Fender Blues Junior

Clean and overdrive channel. Fairly straight forward 40 watt tube amp. Hard to see the controls with the chrome panel, but I don't do very much changing when I'm playing so that's no problem for me.

I had the stock speaker changed out to a Weber California. For my taste the stock speaker was a too thin for me. I like a more of a bottom end.

I've had the amp for over a year. When I had the speaker changed the repair person let me know that one of the tubes wasn't fully functioning. Other then that no problems.

No contact with customer support.

I use a Gibson 335 Dot Reissue and Gibson Les Paul, so I'm looking for a very old style sound with a lot of bottom end. I use a Keely Mod Blues Driver pedal for overdrive. The overdrive channel requires a lot of volume to get a full overdrive sound. As I'm sure you've read, the amp is very loud. Much more then I expected, but I had played solid state amps before. The overall sound is great, just have to get the volume up a bit to get the amp "in the zone".

Straight forward. No frills. Just what I was looking for.

Using a Gibson 335 Dot Reissue and a Gibson Les Paul. Plenty loud for a jazz trio or quartet for a jazz club. Gets a great clean sound, great range from top to bottom. Reverb is very full. For overdrive I use Keely Mod Blues Driver, which the amp responds to very well. I thought I might have to switch out the stock speaker but it sounds very good.

I bought it used about 9 mos ago and haven't had any problems with it.

No contact with customer service.

I very happy with this amp. I play in situations that require both a clean and overdrive sound and this amp can handle both quite well. I bought this amp because my Blues Deluxe Reissue was too loud for smaller club situations. I would recommend this amp for anyone wanting a very nice tube amp sound.

Simple, Straightforward, and Kick-ass..Just a single channel, but I put a tube screamer in front of it for distortion. It is light and LOUD. Mine is 2006 I think..I bought it new for around $400.

I play a Les Paul BFG, and a Mexican Fender Toronado..The Junior seems to really like the P-90 on the Gibson..The fatness of the pickup and the clean channel seem to like each other. Don't even dream about getting a big overdrive out of this thing..It is a Fender after all..Just use your distortion pedal dujour and you are good to go..

Very Reliable..Over the last two years that is..

Have not had any contact with customer support at all..The 5 year warranty is nice though.

I've been playing for around 35 years..I have a Line 6 Flextone II, a '59 Gibson GA-8 amp, A SWR STRawberry Blonde Acoustic Amp, and a '67 Fender Blackface Bassman with a 2X12 Cab..If I were to add one thing to this nice little amp, (I am nitpicking here) I would want an overdrive channel..I miss my old Peavey Classic 50 sometimes. It weighed a ton though.

Don't know what he/she is smoking but it must be high powered stuff! I refer to the review (?) by Felix the Cat, below. Duuude, get a grip! LMAO!
Okay on the Blues Junior or "BJ" as they say. Features are pretty simple, decent in all respects without any of the BS, which isn't necessary anyway. The cabinet is cool, the speaker is average but nice and the controls are simple. Good sounding Reverb and I think EVERYONE who plays through this has the fat switch on all the time. I must be the last person on earth who finally bought one of these. Doesn't everyone have one? LOL...

Les Paul--->MXR Distortion 3--->Boss Metal Zone--->Blues Junior. I play blues, rock and a few lightweight Metal selections from Van Halen, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, etc. I use the metal zone for heavy crunch and keep the distortion on zero. The MXR is where I get my solo tone and I use it to boost the metal zone too. Using these pedals with the Blues Junior is a breeze and its very easy to get good tone from this amp whether you use pedals or just go straight in. With the metal zone pushed up the Blues Junior produces harmonics at a ridiculous level. On its own the amp wont take you to to metal but its called a BLUES Junior, aint it? I've never played it underwater or in a parallel universe like Felix the Cat but it sounds pretty damned good in this universe! LOL

Be nice to the amp and the amp will be nice to you.

I played on and off in the 70s and 80s. I started playing for a few bands up in the 90s and have been playing shows since then. This amp works really good miked up through the PA or even as a monitor for the stage. I own a few other amps too, that I use for bigger shows that require more power but I always bring this one and have it going nearby to where I stand on stage. This is the perfect little amp for jams, for small coffeehouses or church worship bands. Hey its my favorite amp in my collection and I would buy another one. Yo Felix, good luck with that underwater gig. LOL

Its a simple amp, just the way i like them. the master volume switch is amazing for practicing at home. volume up, master down, and this thing has decent tone at an acceptable volume. By my standards, it does everything i need it to, so it gets a 10

I hate the sound of this amp. All i can hear is mud, mud and more mud. When i buy an amp, i expect to have to tube and re-bias. when i cant hear individual notes in a chord after all that, im pissed. The cleans are very nice but that doesnt compensate for this much suckage. For the price i could have done alot better.

seems reliable enough, though the reverb sucks fat balls

hahaha. talk to fender. surely you jest.

this amp way overpriced. if i was going to have to get it super modded and get a new speaker just to make it passable, then this thing should have been selling for 15$ initially.

