Blues Junior Shootout
A lot of people ask what the difference between the Tolex Fender Blues Junior and the Tweed NOS Fender Blues Junior is. The only difference is that the Tweed edition has a better speaker. How much better? Well judge for yourselves, but I think the difference is quite big. The amp settings are identical on both amps, and both amps are unmodified (so far).
Volume: 3.5 | Treble: 12 | Bass: 12 | Middle: 12 | Master: 12 | Reverb: 0 | Fat Switch: Off
Blues Junior Shootout from Anthony Stauffer on Vimeo.
July 28th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
The tweed, to my ears, sounds rounder/smoother/cleaner, more traditional-Fender IMO. Now.. as applicable as any of those words might be in trying to identify a minute difference in tone, who knows.
Question: do you gig with the Blues Junior or do you use a larger amp?
admin reply on July 28th, 2008 3:32 pm:
I happen to agree with you on this. I much prefer the rounder, smoother tone of the Jensen speaker in the Tweed. I find that notes have much more character through this one.
I have used this amp at every gig I’ve played since I bought it. That includes a couple small club gigs, as well as some pretty large outdoor festival gigs. All of those gigs included hefty sound systems, so the amp size was plenty. I actually try and keep my stage volume lower to make it easier to hear the rest of the band, so I have yet to max this thing out during a gig.
July 28th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Excellent demo of the differences - a lot of folks don’t believe it, but here’s the proof…
I sold my tolex and kept the tweed ltd edition NOS for this veru reason.
Rock on Anthony
July 28th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Hello,
Nice introductory video for your new site! Did you design the page? Excellent! I have a BJ with some of the BillM mods. Tone stack, power stiffening, cooler bias, quality plug jack, and twin stack. The mods were done by John Fromel in Seattle, he is an ace custom electronics/effects guy. He has done a lot of mods on the BJ for the Seattle guitar playing crowd. While I was there he fixed my VibroVerb reissue. After I had the Black Tolex BJ mods done the original speaker tone was great. I think as you add the mods the speaker becomes less and less of an issue. The thing screams tone. I will still try a few different speakers in it though and see what happens. I would also like to hear this comparison again with the amps or one of the amps with the mods done.
I miss the organic blooming feedback my original 1966 Vibrolux Reverb generates when I use the BJ, maybe I can get it with a pedal in front of the BJ. Any ideas?
Well thanks! Bravo for this new site!
Kind Regards,
Steve
admin reply on July 29th, 2008 11:53 pm:
Hi Steve,
I threw together this template real quick, it will get more fancy as traffic grows. My tolex will be getting the Bill M treatment after I do a few more comparison benchmarking videos. I’ve never played a Vibrolux, so I’m not sure how the Blues Junior compares.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
Hi Anthony, great idea to start a site devoted just to the tone aspects. I’ve been considering whether to start a site to publish my thoughts/notes/analysis/mods for the blues jr, not sure yet… it’s a lot of work, as you well know, and it takes time away from something I need to do more — play!
I have a string question… I’m trying different sets of strings out, and wondered if you had a favorite type of string that you felt gave the best srv-blues type of tone. I’ve tried slinkys, D’Addario, Dean Markley (hendrix nps) so far on my american strat, and so far the dean markley hendrix’s have impressed me. I just put a set of blue steel’s on, and not sure if I like the tone or not… it’s definitely different, very “steely”. I have a set of DR Pure Blues to try next, and was going to get a set of GHS Boomers to try.
admin reply on July 28th, 2008 11:16 pm:
Hi there,
I have tried the GHS Boomers, and GHS Lowtunes, and both sounded very dull to me. However, since I am using the Tweed Blues Junior which has a more “tame” high end compared to the tolex, I prefer a brighter string to compensate. Therefore my current strings of choice are D’addario EXL series. Was using 12-58 but those are a little hard to mangle unless I’m playing every day. I love the bright, crisp tone they have though when paired with this amp.
