Moving to a Tube Amp

I GIG with a Blues Junior III, or a Vox Pathfinder 15R (solid state) with a 12" speaker.....either one is plenty loud for playing out. You might consider, for home use, a Vox AC4.....I think they are usually an 8" speaker, but some have a 10" or even a 12". (anyone who knows please correct me)
To me, speaker size DOES make a difference, and I usually prefer a 12". Let us know what you choose.....

 

Does the Waza have any sonic differences or is it just built better?

 

I think it's a good plan. I had the NOS Blues Jr. and really liked it.

 

A Blues Junior is a "good-enough" amp for a lot of things. I have 2.

A Princeton Reverb though, is awesome. Be sure to try one (or several) before deciding.

 

It does switch down to 2 watts but I don't bother I use two Club 40s in the spare room and living room is the 20 watt and a Hughes and Kettner Tubemiester 36. Neighbors are fine with it

 

I currently have the Blues Junior III, Pro Junior IV, and Bassbreaker 007; all are small Fender tube amps using EL84 power tubes, and for home use flexibility, the 007 is the winner by a considerable margin, in my opinion. It’s also rated at 7 watts instead of the other two which are 15.

 

I have a Blues Jr. and a Traynor YVR20.They're both 15 watt amps. Is there a 5 or 10 watt amp with spring reverb out there?

 

The Blues Jr sounds fine at talking volume and the reverb is fairly nice to boot. For the price, they’re fine if you like the Fender sound.

However, I really do like the AC30 Custom Head with the built-in attenuator. I wish they put the attenuator in the AC15! An AC30 was overkill for my requirements.

 

I would get the Blues Junior.

I gig a Blues Junior (mic'd) in smaller bars. You have master & pregain, a real spring reverb, a good 12" speaker all at 31 pounds. They fit on the floor in the back seat of a car (easy to move around - easy to live with). A Blues Junior weighs 31 pounds. With the master volume they are great at home and if you jam with a band they are loud enough to get you over a drummer in clean volume.

Blues Juniors can be very warm or you can get a classic rock crunch that is great. An AC15 weighs about 50 pounds; when you want to put an AC15 in a car it's like lifting furniture and they're harsh. I sold my AC15 and bought an AC10C1 that I like much better than the 15.

I've always thought of the Blues Junior a very nice no-nonsense utilitarian tube amp. They sound nice at home or with a band and they're reliable and easy to move. I have a small board at our practice space with a Tube Screamer and a RAT clone and a tremolo and delay. I can do anything that I need to do with my Blues Junior and those simple pedals.

My BJ on the left. The little engine that could.....and does (frequently) and it's great at home.



BJ!

 

There's the Supro 1605R which has a spring reverb in it. No direct experience, only slobbering over Youtube videos. Not cheap.

 

You have a perfectly fine plan. You may want to change the speaker on the BJ, the stock one is pretty harsh. There are 100 different amps to pick from, but for your purpose the BJ is a fine choice. It is versatile, inexpensive (you can always find a used one for $400 or less), light weight and portable, and sounds good.

 

Yeah see IMO if you live with people who require your electric guitar never be loud enough to impede their TV watching then IMO you need to get a new set of people!

Seriously!

WRT neighbors, noise laws generally allow loud noise from 10am to 10pm, though of course zoning prevents opening a factory or live music venue that would be that loud for eight hours at a stretch.
So I play fairly loud no more than maybe an hour a day, and may also pick up a guitar and play unplugged or play through a quiet amp at times as well.

I do make sure the windows are closed in the room with the loud amps, which is a PITA come summer. Winter I generally play more loud more often, since house lots are 50 feet wide. But we have Harley's going by, drunk beach going tourists at 2am, lawn mower and leaf blower toting yard crews all day long, fire engine and police sirens etc etc etc.

The crazy obsessive idea that electric guitar must not be loud is IMO a crazy obsessive idea. Not a clear reality.

Back to who we live with, sure a kid who took up guitar without their parents consent must never be loud. But an hour a day of not badly played electric guitar is no worse than a kid learning drums, or for that matter the first five years of a kid learning violin/ clarinet/ sax/ trumpet etc.

Society likes music, and our families need to accept that living with musicians includes short periods of loud music making.

GOT IT???

 

While many of us use a dirt pedal into an already dirty amp, my suggestion would be for home playing to choose a dirt pedal not designed to sound like a basic dirty tube amp, when you are already going to be using a dirty tube amp.

I'd choose a dirt pedal that makes sounds your amp doesn't have built in.

Either a Muff, a true fuzz pedal, or some kind of high gain/ Marshall style distortion.

OTOH if your home playing will be practicing switching between clean rhythm and distorted lead then maybe you do need to run the amp clean and stomp a pedal to get SS distortion, rather than dialing in actual distorted tube amp sounds.

Course, if you need that then maybe you should consider another 15w amp that has two channels.
The clean pedal platform is one approach, where you use dirt pedals for dirty sounds.
If you're going that route though, maybe you want a clean pedal platform amp like a PRRI or a DRRI.

When I'm using an amp that has no lower volume dirt built in I use pedals for dirt (or turn up!).

But tube amps that have built in actual distorted tube amp sounds, IMO get better tube amp distortion sound than if you run them clean and use a SS pedal for the distortion.

 

I have a Blues Jr, a Princeton reverb and a Monoprice 15watt combo.

For the money the MP is the best amp.
For what I like to play through at home, PR.
If I didn't have a BJ before I bought the MP, I wouldn't have bought the BJ. The MP does everything the BJ does IMO, and has a 1 watt switch, which is nice.

 

I put a BJ Tweed and a Marshall AC 15 side to side and played a Tele Elite through both. I thought the BJ possessed a superior deeper sounding clean channel. Ended up with BJ IV. I will say the AC15 reverb was pretty good.
Just my opinion. I went to the store almost convinced I’d be buying the Marshall. Even my friend, who’s a Marshall guy felt the Fender was “me”.
Set ‘em side by side and play ‘em. Then decide.

 

Great run down. Actually I was impressed by the tone I got at lower volumes and, among other reasons, convinced me to buy it. It was either that or a TK Falcon for another $1200.

 

That would be roughly equivalent in volume to the Blues Junior. Did you understand and consider all the posts regarding output level and home use?

If so, it would really help if you explained your "home use" situation. You're getting widely varied recommendations because nobody has any idea what kind of sounds you want to get out of the amp - i.e. you want to "move to a tube amp" but the amps you're considering need to be cranked up to a high volume level to get output stage saturation/distortion...even full, round clean tones.

What style(s) do you play? Where will the amp be used (in a a music room, garage, basement, living room, ???)? Do you live with other people and do you need to be considerate of their needs? Do you live in a house with distant...or close...neighbors? Or an apartment or condo with adjacent walls?

These details will all help those experienced with tube amps help you. Right now we're all just throwing darts in the dark.

 

I also think the BJ is meh, but I wasn't going to say so. If that's what you want, go ahead. But many of us feel that there is something lacking. I played in band with a guy who had one, and said my ProJr sounded better, and it did, though unsuitable for home use. At home the Bj will do much better.