Made in Mexico, bought brand new. Single channel, no effect loop, no headphone jack. It has a speaker out on the back that you can use for the speaker inside or for an external cabinet if you feel so inclined. It is certainly powerful enough for anything but maybe an arena, because any place larger than a bar is going to mike your amp no matter what it is, and they only mic one speaker, so in my opinion, it's best to get a small combo like this one instead of a stack. Don't get a stack just because everyone else has one. It's just stack envy. It's also great for recording. I'm giving it a 7 in this category because it has individual preamp (marked "Volume") and power amp (marked "Master") volumes, so you can get tube breakup at lower volumes if you need to. Lord knows it's better than using a DeVille's or a Deluxe's drive channel (yuck!).

I've got a '72 Reissue Thinline Telecaster (it's got humbuckers) with 500k pots (it comes stock with 250k pots, I've no idea why) and a frankenStrat with a stacked neck pickup (sounds great). I replaced the speaker in my Blues Jr. with a Weber Ceramic Blue Dog (only $100!). It's a Greenback copy, but greenbacks nowadays are made in China, while Webers are made right here in the USA. Bottom line: it's a hair better than a greenback. The EQ knobs are a little less responsive than I'd prefer, but you can shape most any tone with this thing, despite that. With the stock speaker, this amp is sort of lackluster. I put the Weber in, though, and it has this fat clean sound, but this kind of cool compressed dirty sound when I turn the preamp up. It's very harmonically rich. I've A/B'd my amp with a stock Blues Jr. (boring), a Blues Jr. with an Eminence Texas Heat (mushy) and one with a Jensen C12Q (too mid-y). Mine is hands down the best. This is my opinion and the opinion of the guy who owned the three Blues Jrs. I A/B'd them with! The Weber speaker also makes it take pedals better.

I can and have used this amp for jazz, blues, country, rock, folk, indie, and yes, even a few types of metal. It delivers.

I think I might do a full retube from Eurotubes. You can order colder tubes, which I think would be better, because the Blues Jr. is fixed bias, and the tubes run kind of hot as it is.

So far so good. Again, it's made in Mexico, so quality control suffers a bit, but it seems to be a workhorse. I've never heard complaints from many other guys I know with Blues Jrs. I did opt to buy it new (even though I'm an avid Craigslister) so I could get the 5-year warranty.

Only time I dealt with Fender is when I asked them if replacing the speaker would void the warranty. Answer: it will not! They were helpful and speedy, so I'll give them a 10.

Pretty solid amp stock, great amp with the new speaker. I'd buy one again if it were stolen, after about a month of crying.

The price paid is the amount the amp, speaker and speaker installation cost me.

Full suite of controls for editing, selecting warp drive factors, bending light and dark matter plus a pre-wired frontal lobotomy dial to remove one's own frontal lobes. Just plug it in and enjoy the inter dimensional aspects of this all tube design. Spark it up, Sparky!

I'm using this with a plastic guitar that I originally bought for my 3-year old daughter Jenny. Once I realized that Hasbro had actually crafted an instrument in the same league as the big guitar manufacturers, I was determined to find an amp worth of the Hasbro "Guitar Hero" model guitar.
Enter the Fender Blues Junior. For starters, the Hasbro's clear nylon strings vibrate and oscillate in perfect harmony with the BJr. So much so that I dialed my pals, Malmstein, Clapton, Satriani and Vai, and said. "Boys! You have GOT to check out this amp!" They had never heard of Fender, but they all had recently replaced all of their guitars with a single Hasbro Guitar Hero! Amazing tone! Ingwie had a pink one with my little pony prints on it. Clapton's had the blue top with the bubbles, as did Stevie Vai. Satch's was custom made for him-all chrome. Fantastic!
Back to the amp: I plugged in the Hasbro and sparked up the BJr. Upon hitting the first note of Flight of the Bumblebee (1/2048th notes) my front door crashed down and hundreds of the world's most beautiful supermodels streamed through the doorway screaming in one chorus: "I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU! I WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES!! MAKE LOVE TO ME NOW!!!" Wow, I was really surprised. That's how good this amp sounds.

