to start modding amps by yourself. Apples and oranges..... :wink:

Mick
 
Half of the sound of a guitar is due to the player.

I agree. You can't say play this amp with this guitar because it sounds better. You could copy SRV's rig and if you don't play like him, you're not going to sound like him.

Love my Juniors.... all three of them. It's all up to personal preference. The sounds I have in my head and what I'm trying to achieve is going to be different from anyone one else. I plug straight into the amp, no pedals or effects. Crank the master and volume and go.

To each his own, boys.
 
leadguitar_323 said:
I think comparing guitars to amps is a waste of time........ Mick
What I was implying is the philosphy of finding flaws in gear that thousands of other people still want to buy is flawed itself. I don't need to tell you the crazy money people are buying for 'vintage' Love Rock or Reborn guitars. Bad pickups and all. And aren't pickups the heart of the tone? Even the P90's in any Junior I've had were microphonic. So there's a huge flaw with the guitars in my mind. Yet I bought them. So there's a brittle top end to Blues Junior amplifiers. Thousands of people still bought them. And then there's those people who have no issue paying $1K or much more for a guitar they'll have to 'fix up' so it's usable, but get their full ***** on about an amplifier that costs $499 that is too bright or doesn't have 'character'. I guess I didn't spell that out, and it looks like I have a hankering comparing apples to oranges. But what I was really saying is don't buy an apple and ***** it doesn't taste like that orange you bought last week.
leadguitar_323 said:
there is no cheap fix to an amplifier and it takes a lot more knowledge to start modding amps by yourself. Mick
Don't expect Beano tone for $499. And for many BJ fans, a relatively cheap speaker was all it took to make the amp quite usable. A speaker that cost less than a set of decent pickups :wink:. All I'm saying is either see the potential, or look elsewhere.
That's it for me. I ainlt lookinf for a fight, since I'm awful at political, religious, or other debates about who's opinion is more valid. You now have mine, so do with it as you see fit. Have a great New Year!
 
ranjam said:
leadguitar_323 said:
I think comparing guitars to amps is a waste of time........ Mick
What I was implying is the philosphy of finding flaws in gear that thousands of other people still want to buy is flawed itself. I don't need to tell you the crazy money people are buying for 'vintage' Love Rock or Reborn guitars. Bad pickups and all. And aren't pickups the heart of the tone? Even the P90's in any Junior I've had were microphonic. So there's a huge flaw with the guitars in my mind. Yet I bought them. So there's a brittle top end to Blues Junior amplifiers. Thousands of people still bought them. And then there's those people who have no issue paying $1K or much more for a guitar they'll have to 'fix up' so it's usable, but get their full ***** on about an amplifier that costs $499 that is too bright or doesn't have 'character'. I guess I didn't spell that out, and it looks like I have a hankering comparing apples to oranges. But what I was really saying is don't buy an apple and ***** it doesn't taste like that orange you bought last week.
leadguitar_323 said:
there is no cheap fix to an amplifier and it takes a lot more knowledge to start modding amps by yourself. Mick
Don't expect Beano tone for $499. And for many BJ fans, a relatively cheap speaker was all it took to make the amp quite usable. A speaker that cost less than a set of decent pickups :wink:. All I'm saying is either see the potential, or look elsewhere.
That's it for me. I ainlt lookinf for a fight, since I'm awful at political, religious, or other debates about who's opinion is more valid. You now have mine, so do with it as you see fit. Have a great New Year!

Very well put! And tinkering with amps isn't that hard to do either, I started making a few mods to mine a couple of years ago and I've now built three of my own, and as 'Big Ed' will testify, Beano tone for $499 is achievable! Well almost, I didn't get Clapton's fingers included at that price :wink:

On another note, the guitarist out of a band we supported a few weeks ago used a blues junior and a USA standard tele, and sounded fantastic!! He was a great player, and proved the point that you definetely don't need a $2000 amp to sound great!
 
And aren't pickups the heart of the tone? Even the P90's in any Junior I've had were microphonic. So there's a huge flaw with the guitars in my mind.

I don't wish to argue either so just a few points. Pickups are NOT the heart of the tone, the wood is and as far as pickups being a "huge flaw" well thats just rubbish, a misaligned neck or a broken headstock are "huge flaws" and i must say that there are piles of people that love the Tokai pickups so thats more your opinion than "a huge flaw". Wax potting pickups is extremely cheap and easy to fix so i think you are being a little melodramatic with your examples. I understand what you are trying to say but you are misinformed as to where "tone" is developed in a guitar. For example, i showed Ozeshin my RR-65 greco, unplugged it has a harmonic feed back on the "D" string at the fifth fret, which is only coming from the wood, granted it sounds better plugged in but this guitar is very resonant and feeds back acoustically, the pickups are just a vehicle for transporting the tone to the amp, they do not create the tone, although they will alter it to a degree and this comes down to,personal preference. Also P90's are single coil pickups and single coils are known to scream under volume. Just a thought, pickups prematurely feeding back is totally different to a pickup going micro phonic..... Which are you referring to? Someone else may like to elaborate on this one...

Mick
 

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