Post by LVF on Jul 22, 2020 20:13:19 GMT -5
This is an extension of another thread in 'The Amp Workshop' tiled 'Blues Jr Cap Barfed':
I thought maybe I’d start with the physical and component differences in these two amps but, thought the only thing I need to tell you about them is my original black blues Jr is 18 years old, been ‘Fromel’ modded with the rest of the ‘round’ caps replaced with better quality and same spec and it has the factory Eminence speaker. The tweed is, of course, stock with the factory Jensen special design speaker. Both have the same, chrome, control board style and arrangement. Both have the same reverb tank they came with. Now to the comparison.
I’ll be using my Tele ‘player’s’ edition for this test.
I dialed both amps the same to begin with. The black BJr has a definite, cleaner sound at the volume level I set which is 4, master and 4, volume for both amps along with the mid at 6, bass at 9 and treble at 8 with the reverb for both off for the initial ‘test’. The tweed at these settings had a bolder, if not darker tone and seemed to have more loudness, not at all of which was unpleasant. Just different. However, I couldn’t get as clean a sound out of the tweed as I was able to with the black BJr at any level. A result of the modifications to the black BJr? The difference in tube selection? Speakers? Maybe a combination of all these things?
Let’s move ahead to the ‘dirty’ sound. I set the master volume at 3 on both amps so as not to blast the sound when dialing in dirty on both. I found the black BJr started its break up at around seven on volume control and the tweed took around 8, 8 and a half to start the break up. The black BJr seemed to have a smoother break up the higher the level set whereas the tweed wasn’t as smooth but, both sounded good in their own right. The black seemed to have more range.
I fooled around with the tone controls as well, turning them all the way up and all the way down and an interesting thing happened when I turned the treble control all the way down on the black BJr. It completely turned the sound off on the amp. An effect of the mods? There was no effect of this on the tweed. It continued with sound with the tone controls all the way down. The black BJr seems to have more range than that of the tweed probably due also, to the mods.
Now, the reverb tanks. They are both quite different even though both are factory. Having set both at ‘4’, I was surprised to notice how thin the black BJr sounded over the tweed. The tweed at this level was more saturated with more depth and seemed to have an echo effect at the end. I found this to be very nice. In this respect the tweed has more range. Nothing wrong with the black BJr tank it’s just more subtle in comparison and sounds OK through its range. Just surprised at how good the tweed tank responded.
So, that’s about as much as I can tell you at this point on these two amps. Both are different in their sound and control operations but, I don’t think one outshines the other. I enjoyed the noise out of both amps. By the way, they both sound good when played together as well. I think I’m going to enjoy using these both together for the stereo sound and running my Boss DD500 delay pedal for the extended effect it can bring when the amps are doubled up with it. Looking forward to what I can do with recordings but, that will have to wait because I need another mic set up to get their and not all the pieces are there to make a purchase at this time.
I thought maybe I’d start with the physical and component differences in these two amps but, thought the only thing I need to tell you about them is my original black blues Jr is 18 years old, been ‘Fromel’ modded with the rest of the ‘round’ caps replaced with better quality and same spec and it has the factory Eminence speaker. The tweed is, of course, stock with the factory Jensen special design speaker. Both have the same, chrome, control board style and arrangement. Both have the same reverb tank they came with. Now to the comparison.
I’ll be using my Tele ‘player’s’ edition for this test.
I dialed both amps the same to begin with. The black BJr has a definite, cleaner sound at the volume level I set which is 4, master and 4, volume for both amps along with the mid at 6, bass at 9 and treble at 8 with the reverb for both off for the initial ‘test’. The tweed at these settings had a bolder, if not darker tone and seemed to have more loudness, not at all of which was unpleasant. Just different. However, I couldn’t get as clean a sound out of the tweed as I was able to with the black BJr at any level. A result of the modifications to the black BJr? The difference in tube selection? Speakers? Maybe a combination of all these things?
Let’s move ahead to the ‘dirty’ sound. I set the master volume at 3 on both amps so as not to blast the sound when dialing in dirty on both. I found the black BJr started its break up at around seven on volume control and the tweed took around 8, 8 and a half to start the break up. The black BJr seemed to have a smoother break up the higher the level set whereas the tweed wasn’t as smooth but, both sounded good in their own right. The black seemed to have more range.
I fooled around with the tone controls as well, turning them all the way up and all the way down and an interesting thing happened when I turned the treble control all the way down on the black BJr. It completely turned the sound off on the amp. An effect of the mods? There was no effect of this on the tweed. It continued with sound with the tone controls all the way down. The black BJr seems to have more range than that of the tweed probably due also, to the mods.
Now, the reverb tanks. They are both quite different even though both are factory. Having set both at ‘4’, I was surprised to notice how thin the black BJr sounded over the tweed. The tweed at this level was more saturated with more depth and seemed to have an echo effect at the end. I found this to be very nice. In this respect the tweed has more range. Nothing wrong with the black BJr tank it’s just more subtle in comparison and sounds OK through its range. Just surprised at how good the tweed tank responded.
So, that’s about as much as I can tell you at this point on these two amps. Both are different in their sound and control operations but, I don’t think one outshines the other. I enjoyed the noise out of both amps. By the way, they both sound good when played together as well. I think I’m going to enjoy using these both together for the stereo sound and running my Boss DD500 delay pedal for the extended effect it can bring when the amps are doubled up with it. Looking forward to what I can do with recordings but, that will have to wait because I need another mic set up to get their and not all the pieces are there to make a purchase at this time.
