Fender Pro Junior

Very simple, tube amp. One input , volume, and tone. 15watts, 10 inch eminance speaker. Might be nice if it had reverb, but that might take away from it's simplicity. Sometimes less Is more! I like classic rock styles, blues, love Neil Young's electric thing. This amp is so cool. It can do the above quite well. Does NY very well with the help of an overdrive/booster , and a reverb peddle.This amp was purchased new. Made Mexico 2005.

I use a mid 80's Japanese strat. Nice axe. Three single coil pickups. Not noiseless. Going straight into this amp, sounds nice . Very nice clean tone with volume under 5. At 5 and beyond it starts to saturate into a nice classic rock/blues tone. Use the guitar volume to control the drive, if you will. Dial up the tone pots on the guitar, and you can get that fender chime. Run the guitar through some kind of overdrive , boost unit and wow this thing sounds fantastic. Don't get me wrong, I love the amp with the guitar plugged straight in, great classic tones and all, but when I'm in the mood, some overdrive/boost works. As far as the hum issue mentioned in previous comments, yes there is a hum plugged in or not, volume up or not, its there. The suggestion to back out the screw on the back behind the volume pot to get rid of the hum! IT WORKS! This thing is loud! Holds up no problem and then some with full drum kit in my basement. I think you could gig with it in the right situation. Certainly a small club, coffee house type place.

Had this amp a few months , no problems so far.

Have never had to deal with Fender. Dealer I got it from are good guys, i'm confident they would help me if needed.

Playing 30 years , with the exception of a few years not, when the kids were very young. Have a couple of acoustics, Martin, Yamaha. The electric is a mid 80's Japanese Fender Strat, called a Contemproary Strat. Very nice through this Pro Junior. I've been through 4 different amps prior to the Fender PJ. I feel alot of people buy way too much amp for their needs, or more amp then they can use. For the average guy who loves to play, and likes more classic/blues type tone, and really very good tone I might add, this Fender PJ is perfect.You can crank this amp up and let it do what it's supposed to . Compared PJ to the Blues junior. Same 15watts but to my ears PJ wins hands down. Less dials to fiddle with, just plug in, turn it on and turn it up! Easy to carry around. Looks cool.

Volume and tone controls, simple and all you need.

I have had my Pro Jr for 2 years now. I still love this little beast. Great cleans and then crank that volume knob for some excellent overdriven crunch. I mainly play humbuckers and P 90's. My settings are volume on 9, tone on 7 and use the guitars volume knob for boost along with a Blues Driver for additional boost. This amp loves any type of pedals!

If you want even more amazing cleans, use an Aphex guitarXciter. Wonderful pedal!

I got no buzz from the middle screw only the traditional class a hummmm. Please remove the stock tubes asap. My preamp tubes were buzzing within the first week. Electro Harmonix pre amp tubes seemed to be very quiet.

I use this amp all the time. My daughter spilled a glass of water on it and I feared the worst. I used a hair dryer to dry it out and waited for 5 days before I turned it on and..........it was fine!!

No need yet, 5 year warranty is great.

I am 50 years old and have been playing since I was a kid. This is a great little amp. I have never plugged it into a 2x12 or 4x12 but I bet it would sound great.

For only $299 this is a great value in my opinion.

15w valve amplifier with a 10 inch fender speaker, 2 preamp valves and 2 power amp valves. Volume and tone controls. Simple. On it's own you will only be able to get clean sounds to rock sounds but no metal sounds. Enough features for me though.

This amp has loads of volume, it sounds more like 30w than 15w. When volume is below 5 you get a great clean sound ideal for jazz and country and maybe clean punk. Put the volume past 5 to start to drive the valves and go into blues and rock areas, it's warm and crunchy. This is the perfect rock tone for me. As there is only one tone knob you can't get much but it does a good job by itself giving you toneless tones to trebley ones. Sounds valvey.

Still got same tubes after a year and it still sounds fine.

A great rock amp, isn't very versitile but for me and everyone like me it's a 10. Also a great price. I've used a distortion pedal on this and you can get metal easily out of it that way

My Pro Junior is a cream colored maroon grill cloth style.I used to own a cream colored Fender Twin Amp and this gives me the look I miss!I just bought the amp from Musicians Friend and so it must be 2005.1 input,i volume,1tone all you need.Reverb and delay can come from other pedals and really make this amp shine!I use this amp for open mic blues jams and will use exclusively for playing out with my electrics.

