Fender Blue Deluxe Reissue. Any good?

handsomerik

There's one for sale near me at a reasonable price. I currently play a modded blues junior which I like very much. Does anyone have any experience of the blues deluxe and what do you think of it?

Richardj

It was my first 'proper' big valve amp. Loved it and bitterly regret trading it for a Mesa. Fender clean tone to die for and lots of clean headroom, drive channel not good at lower volumes as it needs to work to get dirty. It is properly loud too.

fretmeister

Yes. Wonderful amp.

ICBM

Agreed. Not only is it a great-sounding amp, they ironed out most of the reliability problems that the original series had, so the reissue is better.

It's essentially everything that the Blues Junior should have been a smaller version of, but isn't. (Or not without substantial mods.)

Sessionman

ICBM said:

Agreed. Not only is it a great-sounding amp, they ironed out most of the reliability problems that the original series had, so the reissue is better.

It's essentially everything that the Blues Junior should have been a smaller version of, but isn't. (Or not without substantial mods.)

One reason the BJr sounds significantly different, is because the EQ is situated post-distortion, whereas, the Blues/Hotrod Deluxe has its EQ pre-distortion.  The latter produces a much more 'old school' tonality at low distortion levels - but is not so nice in deep distortion and the EQ controls lose effectiveness.

The BJr  can make the distortion sound very aggressive.  They work more like a Marshall than a traditional Fender.

They do both use the same Fender 75W speaker... which is really an Eminence Legend 1258 but with a Fender label on the back.

handsomerik

thanks a lot for the info guys.

meltedbuzzbox

I have a blues deville

I would say its OK. Not brilliant, not bad. 

Personally I think its one of the more disappointing Fender Clean sounds. Its not as sparkly as my twin. 

I appreciate the twin costs a lot more etc etc but used prices are king and if you want head room and a Fender clean sound a Twin can be had for £500 or less. 

ICBM

I think the clean sound on the Hotrods is better, if you want the traditional Blackface Fender clean - the Blues is better if you want a more Tweedy sound. The Drive channel on the Blues is better than the first one on the Hotrod, although it doesn't have the More Drive mode. I know, this is probably the reverse of what everyone else thinks .

(You should discount my opinion though, because I also think the Drive channels on both amps are far from unusable, in fact they're quite good… )

meltedbuzzbox

I will agree on the hotrod cleans.

They do like an electrical fault or two though as a model (even the mexican reissues) 

I wouldn't be surprised if the Blues Deluxe is the same

I will even agree that every amp has a usable sound, you just have to fiddle with some more than others.

(I do exclude the Roland JC120 distortion channel from that statement)

ICBM

meltedbuzzbox said:

I will even agree that every amp has a usable sound, you just have to fiddle with some more than others.

(I do exclude the Roland JC120 distortion channel from that statement)

I don't .

But the settings for it to make it usable are completely different from the clean sound, so it's debatable whether there's any point since it then isn't switchable on the fly. It never sounds good either, just usable. (Don't ask me what they are, I can't remember!)

Agreed on the faults with the Fenders too - although to be fair, they have made so many of them that it isn't surprising that the odd one still goes down. The faults I see are now in the 'second tier' rather than the 'first tier' which were fixed after the MkI Hotrod.

ryper

I sold my blues deluxe in January, not a bad amp, cleans are OK, but has a few things that were a bit annoying, the volume pot - between 1 and 2 = from nothing to loud!! No inbetween.

  I also found it to be a little bit rattly (I've seen a few with rattles). - It's an OK amp I think, not great but not awful

I wouldn't buy another one, think I'd personally probably get a peavey classic if I wanted something in that ballpark.

menamestom

I was never a fan of the Blues Deluxe or Deville, I prefer the Hot Rod Deluxe although I played them at different times.

The cleans don't have the grit of a Tweed or sparkle of a Blackface, I always found them a bit muddy.
May be the one I sued a few time wasn't that well.

ThePrettyDamned

ryper said:

I sold my blues deluxe in January, not a bad amp, cleans are OK, but has a few things that were a bit annoying, the volume pot - between 1 and 2 = from nothing to loud!! No inbetween.

  I also found it to be a little bit rattly (I've seen a few with rattles). - It's an OK amp I think, not great but not awful

I wouldn't buy another one, think I'd personally probably get a peavey classic if I wanted something in that ballpark.

Apparently, they've finally fixed the volume pot issue.  And I agree, it was an issue, albeit easily fixable.

They sound nice, and they take pedals really well, you can easily shape the clean channel into a bluesy drive with a bluesbreaker, a crunchier sound with a Jackhammer, or even do some more modern styles with a heavy gain pedal.  Fuzz worked great, too.

ESBlonde

@Handsomerik if you want to compare the BDRI to my Hot Rod Deluxe you can borrow mine for a couple of days. I'm not far away so PM if it's of interest.

meltedbuzzbox

ThePrettyDamned said:

ryper said:

I sold my blues deluxe in January, not a bad amp, cleans are OK, but has a few things that were a bit annoying, the volume pot - between 1 and 2 = from nothing to loud!! No inbetween.

  I also found it to be a little bit rattly (I've seen a few with rattles). - It's an OK amp I think, not great but not awful

I wouldn't buy another one, think I'd personally probably get a peavey classic if I wanted something in that ballpark.

Apparently, they've finally fixed the volume pot issue.  And I agree, it was an issue, albeit easily fixable.

They sound nice, and they take pedals really well, you can easily shape the clean channel into a bluesy drive with a bluesbreaker, a crunchier sound with a Jackhammer, or even do some more modern styles with a heavy gain pedal.  Fuzz worked great, too.

Mine has the mad volume jump too. Almost every fender amp I have owned has done that though. I kind of like it. Its like an eager puppy dog

DrJazzTap

I have one and I love it, it has a lovely clean channel. I personally prefer the sound of the clean channel of the BD compared to the HR, I think it's a little warmer sounding (lovely abstract word to describe sound!). The HR clean channel isn't horrible, just not what I was looking for. I tried the BD out on a whim, at first I thought it was a HR in tweed as a limited edition thing. But it really is voiced differently, literally no overdrive or gain available (think rolling stones that's about it)

I AB'd the amp against a Princeton 65 reissue, which is a lovely sounding amp. Different type of clean, i would love a Princeton at some point.

For me the Blues Deluxe is wonderfully simple, easy enough to carry around and takes drive pedals like a boss.
i think the mad volume jump can be solved by changing the volume pot. If you see one cheap nab it!

handsomerik

@ESBlonde thank you very much. That's very kind of you. I have however decided to leave this one for now. Other bills to see too.