Fender Pro Junior

New, 2006 Fender Pro Junior, made in Mexico. No real features to speak of, volume & tone controls only & 1 input; 1x10 speaker, 15 watts...all tube, 2-power, 2 preamp. I have the blonde version.

I use this amp for blues harp. I also own it's big-brother, '59 Fender Bassman Reissue, but needed something smaller & more portable for practice sessions and smaller jams & gigs. Read some great stuff about the pro jr. for harp, so I purchased one.

As harp-players know, you can't play this out-of-the-box...will feedback at like 1.5! Need to replace both preamp AX7 tubes with lower gain AU7 tubes. I used RCA NOS in the preamp, and you also need to make sure the power-tubes (they come with sovtek/fender EL84's) are as low-gain as possible. When I tried the JJ EL84's (which I thought would be am upgrade), they sounded thinner & terrible. Usually not a big sovtek fan for harp, but in this amp they sounded much better!

Anyhow, even with these tube mods, the amp will feedback around 6 (depending on my mic). I usually set the tone control on about 2.

The PROBLEM with this amp is this volume-level feedback threshold happens BEFORE you can reach the nice crunchy pre-amp overload sound that us harp-types are usually striving for!! The tone is just too thin on this amp & the amp is way-too hot for harp. It's even much hotter than my big bassman reissue!! The feedback ia an extra bitch to deal with. In order to obtain the deep, thick, gritty, chicago-blues, overdriven sound I was looking for (and expecting) I had to add
an attenuator (I use the THD 8ohm 'hot-plate"). This allows me to get the tube-overdriven sound I want without feedback, and without having to blast the volume to room-shattering levels (the amp is a VERY loud 15 watts!).

So good news, I finally achieved my sound from the Pro Junior, bad news; it took too much time, effort, and extra cost to do so (amp $250, tubes $40, attenuator $230...total cost = $520!). Not such an inexpensive little harp-amp after all!

Brand new, so no problems yet. Pretty solid though, except for the plastic inputs. Should come with tube--guards too!

N/A

Very disappointing amp for harp use! I do NOT recommend it!

Maybe the older ones are better...otherwise; I have no clue how this amp ever got such a good reputation for harp use! Just way too hot and thin-sounding for harp. In my opinion, it's totally a guitarist amp, harp players needing a small amp would do much better with a an old Fender Champ, Silvertone, Premier, Masco, or something else that will actually CRUNCH without so much assistance!

Word to the wise...!

Blonde Pro Junior. Bought new mail order in Dec. 2005. On/Off switch, really cheap plastic input jack. volume and tone control. Any amp needs more than a single tone control!

This thing has a really crappy speaker and has no tone what so ever!!! You had better really like the tone this thing produces because thats all there is! It has a really nasty 60 cycle HUM which is most likely the tube heater. Yes I have changed tubes (twice) they sound ok in my friends Blues Junior so I know it is the amp itself. Yes I removed the middle screw (it didn't help). I purchased a Boss E.Q. pedal, and changed the speaker to an Eminence Rajun Cajun which makes the tone tolerable. I guess that since I had to spend $200 on an EQ pedal a decent speaker and new tubes I should have just spent the money on a better sounding amp.
I have listened to other pro juniors they all seem to have the HUM.

This thing is damn noisey!!!!!!! The tubes don't sit well in the incredibly cheap tube sockets! It has not broken yet but I am constantly wiggling the tubes around to get rid of the additional noise so I can just have the obnoxious HUM

I have beeen playing for 37 years .I currently have a great Fender Blues Deluxe. Have owned Marshall Roland Several other Fenders, Music Man, Crate, Peavey. I gave a Fender Frontman25 to my niece when I bought this one. The front man sounded much better. I might trade her for this one. DON'T let anyone ever tell you that a tube amp is the end all. Many of them sound great, but you need to listen and make your own judgement. This one is a tube amp and it sounds bad!!! I use it for practice but is is very uninspiring. If it was stolen I would kiss the ass of the thief. I would be able to find him to thank him by just listening for the loud HUM and lackluster tone

2005 Black Tolex Fender Pro Junior. Made in Mexico. 15 big tube watts. One volume control. One tone control. One channel. Two Sovtek 12AX7WCs (high gain) and a pair of Sovtek EL84s. That's it! This amp is just about as simple as it gets. As a bit of an audiophile, I was attracted to the simplicity of the Pro Junior.

