Fender Blues Junior

Product: Fender Blues Junior
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted 03/31/2007 at 02:16pm by Mario

Sound Quality: 10
For the money, this is one of the best sounding amps out there. I'm not a fan of the British tone and too many amps sound buzzy and indistinct when they try to go hi gain. This amp is a very smooth sounding amp in overdrive. In stock form, I give this amp a solid 8. Cleans are nice and the reverb is typical nice Fender.

There are mods out there but here's what I highly recommend that is easier to do and has the MOST impact in tone. First of all, you may want to consider changing the speaker. Stock speakers are not always the best. I use an Eminence Texas Lite which is a light-weight neo magnet speaker and sounds really good. Get a good speaker cable. I use a Lava Canare speaker cable which is very smooth sounding.

Here's the pinacle change that I would recommend above anything else....

GET A MERCURY MAGNETICS BLUES JR. OUTPUT TRANSFORMER (www.MercuryMagnetics.com)!!!! The sound impact is remarkable, the whole amp is pushed into boutique territory. Look at all the high end boutique amps... they use quality output and power trannys for good reason. The Mercury is color coded just like the stock transformer so installation is very easy. Just hook up the wires exactly in the same spots as the old transformer. Mounting is easy also. I used one existing screw hole and then drilled another for the second mounting. The Mercury is about twice the size so you have to drill another hole. Very easy, took me about 1/2 hour to do.

I haven't done any tone stack mods to this amp as I really don't think the amp needs it now. The Mercury adds so much punch, harmonics, touch sensitivity, smoothness, etc., that NO tone/capacitor change can even come close to reaching this level. This amp absolutely ROCKS now. Stock the amp sounds anemic in comparison. You should here the amp with the output cooking. Very smooth, chimey, tight, with a touch of compression that would make you swear there was a tube rectifier in there somewhere (but no mush). I would easily compare this amp to an amp in the $1,000.00 dollar range with the upgrades I've made. Overdrive is rich and ballsy with harmonics leaping out and a nice fat smooth midrange.

The only other change I plan to do is to add another 47uf of power capacitance to take out some more of the output hum that is common with this amp.

Overall Rating: 10
Forget all the mods out there. I've been modding amps for a long time and I can tell you from experience, cap/resistor changes are nice, but for the amount of time, difficulty, and money, changing the output tranny is the most impactful change you can do. High end tube audio and high end tube guitar amps use high quality output transformers. You should also. I'm floored by the impact its made to this little amp. Feel free to email me with questions. The change is very, very easy to do.