Tech

What we bought: My first tube amp… about 20 years late


I got my first piano in seventh grade. There were a few bands in high school and college. And I still play regularly. But, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I just bought my first amp tube in April last year. That’s right, I played guitar seriously for about 25 years before I went and bought what many (mostly obnoxious purists) consider the only amp worth playing.

In the end, I set my sights on a Fender Blues Jr, a simple 15 watt, 1×12 amp. Specifically, I captured a beautiful used Tweed model for $400. It was too good of a deal to pass up (even if I had to drive to New Jersey to get it).

Now, before you all panic, it’s not like I’ve never played a tube amp before. My bands often rent a rehearsal space, where I usually play through the Marshall half stack. If I remember correctly it was a JCM800, but I would be lying if I said I was interested in anything other than the fact that it was half Marshall at 18.

Fender Blues Jr
In addition to sounding great, the glow-in-the-dark vacuum tubes look great.

Terrence O’Brien / Engadget

Time for me to go out and upgrade from my tiny Yamaha practice amp, I just received the biggest thing I could afford at the time: a 2×12 120 watt Crate solid state amplifier. I needed something that could be heard through a drummer in my basement or in a small club. It did exactly what I expected: It was sharp and clean, had good pedals, and it noisy.

It’s been my only amp for years. But, at 120w, it’s not really “quiet”. Even at volume one, it was enough to irritate the neighbors. So when I had my first child, I knew I needed to get something else. Again, budget and volume matter (it turns out kids are expensive). But instead of being loud, this time I needed something with good sound at a level that wouldn’t disturb a sleeping child. So I got stuck a Yamaha THR10 are discounting.

But over the past few years, I’ve started to take music seriously again. And, especially over the past two years, I’ve rekindled my love of the guitar. Between that, and what I’ll be striving for to the restlessness of the pandemic, I started looking for ways to upgrade to an actual tube amp. I ended up settling for The Blues Jr partly because I still needed something and couldn’t get it also noisy. But I don’t need anything sublime either. I wanted the warmth and crispness of the tube at a reasonable price and without too many bells and whistles.

While it took me a while to figure out the amp’s appeal, I’m a convert. Now I mostly use my THR10 at night or if I need to be portable – say, shoot a review in my dining room. But if not, I’ll fire The Blues Jr all the time. It can produce the clear sound commonly associated with Fenders at lower volumes, and get an almost Vox-ish sound when recording. I rarely use the “Fat” switch, which boosts the middle volume, but I can find it very useful if you’re relying entirely on the internal drive and need to do it alone.

Fender Blues Jr

Terrence O’Brien / Engadget

The only real comfort you get is a spring reverb, which sounds pretty cool. Jailbreaking it creates a fair amount of noise in your signal, but it really does play a role in those dripping surf sounds.

Importantly for me, it has a master volume knob (which not all amplifiers do). That allows you to push the preamp until you start to get some interesting breakups, while keeping things off the ground for the police to get involved. But it’s also loud enough to perform, in case I decide to play music in front of other people again (very unlikely).

The biggest selling point, however, is that it’s also a pretty solid pedal platform. As a guitarist with more effects than talent, I needed something that wasn’t too muddy or loud because I started stacking multiple lags and fluff reverbs.

Fender Blues Jr has been around since about 1995. And, although it has gone through many revisions in that time, its core ethos has remained largely unchanged. Honestly, I wish I had discovered it sooner. Because, while I loved so much tool and effect Over the years, this is the first amp I’ve been really into.

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