I like that fact that this amp is simple, but c'mon, giving this amp a 9 or 10 in terms of features is silly. There is no versatility here.

Several people below stated that this amp has a very good "out-of-the-box" sound. WOW! I couldn't disagree more. The Fender Pro Junior has the worst out-of-the-box sound I've ever heard. Unbelievably harsh and fatiguing. In fact, I seriously thought about returning the amp.

I previously owned a Fender Frontman 25R amp. 25 watts, solid-state, distortion channel, reverb, three-band EQ, and a 10" speaker. I modified my Frontman with an Eminence Ragin' Cajun 10" to great effect. I traded the Frontman 25R in for the Pro Junior and kept the Ragin' Cajun speaker.

Back to the Pro Junior. 24 hours after I bought the Pro Junior, it was still sounding like crap. I installed the 10" Ragin' Cajun and the sound improved noticeably. It was still harsh, however. I suspected the stock Sovtek tubes. I have never heard a Sovtek tube I liked. I ordered a replacement set of JJ tubes from the Oregon-based eurotubes.com.

I can't believe the difference the JJ tubes made in the Pro Junior. Trust me, YOU MUST REPLACE THE TUBES IN THE PRO JUNIOR ASAP!! The stock Sovteks are truly the worst tubes I have ever heard. Where the stock Sovteks are harsh and gritty, the JJs are smooth, warm, and clean. You don't have to be an audiophile to hear the difference. The Sovtek pre-amp tubes also rattled whenever I played a certain note on the guitar.

The stock Pro Junior gets a 3 in terms of sound quality and the upgraded Pro Junior with JJ tubes gets a 10. I know that's quite a disparity, but in this case those numbers are justified. Again, you MUST replace the Sovteks if you're at all interested in sound quality.

Both the stock Sovtek and the High-gain JJ pre-amp tubes hum a bit. I have tried the amp with a lower-gain preamp tubes and it didn't hum as much. Still, I'm willing to live with a bit of hum because I prefer the sound of the high-gain tubes.

A note about biasing: many of the guys over at the Fender forum have said that the Pro Junior doesn't need to be re-biased when replacing the Sovteks power tubes with JJs. Eurotubes.com suggests the same thing. I have not re-biased my amp and I haven't suffered any problems with the JJ EL84s.

I cannot recommend the Pro Junior to potential buyers who do not intend on immediately replacing the tubes and speaker. Buy the solid-state Frontman 25R instead.

I have to take a few points off in this area. The volume knob on my amp is a little loose. It's not a big deal now but it probably will be at some point.

Otherwise, the amp seems to built reasonably well.

The Fender Pro Junior is a great value with upgraded tubes and speaker. The Pro Junior tube set from eurotubes.com is $36 + shipping. The Eminence Ragin' Cajun 10" speaker was $45 + shipping from avatarspeakers.com.

I have been playing guitar since the late-80s. I owned a Vox AC30 in the mid-90s and then switched to solid-state gear. For many years, I used the Morley JD10 direct recording pre-amp. The Pro Junior is the first tube amp I've owned since the Vox. Actually, the upgraded Pro Junior reminds me the Vox because both have the same tube compliment. I hope the Pro Junior doesn't cost as much in terms of maintenance fees per year.

Black Tolex version. Bought new. Hard to rate the features other than to say I love the simplicity. Volume and tone controls. 10" speaker. Two preamp tubes, 2 el84 power tubes. In a compact little frame, small cabinet. No frills but lots of action. Currently has stock tubes and speaker still in it. Loud and girthy for its size. I use it with an Sm57 in front of it for live use. But you don't need very much in the PA of a small to medium size club. This things got some umph to it. Volume goes to 12, starts to break up on me around 4 or 5, gets into some reall nice OD at 6-8, after this the volume doesn't increase much, but the distortion starts to really affect the signal. Some people have dismissed this area as unusable, but I kind of like it. The tone knob is really interesting. Sure it doesn't give you a whole lot of eq options, but if you like the basic tone of the amp, which I do, then the tone knob is great. Any position is usable: 0 is just a high cut, but it doesn't woof out. It just gets a darker musical tubey sound (best i could do on the sound description). Pegged, it just allows the highs to come through, but it doesn't get too brittle (a little though) and still retains its full character. Weighs 20 measly pounds and is like a cute little compact pit bull.

