Fender Blues Junior limited addition

Big Dave

After much waiting I recently took delivery form Regents of my new Fender Blues Junior limited addition amp. Fifteen watts of valve power and a Jensen speaker. Well worth the wait. Exceeded my expectations by a mile. It confirmed the conventional wisdom that, for classic blues tones in at least, no pedal can turn a budget transistor job, in my case a Marshall 30 DFX, into a decent valve amp

Fantastic tone with my US Ash Tele (or would be if I had the technique) but what really surprised me was when I tried my old, pre Wilkinson, Vintage Les Paul. I had expected it’s limitations to be cruelly exposed but the tone was better than I expected, my spare guitar now has a new lease of life.

It set me thinking that perhaps many of us get the balance wrong when allocating a budget and spend too much on a guitar and not enough on the amp. Any thoughts as to what the proportions should be ?

Rock & Roll

I would say that a bad guitar through a great amp would sound a hell of a lot better than a great guitar through a terrible amp. I have a £70 Kra-mer strat copy, but it sounds utterly awesome through tube and high end solid state amps, particularly with slide. much better than a 1970 gibson les paul through one of those marshall mini-stacks ever could.

Unknown

Ditto. I wanna replace the tubes on my Laney LC15r and get a Jensen speaker in there. Should I have just bought the fender? Maybe...

LooseMoose

Depends on which speaker you have already. If you have the HH speaker then yes, I would replace it, but if you have the Celestion, I wouldn't bother, it's fine.

The LC15R is a good amp, but there's one thing that holds it back and that's neither the valves nor the speaker, but the cabinet.

The best VFM 'upgrade' you can get for an LC15R is an extension cab and just use the combo as a head.

Try it, you WILL be amazed.

Cheers,
james

Scrooge

You dont always play with your own amp, but most of the time, you'll end up playing your own axe.

Although I agree, a terrible amp/great guitar combo will sound worse than a great amp/terrible guitar combo, eliminate all the amps your never likely to gig with from the analogy and things change a bit in favour of the better guitar imho. Even with something like a marshall MG100, to pick a random well known amp toward the cheaper end of the giggable-amp cutoff point, has the potential to sound gash or pretty good depending on the style played and the guitar going into it.

Imho.

Steve.

Unknown

 Quote:

Originally posted by LooseMoose:
The LC15R is a good amp, but there's one thing that holds it back and that's neither the valves nor the speaker, but the cabinet.

Yeah I know, it is a bit awful. Is the fender much better? It does buzz a tad when it gets to high volume. but because of the open backed design, I don't think it makes much difference to the tone. At least not at lower volumes.

LooseMoose

 Quote:

Originally posted by Mr. IJaK:
 Quote:

Originally posted by LooseMoose:
The LC15R is a good amp, but there's one thing that holds it back and that's neither the valves nor the speaker, but the cabinet.

Yeah I know, it is a bit awful. Is the fender much better? It does buzz a tad when it gets to high volume. but because of the open backed design, I don't think it makes much difference to the tone. At least not at lower volumes. The difference is huge. The LC15R is a good amp, especially through an extension cab, but the Blues Junior blows it away.

Have a close look at one and you'll also see how much better made they are. I'm not knocking Laney gear, I've been a supporter of their equipment ever since I've been playing, but the Fender has it beaten in terms of construction, and this translates into a much better sounding amp in terms of rattles etc. but also has much more low end thanks to a bigger, better cabinet and of course the larger speaker.

Cheers,
James

Unknown

Fair enough. I'd feel hard done by, but I did get the laney for £150, and mostly just to get into valve amps.
Are there any cabs you'd reccomend, preferably without speakers? The only one I know of is these guys but the prices are a little ouch. This was something I was considering, but only after replacing the speaker in the main. I'm thinking I might not bother now.

Unknown

loosemoose would you recommend getting a blues jr or a vc30 for similar money? ignoring practicalities, just in terms of sound?

LooseMoose

They both set out to achieve different things really.

The Blues Junior is a SUPERB amp, but with a loud band, it would struggle to be gigged - can be done (indeed, I did many times) but you will be running it VERY hard and you may find you get drowned out by other instruments...

The VC30 has a lot more oomph to it and can happily be gigged without any issues, but the clean sound is nowhere near as good and the amp generally doesn't feel as 'alive'.

Now, the interesting thing comes when you mod them. I have owned both amps and changed speakers in them as well.

The Blues Junior with a Celestion Vintage 30 is astoundingly good, the VC30 with a Celestion Vintage 30 is ALSO astoundingly good. It is now that the gap narrows...

I would say that BOTH amps could really do with a decent aftermarket speaker, to my ears, and perhaps a change of valves too (although I wouldn't bother if buying new, get some use of the originals first then 'upgrade' in a year or so).

Either amp will do the job just fine, but the Fender has the edge on clean sounds, whereas the VC30 has slightly more gain and is argueably a touch more flexible thanks to having two channels (sort of).

Cheers,
James

Unknown

My ashdown peacemaker 40 uses a Celestion Vintage 30, and I would agree that it sounds astoundingly good.