Just to be sure, I had the US Army drive 100 Abrahms M2A Tanks over the amp. Then each tank took turns firing either HE or Sabot rounds at it from a distance of 1 nanometer. Not a scratch on the amp! Wow! This Fender company is good, very good! I never heard of them before but hey, they're rather obscure in the amp business, ya think? I would trust this amp even if the gig was underwater-in the Marianna trench. I will take it with me when I gig in other dimensions or different planets too.

I called Joe Fender and he answered personally. That's good service. I told him that I needed to pay off the national debt so he sent me the cash. Look for the story on CNN: "Fender guitar amp owner pays off 53 trillion in US Treasury debt! Wall street reacts by sending the DOW to 100,000!" No really, this WILL happen. Joe Fender is the greatest.

As an intergalactic phase reversal device it is absolutely un-paralled. Right?

I have had this amp for just over a year now and it is the best "gear" decision I have ever made. I think the features have been covered many times over on this page , so I'll skip them and get on with it. It's dead straight forward. For me this is perfect. An entirely simple set up.

I use an American Standard Stratocater (R/W) and a 60's Classic Tele as back up. They both sound brilliant through this box, although I have never tried anything else other than the Fenders. I use it completely stock, although I see a lot of people have modded theirs. I see no reason - personally - why I should do that, as this amp sounds incredible as it is to me.

For my preference, I keep the fat switch depressed all the time and have the bass set fairly high (10-12) the treble and middle at 12 o clock, and reverb at around 3 to 4. I set the master at full and use the volume to to suit whatever venue; usually no more than 5!! I also use a Fulltone Fat Boost for solos and a Fulltone Supa Trem for extra depth when required.

I use this amp for all my gigs, period - we play bars and fuctions. Anything we get offered. During the summer we played 2 outdoor gigs and this amp was more than capable of holding its own. We miked it to PA as it was a huge affair, but the sound on stage was perfectly adequate, in fact, more than. This amp can actually be too loud in some settings, in the wrong hands of course.

I work in a semi-pro 6 peice band, playing a range of hits from the 1950's & 1960's - Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Otis and Wilson Pickett, through to The Beatles and The Stones. It suits that fine.

What I had originally wanted was a combination of great tone and portability. Well, I got it and have never looked back. I have been told that I may never ever get rid of this amp, whatever comes out!!

Up until now there has been no problems at all. But it is my first tube amp in 25 years of playing, so we'll see. I see no reason for it to fail, however. I treat it with respect and it performs perfectly.

I have never had to deal with Fender. I would just go back to the store I bought it from if I need repairs or advice.

Playing, as I said, for 25 years. Mostly Rock n Roll, blues and 60's soul. I own a Tele and a Strat, and have a hankering for a Rickenbacker 620 when the funds allow!

I would certainly buy another if it were lost or stolen.

What do I love about it? Just it's size and tone, portability. Oh, and it looks nice on stage!

Very cool little amp. 15 watts of tube power, plenty loud, nice compact size, reverb, relatively cheap. Sweet, simple.

One of Fender's best efforts. Humbuckers sound fat and meaty, single coils edgy and twangy. IMHO distortion/overdrive pedals are unnecessary. This thing has a nice growl and scream of its own. Don't strangle it with effects, let it breathe.

The footswitch stopped working. Not a big deal. No other problems in 5 years. Always take a back up to a gig.

Never dealt with them.

Have owed tons of equipment over the past 30 years. This is one amp I would replace literally the next day if it were stolen. One of the best Fender has made in a long time.

Realistically this amp is a "6" or "7" when it comes to features, it is a single channel amp with limited gain. It does not have the "bells and whistles": effects loop, headphone jack, high gain, voicing switches etc. Truth be told it does not need the "bells and whistles" and is one of all time great amps, I highly reccomend it.

Simply this is a great amp, it can compete with amps two or three times its price. I play a strat and a late '70's Ibanez. I use a "tone-bone" for the gritty stuff. The sounds that come out of this amp are sweet. It is "voiced" just right and it is not hard to get a good sound. I had heard that the stock speaker is a bit on the bland side with this in mine I installed a Celestion Vintage 30. It makes a noticable improvement with both clean and dirty tones. The Celestion has a more clear sound in the upper register, clean blues with the neck pick-up on my strat sound clean and strong, 80's metal with my Ibanez sounds convincing. I am impressed with this amp - like I said you can pay twice as much and have nowhere near the clean sound this blues junior has.

Never any problems, mine is a 2003, I bought it used in '06 and have used it quite a bit. I do not gig but I do crank it in the basement. I have heard that they can not sustain exteneded high volume usage - I have had zero problems.

Never called them