NAD! - Fender pro Junior with G10

[Music&Chaos]

Thanks to a member of RT for helping reach a deal on such a sweet little amp!

Also - Thanks to RT for also making things easier in general:

Wife was like "You are going to meet a stranger this late? That worries me...."

Me: "It's a guy off of RT, he's been an active member for like 10 years."

Wife: "Oh OK. That gives me relief - not like some random guy off of eBay or Marketplace or something."

Moving on.

This thing is really powerful for its size. I see how people could push and use these to gig. This is not quite so new to me since I have a Rivera head and have played multiple Rivera combos - which are super loud for their size.The greenback is my kind of speaker most of the time and it does not disappoint here at all. The 10" speaker holds up really well. I am a direct to the amp guy most of the time - so this is right up my alley. I am not joking when I tell you I turned it on and within a minute was like "This sounds like it has JJs." This is primarily due to my hours and hours of testing with my Rivera and some other little US amps. I have found that I really dig JJs in UK flavored amps, but not so much in American. Something to do with their EQ curve. The way they accent certain mids, cloud up other areas and then the way they present top end is very specific. Again, I like them in a number of amps, but vintage styled Fender ones just don't jive to my ear, at least not if they are fully stocked with them.

I dug through my little box of glass and put in a couple of 12AX7 RCA Long Blackplates. This is it. That's what the amp needed to really open in all parts of the EQ. The amp was already loud but now - this thing shakes glass!!! You don't have to have it cranked to have sweet spots be present in the EQ, the Tone knob presents a better shape/range, and everything from bass, to mids, to highs, are all more present, clear, and full.


I see online some people were complaining that with a GB speaker the tone knob was not bringing out the specific treble frequencies desired, even when turned all the way up. Of course, people run EQ pedals and all that, but I just like to directly plug into an amp and play 99% of the time. Nothing else is needed with the RCAs in there - sounds like these were made for this amp.


This little guy will be my new go to 'grab-n-go' amp.

 

[311boogieman]

Cool Story for sure Bro - thanks for sharing and enjoy. I think the closest I ever got to playing something like that was the Blues Jr?

 

[Music&Chaos]

Cool Story for sure Bro - thanks for sharing and enjoy. I think the closest I ever got to playing something like that was the Blues Jr?

Those have a lot more shaping options on hand than this one. Here, we only have a Vol & tone. When you crank it, it gets a wonderful, almost fuzz like quality to it that is a lot of fun to play and it feels good under the fingers. The opposite of what my younger self would have been into - crazy simple. I have been stuck on my custom P90 set but will be plugging in my strat later today. I expect good things.

 

[311boogieman]

Those have a lot more shaping options on hand than this one. Here, we only have a Vol & tone. When you crank it, it gets a wonderful, almost fuzz like quality to it that is a lot of fun to play and it feels good under the fingers. The opposite of what my younger self would have been into - crazy simple. I have been stuck on my custom P90 set but will be plugging in my strat later today. I expect good things.

Sounds like it might be somewhat similar to my 1 watt Blackheart Killer Ant. It has only a Vol knob

But it has a fizzy fuzzy Marshally goodness

 

[Anje]

Congrats, love those Pro Junior.
Used to gig a few, that was an idea shamelessly stolen from Jeff beck.

 

[Music&Chaos]

Sounds like it might be somewhat similar to my 1 watt Blackheart Killer Ant. It has only a Vol knob

But it has a fizzy fuzzy Marshally goodness

That sounds like fun. This one doesn't get that fizzy nature to it like a tweed or something when it is cranked - this is more round and sounds more natural. It has a certain type of cmpression from the push and the bottom end stays pretty tight with the Blackplates in there but it has a nature like when you have a fuzz lightly on and biased or soemthing. Not quite spitty but damn it sounds good - and the noise floor is surprisingly low on this one after swapping in thsoe blackplates.

Part of the pushed nature is due to the output tubes of it being JJs. They can do nice things in the outputs of some amps for sure. I went ahead and swapped in some old Shaguang I had on hand and they present much more presence and clarity than the set that was in the amp.

I also have some sweet Apex Matched JJs I will be testing out and deciding which of the 3 output sets I prefer for the amp when cranked.

Small amps are their own little tone boxes - and can be quite fun.