Might have tasted a little humble pie today

cbilly22

I have never been a fan of the Fender Blues Junior amp and have actually been quite vocal about its shortcomings, often advising others against getting one as opposed to other offerings....buuuuuut....mate turned up today with a Jensen equipped mark IV tweed number and bugger me, if it doesn't sound rather brilliant. Despite being knackered from a late night/early morning drive back from the Lake District I am managing to coax some quite splendid tones out of it, maybe it's the lack of sleep but I might want one!!

ICBM

Yes, the MkIV does sound better than the older versions, and any of them sound better with a Jensen.

But replacing the cabinet makes and even bigger difference. I've done a couple for a customer into 5E3-size pine/tweed cabinets and they actually sound very nice.

They still aren't well-designed or built really though. It's just a question of whether you're lucky with it in the long term...

cbilly22

I was hoping you would be along @ICBM as we have both chimed in when Blues Juniors have come up and didn't much care for them. Honestly, this thing sounds excellent. Having plugged my little Yerasov (basically a Russian Pro Junior) in with an OD3  I think I might be feeling more normal as it has much more presence and I think would still hold the edge at gig levels but I can't deny the tweed/ Jensen BJ is a very different sounding animal to any I have plugged into before.

cbilly22

@ICBM do they still suffer from overheating issues due to wrong voltages or have they fixed that. I remember seeing some great charred remains pics over the years

I have to be honest, as great as it sounds (and it does) I still can't fathom the price of one new when the HRDX is only marginally dearer and a biblically better amp.

ICBM

cbilly22 said:

@ICBM do they still suffer from overheating issues due to wrong voltages or have they fixed that. I remember seeing some great charred remains pics over the years

They still suffer from poor PCB layout which can cause fires on the lower board, and are all set to 230V as stock, yes.

cbilly22 said:

I have to be honest, as great as it sounds (and it does) I still can't fathom the price of one new when the HRDX is only marginally dearer and a biblically better amp.

Exactly.

p90fool

I tried a Jensen-loaded one in a shop a couple of years ago and that too sounded better than my old one. 
It was still pitifully underpowered though, despite having the same power section as my old Pro Jr, which I had to gig with an attenuator!

cbilly22

ICBM said:

cbilly22 said:

@ICBM do they still suffer from overheating issues due to wrong voltages or have they fixed that. I remember seeing some great charred remains pics over the years

They still suffer from poor PCB layout which can cause fires on the lower board, and are all set to 230V as stock, yes.

cbilly22 said:

I have to be honest, as great as it sounds (and it does) I still can't fathom the price of one new when the HRDX is only marginally dearer and a biblically better amp.

Exactly.

Bugger/why and I thought so respectively.

You would have thought they would have fixed that by now.

ICBM

The board fires are probably rare enough compared to the overall numbers they sell that it isn’t worth bothering. It is purely a layout issue though, and would be easy to solve.

The 230V setting is an EU regulation requirement - but is easy enough to fix. It’s not good design that the amp is so sensitive to it - but this applies to other models as well, including the HRD (especially the Deville).

BintyTwanger77

I've been impressed with the Blues Jnr IV. I've been using the latest stock version with Celestion speaker, and it is good, though it does tend to flub out a bit with more complex effects, like big dense reverbs and delays, etc.

chrisj1602

I’m tempted by the Blues Jr tweed quite often, but then think I could get a 68 Princeton used for not much more than the new BJr so might go down that route.

crunchman

chrisj1602 said:

I’m tempted by the Blues Jr tweed quite often, but then think I could get a 68 Princeton used for not much more than the new BJr so might go down that route.

The 68 Princeton benefits from a speaker change as well.  I've put a WGS Veteran in mine - a lot better than the stock Celestion.  I don't know why Fender persist in putting budget Celestions in their amps.  They really do sound better with "American" style speakers.

p90fool

crunchman said:

chrisj1602 said:

I’m tempted by the Blues Jr tweed quite often, but then think I could get a 68 Princeton used for not much more than the new BJr so might go down that route.

The 68 Princeton benefits from a speaker change as well.  I've put a WGS Veteran in mine - a lot better than the stock Celestion.  I don't know why Fender persist in putting budget Celestions in their amps.  They really do sound better with "American" style speakers.

I thought the same, but put the stock Celestion back in my 68 custom Princeton when I sold it to the other guitarist in my band.

Six months of flat out gigging later and I suddenly noticed it sounded better than when I had it, and two years later it sounds awesome. 

That's running the amp on nine or ten for about six hours a week though. 

ChuckManual

Mine's nice...



It's got two Jenson 10" speakers, btw.

Mark1960

My son has a Blues Junior MKIV, and he gets some real nice tones using a PRS with Seyomr Duncan pickups. He reduces the treble and boosts the mid on the amp, and it sounds very nice at gig volume. Think he also has the volume on max and controls it with the master, or the other way around. I'm not sure TBH

Nikc

I run my Blues Junior's Master high and control with the vol - I saw it recommended some where and it opened the sound - I love them 

Mark1960

Yeah that sounds about right. I thought I may have got it the wrong way around

Jalapeno

Pro Junior is way better than the BJ - can't fathom why they're so popular

ICBM

Mark1960 said:

My son has a Blues Junior MKIV, and he gets some real nice tones using a PRS with Seyomr Duncan pickups. He reduces the treble and boosts the mid on the amp, and it sounds very nice at gig volume.

Each to their own, but that sounds like my idea of hell. A middy guitar into an already overly-middy amp with no top end, with the mids boosted and the treble rolled off... MIDMIDMIDMIDMID.

Guitars produce other frequencies too, which are nice to hear even in a band mix.

Mark1960

ICBM said:

Mark1960 said:

My son has a Blues Junior MKIV, and he gets some real nice tones using a PRS with Seyomr Duncan pickups. He reduces the treble and boosts the mid on the amp, and it sounds very nice at gig volume.

Each to their own, but that sounds like my idea of hell. A middy guitar into an already overly-middy amp with no top end, with the mids boosted and the treble rolled off... MIDMIDMIDMIDMID.

Guitars produce other frequencies too, which are nice to hear even in a band mix.

As you say each to their own.

Coupled up with Strat, and a Sax in the band mix it sounds pretty decent to me though.

brooom

reliability wise, burnt circuit boards and melted sockets are not uncommon...

ICBM

Mark1960 said:

Coupled up with Strat, and a Sax in the band mix it sounds pretty decent to me though.

Yes, that sort of tone does sit fairly well in a dense Springsteen-esque mix. I still find the sound quite annoying though.

brooom said:

reliability wise, burnt circuit boards and melted sockets are not uncommon...

But not *that* common either, considering the number Fender have sold. It's certainly a borderline-badly-designed, at best averagely-built amp, but I'm sure Fender have run the numbers and worked out that they're doing fine with them. They're actually one of the companies which does have a fairly good record of fixing common faults on long-running amps - the jacks on the HRDs are a good example, so why they've left the crap one on the Blues Junior I'm not sure. Probably a much smaller number of them are used professionally.