Jasper reply on July 29th, 2008 10:06 am:
Hey I use the same series d’adario, but with light bottom/top heavy(Gauges 10-13-17-30-42-52). Those are real nice with a chunky low end.
Greetings,
Jasper
Jason reply on July 31st, 2008 6:14 pm:
I love the warmth of the EXL series. I’ve been using the 115s (11-49) for a long time now and am very happy with those. I’ve been meaning to try the 116s (11-52) for a while and will slap on a set with my next setup. You can’t go wrong with D’Addario, in my opinion.
Jason O
Chuck Woodall reply on September 13th, 2008 12:31 am:
Have you tried the Weber speakers? I have them in my old BF Champ and they have a really great warm blues tone that slightly breaks up as you play aggressive. Very similiar to the Tweed BJ NOS tone. Since you are talking up the BJ NOS, I must now find another one to try out. The last one from Musicians Friend died its first day at my home and I was only on vol 3 when the heiocopters took off and crashing noise started. Had to return it. But while it first played it sounded really good, esp on Fat. Know where to get the best deal on a Tweed BJ NOS?
Kevin Strommen reply on December 6th, 2008 1:27 am:
I was using .009s and they were too light…I then tried .010, too heavy to bend. I finally found D’Addario XL Super Light Plus (.0095 - .044) They are perfect and a good compromise…right in the middle. They sound great and last longer than average!
July 30th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Thinking out loud: Hey Anthony, do you by any chance have any TS9’s or TS808’s laying around your house? An A/B video like this between those as well as that Nobels ODR-S pedal you like would be greatly helpful towards spotting any differences.
But I’ll be satisfied with whatever you decide to put up here, the above thought is just me being greedy
August 1st, 2008 at 1:14 am
Steve,
I’d be interested in some day seeing a review on a modded Hot Rod Deville AMP.
I’ve seen lots of recommendations and positive feedback regarding Jim Price and his Omega AMP modifications on Harmony Central and various other forums.
If you haven’t already, check em out.
http://www.omegaamps.com/mods2.html
http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar+Amp/product/Omega+Amps/Hot+Rod+DeVille+212+Mod/10/1
August 1st, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I listened to this four times and to be honest I prefer the Tolex. The Tweed actually sounds a little muffled compared to the Tolex.
Kyle reply on November 3rd, 2008 5:54 pm:
I thouht so too, untill I went to Guitar Center and played the 2 side by side… The tweed is 10 times better. I WISH I had seen this video before I bought my Tolex. The tweed is only about $50 more.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Hey Anthony! Awesome site, awesome comparative video. I have a Blues Jr. with a Jensen C12N and also a Mojotone Blues Jr. tweed cab! The combination of the speaker change and cab change really removed the boxiness and opened the amp up. The Mojotone is slightly larger, and also is solid pine, finger jointed with a birch ply baffle board.
You’ve got a great site here, keep up the good work. (and playing!).
I’d like to see a video of different tone settings for the Blues Junior, similar to the one with the tolex and tweed models.
Thanks again!
Mike
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:52 am
Anthony… What a great idea and a great way to introduce this neat site! I’m a Fender guy from way back and have used a Tolex BJ for about ten years now for practice and gigs. As you know it’s a great little rig and I love it’s tone, volume and portability. I ran a HUGE pedal board with stereo out to 2 x Fender Twins years ago and slowly paired it down to just a BJ, FAT footswitch, and a STAMPS drive-O-matic… I play an 84 Tele Elite but have owned Strats, LPs, Explorers, SGs and so on.
I’m pretty inspired and at the same time astonished by the subtilet differences of the two models having only speaker differences. The tweed certainly has the clearity to deliver that ‘chimy’ nature of the classic Strat/Fender blues sound/tone. I love it! It’s not my personal style/tone, but I do love it and appreciate the bell like texture the tweed/Strat combo delivered. Very sweet!
