Fender pro junior for home

When I was gigging back in the '90s, I never saw a conversations like this, where people would say, "will this amp work for home?". I'm not criticizing, it's just an observation. I had a 100W Marshall JCM 900 half stack. I gigged with it. At home it was my practice amp. I just turned the volume down and used the preamp for distortion.

These days, we're talking about one amp for home, one for the stage, expensive attenuators, etc. Part of me thinks that we as guitarists are simply looking for a reason to spend money.

 

I play a Twin at home too sometimes, no problem. I have lots of amps and they all have volume knobs

 

I wouldn’t overthink it...the answer is yes.

 

Make sure it works. I bought an old Anerican made one off Craigslist 6 or 7 years ago and didn't try before buying since it was a good deal. Got it home and it just produced a high pitched squeel. Took awhile to sell but ended up selling it to a guy in his 30s or 40s who was starting out w/ guitar and he said he would have it fixed by a shop.

I also got burned a few months ago in a Craigslist trade. Traded a nice working/mint Eastwood guitar for a mint Epiphone. The Epiphone's pickups didn't work and the guy who traded me never told me anything. Was lucky to resell the guitar since it was mint and a limited edition to a collector who said he could get it repaired as part of his set-up.

 

AC10 is a really good amp, and with a master volume you can get gain at low volume.

 

it will sound great, why wouldn't it? It will sound exactly as well as you play.

 

I used a nearly stock Epiphone valve junior combo with the 8" speaker and dialed up loud enough to grind a little was still pretty loud.

I don't know what speaker comes in the Pro Jr, but the 12"ers in the HRDx/Dv/BJr were very efficient, if that also applies to the ProJr, maybe switching it for a less efficient speaker will help a lot.

 

Is this something new? My 1st gen PJ has a speaker jack. I use it to run an extension cabinet sometimes, and use the speaker (and it's 1/4 inch plug) as a second speaker on my Princeton.

 

My later MIM one also has a speaker jack. It inserts vertically into the bottom of the chassis.

 

I have a 5W tube amp that can go really quiet. However when you play it low and use a distortion pedal YOU DO GET good distortion and it sounds nice, but some of the dynamics are lost vs when you play it loud.

Less distortion = more dynamics

if you play with your guitar volume knob, tube amps can actually go REALLY quiet.

 

I mean, there's and entire industry built around this conceit...

 

For the "play when nobody is home but don't disturb neighbors" volume level, it's the way to go. You get to use your regular rig that way. And to my ear, a Princeton (or pro jr) on around 3 or 4, attenuated down, sounds a lot better than modeling amps.

Important factor is the speaker. I recommend a 10 inch, not too efficient and good touch sensitivity. My 1x12 cab puts me into the "worrying about neighbors" vibe.

 

yes. exactly. everyone is looking for the silver bullet. an amp just doesn't sound good unless you get the speaker moving some air and cooking a little. there's a minimum threshold for not sounding anemic, and that level is in the "maybe or maybe not piss other people off" grey zone. no low wattage tube amp or amount of dumping the power is going to get a full sound at home stereo listening levels. if you want that, then try modeling/cab sims and playing through some studio monitors. it's just the breaks.

 

Or, you can. I get great tone with a deluxe reverb like unsaid in my first post as I did with my Blues Deluxe, my Twin or most of the other amps I’ve had. I put a power soak between the amp and the speaker and I can get amazing sounds at reasonable levels.

Could a baby sleep next to me? Probably not, does my wife yell at me from the next room? Not usually, do my neighbors complain? No. Am I happy? Yes.

 

My bad. A friend had some problems with his, but maybe it was modded before. Checked mine (IV tweed model) and you can unplug the speaker cable underneath the chassis, so no problems there!

 

let me clarify. that's why i quoted "play when nobody is home but don't disturb neighbors." that's fine that your wife doesn't mind the noise, but your wife isn't going to call a landlord on you, now is she?

i've never had a complaint from a neighboring building, i don't get that loud, but i know that in order to sound good it has to be loud enough that it might disturb others in the same building you are sharing (housemates, or other apartments). if you're trying to attenuate all the way down to home stereo or loud TV levels (i.e. levels that strangers generally tolerate), it sounds terrible, like a balls-less amp with an OD riding on top. they're made to knock the amp down by a reasonable amount, not to knock the amp down by 90-95%.

I see a lot of people from the suburbs or less densely populated areas reassuring or making suggestions to others online, but what is "reasonable" is relative to your living situation. you see people all the time from more densely populated areas upset to find out that the "cranked home levels" some dude from the 'burbs told them a champ was good for is totally unusable in shared housing, or with two feet of space between your building and the neighbor's. or you see them struggling to get a good sound out of the attenuators they were recommended, because unbeknownst to the rest of us, they're turning them down to levels so low that the speaker is so under driven it can't possibly sound good.

i think if you can't get to that minimum threshold at home, it's better to have a DI solution and then have an amp that's at least 30 watts so you don't get caught with your pants down with a loud drummer at an unmic'ed gig.

 

All I’m saying is that this is your opinion, personally I don’t agree. Will my Deluxe Reverb sound the same on 5 with the attenuator in there as it does without it? No it won’t, but it still sounds great to me at very low volumes.

I don’t ave any stake in whether anyone buys a tube amp or a solid state amp or a helix with flat response monitors, hell the last way is probably the most practical thing you could do.

All that matters is being happy with what you have and being inspired to play. That means trying different **** and forming your own opinions. I’ve done that and obviously you have also. We need to remember that those opinions are just that though, they shouldn’t be presented as absolutes.