I use a 1991 left handed Gibson Les Paul Standard and a SX Stratocaster style guitar.Both of these guitars sound fabulous through the Pro Junior!This amp is a blues amp and can be turned down for a sweet volume of jazz as well.It does hiss at louder volumes but if you are going to turn it up expect that.I was told to turn down some at my last blues jam and my amp was sitting next to a Fender Blues DeVille!We used the amp for harmonica with a Ruskin mic and I played the Les Paul later for the guitar jam.Wow!The amp accomodated both instruments beautifully!A good seeting for me is Volume 5-6 tone 5.After 6 look out!Plenty of blues crunch!

This amp is very well made.Mexican made but I looked in the chassis and it looked every bit or better than a vintage Fender tweed.Especially reliable since it is new and not vintage which can require a lot of maintenace.I would probably have another amp around anyway when playing out but this Pro Junior looks like it could take many hours of play.

Fender is big.I'm sure you can reqach them but have not needed them at this time.My vintage amps are serviced locally by other companies.
The 5 year warranty sounds good.

35+ years on the guitar off and on.Lessons back in the day and progression from pop,to rock,southern rock,and total blues these days.I have a 1965 Fender Vibro Champ amp,Fender Frontman 25R,and a small Orange Crush 10.One for recording, one for back-up,and the Orange for fun!I do use a few pedals.I really like the Digitech RP50 with some tweed and early british plexi settings. Also get some nice reverb types and nice delays.Also have a MXR Phase 90, original CryBaby Wah Wah,vintage reissue ProCo Rat for added boost to leads,
and a MXR Noise Gate if I want the hiss to stop.The Pro Junior is the amp to play and work with.I did change the Fender EL84's with some JJTeslaEL84 tubes.Way better sound.The Fender Sovetek 12AX7's work for now.The Fender eminence vintage ceramic speaker is nice.I'm sure you could swap out toWeber or Jensen but I like what is coming out of the amp right now.
I read reviews and had to try this amp.I did consider a Blues Junior but this Pro Junior has that 1950's circuit sound, easy to move, cool looks, and absolutely enough blues power.Through the years I've owned these Fender Amps.1966 Princeton Reverb,1969 Deluxe Reverb,1967 Bassman piggy-back,1962 Twin Amp,1972 Vibro Champ,1995 tweed Blues Deluxe,1994 tweed Pro Junior, and a 1962 tweed Champ.I like Fender.I grew up with Fender.This Pro Junior is the amp I want for my sound!

I Love the Amp!! I wanted that nice 'warm' tube sound, but didn't have a lot of money to spend, and didn't want that crunchy cold 80s solid state sound.

THE MAIN REASON I AM LEAVING FEEDBACK ON HERE ABOUT THE AMP IS THE BUZZ PROBLEM.
I also bought the amp, brought it home, and noticed the 'annoying buzz'. I bought it a year ago, but it did it from day one.

What the guy posted at the top about backing the middle screw out a little bit REALLY WORKS!!!!! No joke!! I was just getting ready to take it in for repairs since I am getting ready for recording with it.

OVERALL, you SHOULD buy this amp!! It's clean and warm. Leave the effects to the pedals, just go with a clean tube feel.

Even after the buzz problem, I still think this amp is great for the money. Heck, bring a phillips head screwdriver to the store and back the middle screw out until the buzz is gone if you hear one. It really works!!!

I didn't want to remove the screw completely, but you don't have to remove it. Just turn it until it's out a little bit. I agree though with a previous post!!! Hopefully Fender knows about the screw issue and how it relates to the buzzing. It would solve a lot of return issues I'm sure.

My amp is a 1995 USA blonde. It has one channel, no effects, purely a tone machine. its got a volume knob, and a tone knob. to get distortion you have to turn up the volume. if you want clean, then simply turn down the volume.