I play a mid eighties MIJ strat with Lace Sensor Silvers in the neck and middle. This amp really works well with this set-up. These pick-ups can really lack luster with some amps, but they love the PJ. Very responsive all of a sudden. They seem to run hotter with this baby but still retain their (relatively) noiseless, smooth character. And its like it was made for a strat. I used to love the 2nd pickup position between the neck and middle, but rarely have played through an amp that doesn't muddy this setting up. But its got classic strat character through this one. Some call this "chimey" I guess. Something like that. Anyway, I play a sort of weird blues-soul tinged dirty punkish rock. This amp is great. The small cabinet is great for what i do. Old school. I amtrying to foster a sort of old raunchy tube-driven sound and this has helped me define that. The breakup is so pretty. Smooth, really, really warm. And I personally love the fuzz that kicks in aroung 9 on the volume. I have been using a combination of eq pedals and a RAT and some various and sundry other OD/distortion units. But I am phasing them all out because the Pro Junior's natural distortion is a beefy sound that no pedal (at least in my price range) could emulate. I roll off the guitar volume when I need to clean it up a bit. I don't play too much clean in the context of my band, so I don't have an issue with the one channel. If you need clean, then I suppose you'd need to use a pedal to give you some gain when you need it. That being said, the clean sounds real nice. Warm. I keep using that word. But it is. And the amp seems to take to pedals well. I put an 808-modded TS9 tubescreamer in front of it and it was lovely. This pedal did not react well with the amp I had been using mostly prior to my PJ purchase, Peavey Classic 30. But it actually makes these tubes scream. The only pedal that I use that doesn't work well is my silly Digitech reverb pedal. Really exposes the digital imitation reverb quality. Gotta get something better ... The biggest revelation with the PJ is that I finally feel "Real Tube Warmth". Even with my 30 watt peavey, for all my practical uses, it was too loud to push past 4 or 5 and it had so much headroom that I couldn't really get any natural tube push and had to rely on pedals for overdrive. And it was never satisfactory. Not with the Pro Junior. You can really get these tubes hot and it sounds great. Finally. And it really augments my playing. Lots of sustain and harmonic character. Very musical.

So, its still got the stock guts. I'm planning on buying some JJ el84s because everyone seems to like these in the pro junior, but I really like the sound she has all-stock. We'll see.

Also, gigged with it for the first time last night. Sound guy was very appreciative. He said he loved how it sounded and loved being able to have control over the output in the house. So if you are concerned about the gig-ability of the pro junior, my take is, jump right in. Just a touch of PA in the house and its on. No monitor signal necessary. This baby is loud onstage. Of course I am running it at around 9 on the volume.

There is some hiss. Hence, one point off til I can get that resolved.

Bought it last week so I don't know. But relatively cheap construction aside, it is so simple that it might be possible to trouble shoot most issues by one's self. Unless the PC Board fries or something

Been playing for 20 25 years, since i was a kid. I would buy this amp again. Matter of fact i got my eye set on buying another one, run em stereo. Have only had it for a short time but I really love it. Compared to my Classic 30, it just is better. The Classic 30 has a nice clean, but it is brittle compared to the PJ's. And the Classic 30's OD channel is for shit, thin and lacking in beef for my taste. PJ has the best OD I've heard from a non-boutique amp. And it is so very portable. I gig in NYC regularly and the ease of tote is wonderful. Not to mention it seems to make sound guys (and girls) happy. And I prefer to make soundpeople happy. Know what I'm sayin? So, great for practice, great for gigs. It's really inspiring. I'm getting the sweats everytime I plug in now. Really likes Strats all you strat folk!

This is a black tolex version. It has volume and tone controls, an on-off switch, and the ability to connect to a different speaker cabinet, which I take advantage of. I would give the amp a "10" for features if it didn't have the tone control (i.e., less is more). The sheer simplicity of this amp is its beauty. The Pro Jr. has no reverb, but I've heard it said that "reverb is for cowards," so perhaps its omission is a blessing.

I use a '52 Reissue Tele and a Les Paul Standard with this amp, it sounds wonderful with both. The amp changes its complexion dramatically as its volume increases. Up to about 4, it delivers a pleasing clarity and fullness; the notes stand out easily. The amp starts to break up after 4, and by 5.5--particularly with the Les Paul and its humbuckers--the amp is distoring nicely. Nothing cheesy or synthetic: just honest tube-amp distortion. No guitar pedal can fabricate a sound like the Pro Junior produces when it's running hot and you're driving humbuckers through it.