Having said that, I can certainly understand where others will ‘hear’ a more ‘pleasing’ tone from the Tolex… That’s just personal taste speaking and it’s not a matter of ‘better’ or ‘worse’ just differences in taste, ear, and tonal ‘goal’ if you will… Both are awesome little amps with great tone but different voicing, IMHO…
Looking forward to watching the site develop! Thanks for all this…
-Jerry
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:09 am
Great site / idea. One question, have the amps been played about the same amount of time thus we can assume that the speakers have been “broken in” equally?
August 8th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I swapped out the standard Eminence speaker in the Tolex BJ for a Jensen C12n as in the Tweed BJ; the difference is much greater than comes across in the video. The Jensen is much more dynamic and responsive and the tone is so much rewarding. One tip I would suggest to all BJ owners whatever speaker you have - that is to make sure that the 4 screws that hold the speaker chassis to the inside of the cab are screwed up nice and tight. They loosen with use and if subject to changes in temperature. If they are loose you will suffer from a dull flabby sound.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Guess I arrived on the BJ scene to late, as usual!
I tried to order a NOS version and the dealers here in Canada all said they could no longer order the BJ nos version. Ratzzz!
So a Tolex BJ is on its way, and I will be swapping out the speaker myself, most probably for a Eminence Swamp Thang. Been listening to sound clips from many different speakers and that one sounds the rightest to me for my style of music preference.
Price wise doing the speaker swap myself comes out to just about the same as having initially bought the NOS version.
Most speaker manufacturers provide some sound clips of their speakers for you to audition. The sound clip comparison page for the Swamp Thang by Eminence I found here http://www.eminence.com/soundclips.asp
Great idea for a new blog site!
I really liked your other steviesnacks site and have a couple of your HiDef bundles!
Looking forward to your new tone articles!
- Peter -
September 11th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Hey Anthony big fan here nice chops. I have to say I think the tolex has more bottom to it. I thought i was diggin the tweed and then I came home from work and listened again and for sure I liked the tolex. Nice comparison. Thanks
September 27th, 2008 at 6:54 am
Good idea to do a side by side comparison between the two. I own the Blues Jr. tolex version and absolutely love it. I’ve never played the tweed version before, but after listening to them side by side in this video, my vote goes for the tolex. It just sounds cleaner and more chimey to my ears. The tweed sounded like it lacks something that the tolex has.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I like this site, we want some new stock… Please!!!
October 19th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Site was a great idea, with a cool interface to boot!
Guess it is now dusty and forgotten after only the first posting way back on July 27.
I can sympathize though, I can never seem to find time to maintain my own sites.
Will keep an eye out for future postings.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:58 am
Anthony… I love the layout! Compact, topical, easy to navigate. This comparo is certainly presented very well… one could only express the difference in a quick back-to-back format like this. Honestly, the Tolex sounded great until you popped over, and then really showed the deep, clean advantage you get with the Tweed amp. Great job; I look forward to your pedal video!
Could one achieve this result, however, by swapping speakers between the two amps?
December 6th, 2008 at 1:11 am
This was a great comparison between both Blues Jrs. I have a tolex and just replaced the tubes with EL84s, 12AX7, 12AX7, and 12AT7. I play my PRS CE24 through it. Our band leader plays the NOS Tweed and plays an American made Tele. Both sound different, but sound awesome. We’ve done comparisons as well…this website however, really allows you to compare amps as you switch back and forth. I always felt that amps sound different to different ears…plus the guitar, the EQ and effects will change the sound as well.
Thank you Anthony…by the way, how about do the same with a NOS Tweed and a VOX AC15?
December 8th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Very very cool. Keep up the good work. This is hands down the best comparisons I have seen anywhere ever! It would be interesting to hear a Celestion G12H30 in a Blues Jr. It seems like that is what some of the boutique amp makers are using - like 65 Amps.
December 26th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Got myself the Blues Jr. after listening to Anthony
and I found the red edition with a celestion in it,
Do not need any mods!! Tone, tone, tone!!!!!!!!!!!!
Play it stereo with a Lonestar Special and get killer sound.