Yet another Fender Blues Junior!

Yup. These can possibly be the most popular tube amplifiers in the world at the moment. Really, as far as new tube amps that are factory mass produced, this series is the best bang for your buck. I wouldn't consider much else out there including Mesa, Marshall or Peavey. Why? By some miracle Fender stuck to Leo Fenders vision of having equipment that is easily serviceable. The other companies seem to have a hatred of service people, so I don't mess with them. I like making money see, not wasting time. In and out and get paid. With so many of these about I can afford to say no to a lot of new amps.

These and their ilk come through often. I just had a Hot Rod Deluxe yesterday. They always have the same problems. Solder joints crack and the input just falls apart. Yes, they use crap parts to keep the lights on. Who can blame them? Good thing is these are easily fixed and it's really easy to put a proper Switchcraft J12 jack in. It's so routine that I don't even keep the stock Fender jacks around. Those just suck so for $5 more I say keep your customers happy. Unless you are like our medical industry where it profits by keeping people sick. No, I have morals and a sense of decency.

Jack!:

These have 3 circuit boards. Pull them and re-solder every socket, pot, jack and ribbon connection. 90% of the time and you are ready to go for another 5 years.

When I was doing this a lot more I installed a lot of mods in these. Most were from this cat:

http://billmaudio.com/wp/

Good stuff. Worth the effort. I also installed carbon composition resistors and nicer caps in many over the years. Much to my surprise the effort was worth it. More 'vintage' sounding meaning just smoother and more musical. Rock bottom priced resistors and caps produce mediocre and rather harsh results. That being said stock these are just fine too.

This is a late 90's model. Still has the Eminence made speaker rather than the Jensen. This is a far nicer sounding speaker. I like these. Nothing special, just really good and full, not harsh like the Jensen tends to be.

Other improvements? Not really necessary but I have dropped in Hammond and Heyboer transformers before and the results were pleasing. Fuller body on both of those. More iron, better bass.

These amps are a positive holdover from what I call the EL84 revolution. Back in the 90's the shift went from big amps to smaller. The tube business was changing constantly with wild price fluctuations, a war in the former Yugoslavia eliminating the EI tube factory production and a growing demand for tube amps with a shrinking supply of good tubes. Sovtek made and still makes a decent EL84. We were bummed when EI stopped cause theirs was sonically superior. JJ took that chair, I like those just fine myself. Many boutique makers started building around the EL84 cause they were cheap and plentiful. It got to the point where I was bored of this tube. "Our amp is a sweet spot between a Vox, Fender Deluxe Reverb with a Marshall crunch blah blah....." Boring. Make something that doesn't try to please everyone please!

But I'm over that. today the EL84 is relatively cheap and plentiful still. Many clubs here in NYC have one of these little Blues Junior amps available for the back line and I'm always happy to see one. They kind of get out of the way of your expression which is what a good amp should do. I can always get my bag out of the speaker, clean or gritty.

I've never owned one myself but if I had to I would be just as happy. They kind of can't be beat! (Yo Fender, where's my endorsement??)

-J

1978 Marshall JMP 50 watt combo

Yes. That's all I need to say.

These are fantastic amps. This one was blowing the H.T. or high voltage B+ fuse. We had hoped it was one of the 6550 tubes but unfortunately the output transformer was cooked.

When the H.T. fuse pops 9 times out of ten it's just a power tube. Once in a while it's a shorted filter can but every so often it's the output transformer. That makes for an expensive repair. And the sad part is it does tend to hurt the value whether it sounds better or not.

Here's the ultra simple control panel. Gain, Master, EQ and presence. You really don't need any more with an amp that has this much sound. These are known as rock n roll amps but in the right hands can be good with any style. Someone clipped out one of the treble caps, the one on the volume knob. I owned one and clipped out both of them. I don't need that much treble and clipped out you can simply turn up your treble and presence if you need it.

This one has the original speaker intact. A pair of lovely 30 watt "Black Back" Celestion speakers:

So what output transformers do I like these days? I'm a Mercury dealer and I also deal Mojotone as well. For the price you can't beat the Mojo. I believe they are made by Heyboer and they are first class transformers. Friendly right out of the box. The Mercury product is expensive. Very expensive. I like there iron very much but there are only a few things to me that are worth that much more. When I was building amps for people I used their ultra expensive "Radio Spares" iron in a JTM 45 I built and always used their "Radio Spares" output transformers in my 18 Watters. They simply can't be beat in that capacity. I had the pleasure of playing my JTM amp next to a real "coffin logo" '62 model and mine was so close. I sold that amp for about $1300. The '62, granted is ultra rare, but cost around $20,000. So parts makers like Mercury and Heyboer helped me lose my lust for old amps! Why spend all that money if my intent is to enjoy it?

But for general repairs and price, the Mojotone iron can't be beat. I've used many of their transformers with dynamite results. In this Marshall I can say DYN-O-MITE! It's got it where it counts and was a relatively easy install!

JB