From 5.5 to 12 on the volume scale, the amp breaks up even more, producing a Neil Youngish sound that coats the notes in bristling distortion. Very nice.

My only beef is that, even at 15 watts, the amp is too loud. I would love to summon the quality of natural break-up at 5.5 at half the volume. In the interest of achieving this effect, I bought a Weber MASS attenuator, but unfortunately, this device robbed the amp of some valuable tone (the MASS sits between the amp and the speaker, which is why I appreciated being able to easily disconnect the speaker from the amp).

So, I was disappointed that the MASS didn't deliver toneful natural distortion at reasonable volume. But, when I sent the line-out of the MASS into the clean channel of my Mesa Boogie Mark IV combo(essentially turning the Pro Jr. into a pre-amp) I got what I sought: reams of snarling, devil-made distortion and buckets of fist-pumping tone. Whatever tone the MASS removes from the loop, the Boogie injects back and then some. I have never heard a nastier-sounding rig; it's almost frightening.

This setup works best with humbuckers, and you can forget playing anything even remotely "clean." This Pro Jr.-MASS-Boogie combination is a one-trick pony that does its one thing exceptionally well. Practical for gigging? Two amps and a Weber MASS? Perhpas not, and it's certainly not practical if you want to do anything other than ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I had to replace the tubes right away because they were causing some noise and intermittent drop outs. I put in some Mesa tubes, and they tightened up the sound appreciably. I've not gigged much with the amp, but so far it's been reliable. Do I think it's as reliable as my Mesa Boogie? No. I KNOW the Boogie is going to work all the time. I don't have quite the same confidence in the Pro Jr. But so far, no major problems.

I've been playing since 1973, and I've owned a Marshall stack, a Fender Twin, a Garnet combo, a Peavy, and a Sears Symphonic that I bought for about $15 and still wish I had. I would without question buy another Pro Jr. were it stolen. Or maybe I'd just steal one from someone else. Whatever. The point is that it's an incredibly low-priced amp for its sound quality and build. In fact, it's likely one of the best guitar-amp values on the market.

I chose this amp because it was recommended by a professional guitarist who also produces bands and runs a studio. He's got two Pro Jr.s, and they do get used on rock 'n' roll albums with tremendously good results.

Volume and tone! What more could you possibly need? Well... not much in my humble opinion. I bought this amp because i didnt want some Marshall DFX piece of **** with flangers and phasers and delay... i wanted this amp for the simple fact that it is a simple amp with a great tone.

This amp sounds exactly how i want it to sound... it's clean and brilliant and when you turn it up it gets lovely and distorted and leaves a warm feeling.

After reading several reviews of people complaining about the hum and the rattle, one of the FIRST things i did was take out that damn screw! I wasnt going to give it a seconds thought.

I plugged in my Fender Jag, turned it up to about 5 and preceeded to wait for the sound to leak through. Man is it loud!

BRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNG

SO much louder than i thought it was going to be. I was almost certain it wasnt going to be loud enough but this thing is seriously loud for the size it is!

Perfect.

I've not had it long and i've not changed the tubes like everyone keeps going on about. It seems built nice and sturdy and weighs alot more than i thought it would.

I've not dealt with fender yet.

I've only played my Fender Jag through this and i'm really interested to hear what an old Telecaster might sound through it. I previously used a Marshall VS232. Which is some sort of "valve-state" amp with built in chorus and reverb... after messing around with the internals of that and putting it back together and it NOT working, i used that as a fine example to get a much better valve amp.

I'm so glad i did.

I would absolutly replace this if it were stolen or if i lost it.

2006
one channel no standby switch
suprisingly loud
i give it a 10 because i think if you added features it would take away from what this is- just plug in and play

sounds awesome out of the box
rock
the dirtiest tube amp i have heard from fender- why can't they make one like this at 30 watts
clean is ok but i love it when it satrts to push the tubes at like 3.5-sounds worse with effects
better with duncan pickups than with fender noiseless.

no problems yet

never had to deal with them

i want to get another one of these and run two at once
please fender make a 30-35 watt version, with a 12!!!!!

Volume & tone. The volume knob will control your distortion. I give it an 8 because the volume knob can take you from clean to distorted without much volume change.