I mainly play rock, alternative, blues, jazz, and church music. It suits my style perfectly. the distortion sounds awesome!!! clean sounds very nice, (fender clearn, what can I say?) the distortion is very full, not some cheap thin distortion. I LOVE IT!!!
its a 15 watt... but clearly it sounds much larger than that!!! trust me!

Very reliable. atleast mine is! the 90s pro junior were made in the US. so pretty darn reliable. NO PROBLEMS YET!

never had to deal with them.

WORTH THE MONEY! SMALL AND COMPACT, EASY TO CARRY AROUND!!! PURE TUBE SOUND!! AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!!! I'm SERIOUS!!!!

This is a 15 watt, all tube, one channel, two knob combo built in 2002. I feel, like a lot of other reviewers, that this amps simplicity and tone potential are its major strong points... and being that it is class A and quite loud (but not SUPER loud) it is GREAT for hitting that "sweet spot" between clean and crunch and using picking dynamics and the guitars volume knob (and a couple of tube-screamers at time too) to EXPRESS your soul! I use this amp on open mike nights at local coffee houses and I use this amp when I jam with my band in clubs... so for what I do it is extremely versatile... for some one who is a gain God... your gonna need some pedals... this is pure warm tube clean or od in the same setting (its all in the way you hit the strings!)

I use a 1994 MIM Stratocaster with Fender Noiseless PU's and this amp LOVES that guitar... I play styles ranging from reggae and funk, to blues and jazz, to classic rock... Hendrix style! This amp is not noisey at all and sounds great on any setting of the volume knob. I put in some new el84's that have a "late" distortion when I got it so I can turn my amp up to about 8 before it is just dirty, not "sweet spot" clean while soft picking as mentioned above. After 8, it still sounds great but that's what I have tube-screamers for to push the amp into 9-12 territory when I need to... set up in the right way, a tube-screamer or two puts me into that Hendrix controled feedback type of lead tone... it is amazing! The amp was noticable louder with the new tubes and being that I've had it for a couple of years I think that everything has "broken in" really well. This thing is a tone machine especially for the price! I like it way more than both the Blues Jr. I used to have and my buddies HRDx which is WAY WAY too loud at the clean/od "sweet spot"! I will say that the HRDx does sound really good, its just way to loud for me... and the Blues Jr. was good too but mine had a HORRIBLY loud reverb hiss. That being said, I think the Pro Jr. is a GREAT amp for any skill level and most any volume level... club owners and sound guys LOVE it when I walk through the door with this 'lil beauty! Not many clubs that I know let you get your power tubes cooking with a larger watt amp and thats what it is all about- hitting the "sweet spot" at an appropriate volume level.

No problems here. It shipped with shitty power tubes but after I swaped them out, everything has been great... the pre tubes are all stock... the speaker is stock... it has ALWAYS been there for me... that being said, I never gig without extra tubes! But tubes are not a reliability issue- they are a maintainence issue.

Don't know? Five year warrenty I guess?

I'm 27 years old and have been playing for 11 years... if this were lost I would definately grab another one. I love everything about this amp... that being said, go out and try one and bring YOUR guitar and if you like it buy one... it is important not to buy these on just reviews... go try it! Another thing to remember, if you play a floor model, it is probably gonna be "broken in" more than the one in the box. When mine came out of the box, it did not sound as nice as it does now... it does get better with age but the fundamental tone is exactly the same. So give it some time to settle in (4-5 months) if you get one brand new. After that, happy playing!

Made in Corona Ca, love the simplicity of 2 knobs, thats why I bought it, reverb would probably suck tone if it were there, I give it a high rating because it has the features I am looking for, as few as possible.

Sounds killer through my '97 USA Strat with Custom Shop '69 pickups, as well as my '92 Danny Gatton Telecaster with Joe Bardens. Super loud for such a small cabinet, starts breaking up at about 4.5 volume, really doesn't need reverb but if thats what you want get a Blues Junior. I use it for dirty/clean blues and thats where it really shines. Plenty of grind, if I need slightly more I will run my Barber LTD low gain overdrive or my Tonebone classic through it. Have had none of the above problems mentioned yet. Tried my EH Holy Grail reverb with it and did not like the sound, although the EH reverb sounds great through my Fender Custom Shop Blues Breaker.

No problems yet, and I bought it used.

