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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
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I've tried valve swapping to clean it up a bit, sounded crap tbh. I have a Sunburst with a Cannabis Rex - sounds great - turn it up !!!!!
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I have a lot of experience with the Blues Junior and have one in my workshop. It is a little sterile and the speaker breaking in will not cure it. It simply lacks bass and would benefit from some of the coupling caps being upped to higher values... particularly post distortion. I find it somewhat 'lack-lustre' as factory issue.
There are many BJM mods to improve it... but they all add up in costs greatly if you cannot fit them yourself.
I do have a Cannabis Rex speaker (I have a stock of many speakers for R & D purposes), but I found it makes the BJr sound like it's playing through a blanket (IMHO being a twang fan). I much prefer the old standard Fender gold/brown label speaker... which is really an Eminence Legend 1258 badged as Fender. The Lightning Bolt speaker in the MkIIIs is rather flat sounding (I have one in a BJr cabinet).
The cabinet is made from chipboard (not MDF as regularly stated) with a 12.7mm ply baffle.
Fender really need to respond to customer opinions about this amp and seriously update it! Get rid of the boxy tone... but they sell so many! Not because it's great, but because it's a budget Fender valve amp, and they probably think 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it (majorly). They keep playing with it around the edges, but it never gets any better really. The updrades just make people think it will be 'much' better and live in hopes! When for me, it just gets worse! The pots break as soon as you like, or anything falls on it's control panel. They're not secured by nuts like most amps! A nasty cheap trick to save a few cents!
Of course, it's small, affordable and very portable, which I have to say, is the largest reason for its popularity.
The older MkI & II versions have an American made Accutronics 8EB2C1B short triple spring reverb pan which are poor in tone. MkIII BJrs employ the latter 'Made In Korea' reverb pans, same part number, black finish, but sound more lush and 'hall-like'.
For me, there are better amps on the market designed to overcome the limitations of the BJr and its low quality build.
"Just because it's never been done before, is the very reason to make it happen" - Me!
IMHO gets rid of the boxiness
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The only billm mod ive done is move the ribbon cables away from everything else ala bills site.
A tech also converted it to 240v for me which is the one essential mod as fender spec it to European voltages.
I have no hiss or noise of any kind. Dead silent.
The official UK mains voltage is now 230Vac... it has been for many years. Every product designed for sale within Europe, must work on 230Vac ±10%. So that's 207 to 253Vac. Under EC regulations, manufacturers have no option but to comply with this directive or risk having their products impounded by Trading Standards, who police these regulations.
Voltages around the UK are not 'supposed to be' 240Vac, but can be in certain areas. The law allows it to vary between 207 and 253Vac!
Frankly, there should be no need to have equipment modified to run on 240Vac.
Just wanted to clear up this misnomer.
"Just because it's never been done before, is the very reason to make it happen" - Me!
The actuality is that the UK still runs on 240V...nothing in terms of distribution hardware has changed, only the specification which allows us to 'harmonise' with Europe.
Allowing for tolerance, the vast majority of the country will be around and about 240.
Virtually all the modern Fenders I've seen have a 240V tap on the mains transformer, so it makes sense to use it and I change all those that come through my workshop. It can only be a good thing to lower the secondary voltages to closer to the design spec.
The Blues Junior in particular, as @Gagaryn says, runs it's EL84s on the hot side, and benefits from this.