Blues Junior Help!!

Telejester

the blues junior is a dreadful amp, op should just try to flog it and buy something better.

Gwatkins15

Constructive! I can't if it's bust... And I like it anyway.

ICBM

I'm not a fan - they're quite poorly-made by Fender's normal standards, and I find their popularity baffling given that to me they really don't sound very good, and they're very overpriced compared to the far superior Hotrods - but I will admit that they're not truly terrible, and that the large number of faulty ones any tech will have seen is at least partly because of their popularity. That said, they still do have several design and build issues, including (but not only) the ones jpfamps has mentioned.

jpfamps

The most stupid fault in the Blues Junior, in my opinion, is running the filament trace of the left side power valve (looking from the back), between pins 6 & 7, ie next to the HT on the anode on pin 7.

The EL84 was deliberately designed so that pin 7 was isolated from the other pins (!), so this is monumentally stupid.

Telejester

i swear i had a blues jr years ago that spent more time with the tech than i did playing it, never bring that effing pile of shit near me again were hs very words, i kid you not. under the hood it looks more like pc innards than a guitar amp.

tone1

^....I had similar with my Blues Junior and I swore never to touch one again 

NPP

ICBM said:

NPP said:

apologies for going off on a slight tangent - given that these amps don't sell for very much used would there be a point to just using them for a project, say to house an amp kit? 

I'm not really happy with mine but can't be arsed to sell it either because it doesn't seem to be worth more than a good pedal. 

One of the problems with them is that the cabinet seems to be inherently 'wrong', in that it doesn't sound good with any speaker. But if you can live with that, the chassis or the cabinet are a fairly good platform for a project.

that's a no then I guess ... 

And, with the reputation these amps have now, it will be unlikely to sell on here. At least it has been reliable so far!

ICBM

jpfamps said:

The most stupid fault in the Blues Junior, in my opinion, is running the filament trace of the left side power valve (looking from the back), between pins 6 & 7, ie next to the HT on the anode on pin 7.

The EL84 was deliberately designed so that pin 7 was isolated from the other pins (!), so this is monumentally stupid.

Followed by running the traces too close together on some solder pads and up a piece of crappy ribbon cable…

NPP said:

And, with the reputation these amps have now, it will be unlikely to sell on here. At least it has been reliable so far!

Don't take my opinion or anyone else's as gospel - a lot of people like them. As I understand it, it's currently Fender's biggest selling amp. The Hotrod Deluxe is still probably the biggest seller overall, but it was out much earlier so it had a headstart.