NA

Playing 27 years, besides the above mentiones guitars I also have a 2002 Gibson ES-335, a 1977 Ibanez ES-175 copy, 2001 Fender Custom Shop Blues Breaker with British made Celestion Vintage 30's and an Ampeg SS150 combo (sweet solid state amp). Traded my Epiphone Galaxy 10 amp for this one, the Epi has more features but suffers in good tone. Have owned the Blues Junior and was not happy with its tone, but this little monster has tone to die for. Strongly reccomend getting this if you have a Real ear for tone.

This is an update to the review below about the broken pot shaft and knobs. Took it to the dealer (Joe's Music, Eastpointe, Michigan); I assumed the repair would be covered under warranty for defective parts. Rob the amp tech said he seriously doubted Fender would cover it as it came under the "broken" category, but if I wanted he would try to make a case and suggested I call Fender and do the same. Bother. Alternative number one was that he could charge me half the bench rate plus parts for the repair (a good deal), OR.. he could replace the pots and the plastic input jack with metal parts, all nutted to the chassis and hardwired to the PCB. They would guarantee the work, and the Fender warranty would still apply to any other non-related problems. I got the amp back 2 hours and $75 later. Good solid work, I'm a happy guy. This is how the amp should have been built in the first place! Now I'm keeping it. Many thanks to Rob and Joe!

I think mine is a Mexican made one from about 2002.
I've had it about a year and 4 months, and I think I'm the 2nd owner.
I mostly play blues and jangly folk-rock sounding stuff for
singing accompaniment.
And mostly at home. So it has more than enough power,
but I like the fact that if I do want to take it to a jam,
it has the power to keep up.
At first, I missed the extra controls, but now, I like the simplicity.
Less knobs to get bumped off the proper setting.
I wish it had come with better tubes, but if it had more features,
it would be more expensive. It's kind of a Volks-amp!
I see the simplicity as being a feature in itself, so I'll give it
an...

I have 2 MIM Standard Strats. One maplenecker with a DiMarzio Virtual
Vintage DP402 neck pickup(loud!) and a Duncan JB Jr. at the bridge, stock middle at the moment, and Hendrix mod.
The other has a rosewood board and has an older iteration of the 57-62
pickups in the neck and bridge positions, and an HS-3 in the middle.
I also have an early '90s Hamer Slammer superstratoid with a normal
Strat bridge, a DiMarzio VirtuAL 2 middle pup in the neck position,
an old Bill Lawrence (real Bill!) split rail in the middle and a stock
humbucker at the bridge.
All three guitars sound great through the Pro Jr. and it suits my blues lead and jangly folk-rock style very well.

When I got the amp used, it had <both> the dreaded hum, AND the
rattle. The hum was solved by a JJ ECC82 in one of the preamp
positions. I use an Electro Harmonix 12AX7, usually in the first
position. If I put the higher gain Electroharmonix first,
I get a more bluesy tone, if I put the JJ ECC82 first, I get
a crisper more country tone. I have tried 2 JJs in the preamp,
but I found the sound too "hi-fi" for my taste.

The rattle was harder to track down!
I tweaked the power tube retainer bracket and springs,
tried removing them, stuffed aluminum rod from a hobby shop in
the springs, still there!
I bought new Sovtek EL84s, still there!
(ironically, the production date on these was a year older
than the stock Sovtek power tubes)
It wasn't until I changed the power tubes to JJ EL84s that it went
away! (and the tone is better too!)
Later I was reading in a Lord Valve newsletter that Sovtek
EL84s from that era (2001-2002 if I remember correctly)
have an inherent flaw that causes plate rattle!
When I go to the local Fender Dealer, I try guitars through
the (brand new) Pro Junior, of course- AND IT HAS THE SAME RATTLE!
DITCH THE SOVTEK EL84s! AND FENDER SHOULD TOO!
A friend has tried EI (Serbian) EL84 tubes in his PJ and likes them too.