Playing a nice stratocaster -
This is the best sounding amp I've ever owned! And in my 30 years of playing - I've owned a lot (all vintage handwired Marshalls & Fenders). Since I was a teenager I been trying to get that feeling in my gut that I felt listening to Jimi or Stevie. Power Tubes distorting just the right way. Printed circuit board, solid-state rectifier, cheap speaker...... I don't care! This amp is a powerhouse. I've spent thousand of dollar trying to get this tone, but for the past 10 or 15 year it was down the street for $300.
It's small, but, it's loud. Plenty loud enough to play bars. If your only playing blues/rock, It's all you need. IF you need to be pretty clean on some tunes you may need another higher wattage amp with it - and an ABY switch.
This amp also responds to pedals better than any other amp I've owned. I'm not a effects junkie at all. 95% of my playing I'm bypassing all effects. Whith this amp, your volume knob on your guitar alone is enough to take you from a Chuck beery rhythem to a Hendrix lead. But, if you can get your hands on some nice vitage pedals - Vox Wah & Fuzz Face - and add a clean boost pedal, your now in a place where many strive to be, but few arive - Jimi/StevieLand. This is a much better place to end up in than Neverland - where you may be melested by Mr. Jackson.
If you like the sounds of Jimi, Stevie, Page, Clapton, Buddy Guy..... and your using single coil pickups you need to buy this amp!

Two chicken head knobs. FOur tubes. Could not be simpler. No reverb - the one feature I wish it had. But then it wouldn't be a Pro Jr.
Don't know when this one was made. 2000?

I play a wide array of classic rock, alt-country and like styles through a variety of guitars, including a hollowbody Heritage 575, Epiphone Sheraton, Korean Gretsch Clone Shine 909, Fender 72 reissue Tele, Faded Les Paul. I bought this after learning that a lot of my favorite rock records were recorded using small, stripped down tube amps (Led Zep I etc.)
The Junior will break up nicely if you turn it up past about 6, but that's dang loud in a small room. You think 15 watts isn't a lot of power? Crank this thing. I use various OD and distortion boxes to get more crunch at sane volumes. This is mainly a practice amp, but i have gigged with it using a Shure SM57 and it's performed like a Champ.

Prior to swapping out the stock tubes, my Pro had a loud enough HUM! to be annoying, particularly when miked through a PA.

Here's the whole point of this review: The people who say this amp performs a lot better, and more quietly, if you swap out the stock Fender tubes and replace them with Electro Harmonix tubes are right. I just did it. The $%^&* Hum! is almost entirely gone. The tone, always good, is improved. The natural breakup/distortion seems to kick in nicely at a lower volume. I also took out the screw in the back plate that goes in just below the volume pot. Not sure if that was a problem, but removing it hurt nothing. I bought replacement E-H tubes (plus a spare 12AX7) for $43 at tubedepot.com. This simple move saved me hundreds I might have spent on some boutique low watt tube amp. Do Not buy groove tubes at Guitar Center. You'll pay double the price of the EH's and if you check out the comments on GT's you'll see that a lot of folks weren't happy they did.

Bought it used. Never contacted Fender. Swapped the tubes myself. It was easy.

This is a solid, good sounding practice amp for someone playing blues, classic rock, country or other styles where a clean tube tone is appropriate. Mike this to a decent PA, and get a couple of stomp boxes for effects, and this amp will handle a small club gig just fine. I'd love to own a boutique low watt amp, but this fits my needs and budget. If it were stolen, I'd probably get another.

10" speaker combo, power switch, power LED, vol, tone, input, speaker jack for any 8 ohm cabinet, tubes, 15 watts, tone

Thyese amps are NOT class A

CAn't beat eh bang for the buck with this amp. I now have two of them. I often run through a 2x12 open backed extension cabinet with celestio vintage 30s and the amp sounds great like this.

Just enough clean and great crunch when turned up. Cuts through the mix nicely in a band situation. Add an overdrive for extra saturation.

I just bought another one and it works fine. My original has seen a lot of gigs and I have not had a problem yet. Probably need to retube it soon.

Never delt with Fender

I have played a ton of amps including marshall, germino, matchless, carvin, dr z, numerous fenders and I keep coming back to this amp for live work. It allows me to turn up enough to work the power tubes without blowing people out of their seats.