Fender Blues Junior Tube Amp Review
15 Watts …are you SERIOUS?
Scotty lent me his Fender Blues Junior tube amplifier for a few days, to get my opinion on it and to write a review of it. I think I’ll just skip town with it! I’m very impressed with this little amplifier.
Fender Blues Junior Tube Amp Features
All-tube (2x12AX7, 2xEL34), 15W
Controls: Reverb, Master Volume, Treble, Mid, Bass, Volume, ‘Fat’ switch
1x12” speaker
Black Tolex-covered semi-open-back cabinet, classic Fender grille cloth, vintage-style Fender logo plate.
My Fender Blues Jr. Dislikes
(There are only two)
Not quite enough bottom-end response for my taste. This, I think, is a function of the small cabinet around the speaker, more than anything else.
Tendency of the high-end ‘sparkle’ to lessen somewhat when the amp is driven into clipping. This effect seems to also be somewhat dependent on what type of pickup is driving the amp, and in any case it’s easily compensated for with the Treble control.
My Fender Blues Jr. Likes
LOUD! This little guy has an amazing amount of acoustical output for its wattage and physical size.
Sparkly clean tones, and very warm overdriven tones. The choice is yours, with anything else in between.
That classic tube-amp dynamic response. I can set the Volume control at a point where an average picking/strumming force will yield a nearly clean tone, yet when I ‘dig in’ on the strings a little harder, I start to get some warm, tubey ‘crunch’. I get that with the Volume control set at about 2/3. With Volume full-on, I get a thick, warm, creamy distortion, yet it still cleans up a bit with lighter string attacks. This amp isn’t a high-gain shred monster with screeching distortion. It’s not supposed to be, after all. It’s a BLUES Junior by Fender, and it delivers that bluesy tone. Classic Fender tone, all the way!
Reverb. Even though the reverb tank in this unit isn’t a really long/big one, it doesn’t have that ‘boingy’ sound that smaller reverb tanks generally produce. It’s very natural-sounding and clean. It tails off a little faster than a larger tank would, but there’s more than enough there for my tastes. Very nice, very useful reverb, and again, classically Fender.
Some Blues Junior Observations
I think this amp could benefit from a bigger enclosure around its speaker, for a better bottom-end. I can’t get quite as much bottom out of it as I’d really like. It doesn’t lack much, however. It would just be nice to have a little more of it there to play around with.
But then again, the unit’s small physical size is its own blessing as regards hauling it around. And it could be that if it’s played at the higher ranges of its output capacity, the bottom-end would be more present (I really haven’t pushed it hard enough to determine this).
The top-end response, though, is just beautiful. Positively crisp and shiny. Oh, and the ‘Fat’ switch is a nice little feature, too. It appears to punch up the lower mids to give you a beefier overall tone. I would probably keep it on all the time, actually. I like the ’substance’ it imparts to the tone.
I’ve read about all these different modifications that people make to these amps, and frankly, I can’t see how they could improve very much on what’s already a great-sounding little amp. Building it off into separate head & speaker cabinets is probably one of the better things you could do with it, as that would allow you to combine the head with different speaker configurations, resulting in a very wide variety of available ’customized’ tones.
I can’t say enough about how loud this tiny amp can get. I’m frankly amazed at its acoustical output vs. its rated wattage. It would be plenty amp for any ‘intimate’ venues such as coffeehouses, and probably a lot of smaller clubs as well. It really blows some tone for such a little guy!
Fender Blues Jr - Conclusion
I personally think this amp is just a bit pricey for a 15W amp. But on the other hand, it’s a Fender tube amp, with that special ‘something’ that you just don’t get anywhere but from a Fender amp.
The thing is, if you’re just going to plug a bunch of effect pedals thru your amp’s input, it’s not really going to matter nearly as much what the amp itself sounds like, since your guitar’s signal is so colored-over with the effects.
But if you just want nothing but wire between your guitar and your amp, you’re going to need that amp to sound really great without external coloration. This one does, in spades!
It’s small, relatively light, easy to haul around, and certainly loud enough for a good many rehearsal and performance situations. It definitely has its niche, or should I say niches. The tone is classic Fender, as is the quality of construction. If you want genuine Fender tube tone in a smaller amp, this is your guy, right here! The Fender Blues Junior is a classic!
|