BTW, I checked for the top middle screw phenomenon mentioned elsewhere
in the reviews, but mine already had the top middle screw amputated to prevent it. Just out of curiosity, I put a longer screw in,
and sure enough HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

I recently tried different speakers, and I have to agree
the stock speaker (Eminence?) is very blah.
So far I have tried a Celestion 10 (relabeled Fender 60w, probably a v10) in an external cabinet, and love the tone, but it is not
that responsive. Really growls nice on power chords or boogie rhythms,
though. It also drops the volume of the amp a bit, so I can turn
up the volume and let the tubes work harder for better tone.
I recently swapped the Jensen reissue from my Behringer
Vintager into the Pro Jr., and it is <very> responsive, but just
a little metallic. I'm thinking of buying an Eminence Ragin Cajun
(Patriot series) since it mentions it being very touch sensitive and
responsive, hopefully w/o the metallic quality.
With the Celestion, I can turn the volume up, and above 7, it
doesn't really raise the volume, but really changes the nature
of the sound... this is really the amps overdrive setting,
which I really don't get to use much, so I tend to use various
OD pedals on clean boost. I have used a Boss BD-2 Blues Driver,
a Boss SD-1, stock and with 2 changed capacitors, and a Johnson
TOD-9, also with 2 changed capacitors.
I also tried a Tubeworks (actually Butler with the funny button)
Tube Driver through it at a store, and it gave it a wonderful
dark bluesy sound.
At least in stock condition, it <did not> like Ibanez Tubescreamers,
maybe because it's pairing a midrangey amp with a midrangey pedal.
Stock, this amp is a bit blah, and probably buzzy due to the Sovteks.
You can get a great variety of sounds with tube and speaker swaps,
though. Since it is not a 10 as it comes from the factory,
I will give it an ....

So far I have never had a problem with it,
EXCEPT the hum and tube rattles.

Oh yeah, before I sold my 2 humbucker guitar,
the stock speaker made a short nasty noise for a little bit.
I wouldn't expect the stock speaker to survive very long with
humbuckers.
Because of the noisy Sovteks, and the cheap speaker,
I give it a...

I bought it used, so I have not dealt with them.
One of the reasons I bought it though is because
it is such a common amp, and so there is quite a bit
of support in that respect from other users, and the
amp is well known to amp techs and tube gurus.

I've been playing guitar since 1966. Most of that was acoustic,
although I did have a Fender Mustang and Pro Reverb amp in high school. I had about a 6 year break from playing guitar due to a
finger injury, then realized I could still play nylon string guitars
and electrics strung with lighter gauge strings. I have
been playing electric blues for about 5 years now.
If it were lost or stolen, I would very likely get another one,
although I might replace it with a silverface Champ, which
gets great overdrive, but at lower volumes than the Pro Junior.
I love the PJ's great bang for the buck, the simplicity, the light weight(I have a bad back).
I have a love/hate relationship with how LOUD IT IS!
Not a good choice for late night practicing, so I have
held onto my Behringer GM-110 Vintager for that.
The Behringer also edged out the PJ for the church praise team
gig I did for 2 years cause I didn't have a suitable mic for the PJ
and the church was so small, and the Behringer has a DI out which
made setup easy.
BTW, the Pro Jr. and the Vintager sound excellent together
in stereo chorus with the Vintager on Tweed setting!
For a gig capable tube amp, in it's $200 to $300 dollar price
range, there is really no competition except it's brother
the Blues Junior(used about $300)... oh yeah, maybe a Pignose, but a used one I tried had some scarey problems! I would also consider
a Tech 21 Trademark 10 or 30 as a supplement to the Pro Junior,
and the Trademark 30 as a backup.
If you like the Pro Jr, but want more features, try a Zinky Blue
Velvet- Bruce Zinky designed both amps!(He worked for Fender a while)
The Blue Velvet also has better low volume overdrive,
but is of course quite a bit more expensive
As some have said, the Pro Jr. is a one-trick pony but oh what a trick! Actually that's not totally true, with tube and speaker swaps,
it can do lots of tricks, just not at the push of a button.
I could see keeping a half dozen small speaker cabinets (1x10,1x12,
or 2x10) loaded with different speakers to give it different flavors.
Or a 2nd Pro Jr. with a totally different set of tubes and a different
speaker, and a pan pedal or A/B box connecting them.
Even though I haven't given it higher than an 8 in any category,
this amp is somehow greater than the sum of it's parts,
and so I will give it a ...