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Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 4:04 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Joined: Thu Jun 21, 2007 10:46 am
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We want to sound good, so say we all!

We haven't had a chance to hear this new crop of cheap tube amps yet. The Kustom Defender has been put off into next year, the Peavey Windsor Studio to late Aug or Sept, the Bugera 333 series has gotten stalled by the Feds in certification stage (and parent company Behringer just got slammed with a mega-millions fine for selling non-compliant products in the US for 5 years).

And frankly not the Pignose G40V nor the Peavey Valve King nor the Epiphone Valve standard & Blues Custom 30 are setting many hearts aflutter in the cheap*** ranks. They rank from just OK to good.

I might qualify the Custom 30 a bit, with tube and speaker swaps it is quite impressive--BUT--that puts you well into the $800+ range and think what glittery fish lurk in those ranks! The DRRI and the Kustom '36 Coupe come to mind, a whole nuther kettle of fish.

Methinks this lo-ball tubescence debate will have to rage well into next year. And that incorporates two whole NAMMS into the mix!


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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 12:45 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Ochiwahwah! Five minutes ago, Crate just upped the ante of cheap tube amps with their new V-series MkII line. Including a $399 street 18-watt BJ competitor. Tube Things are heating up to a boil now, baby! You could toast wieners in it!


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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 1:49 pm
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Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2007 12:49 pm
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There is a big difference between Harley-Davidson and Fender. When Harley was going down the tubes, the government bailed Harley out by putting high tariffs on all over 750cc bikes from Japan. You won't find this fact mentioned on any of the "praise Harley" television specials.


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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 2:02 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Tariffs and protection of American products and workers are what made America great from 1787 to 1995! Of course other countries like Japan have de facto protectionist schemes in place, just not officially. How many American car dealerships are in Japan? Zero? Oh, but there's no "official" prohibition of them, they just somehow never get built. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

With NAFTA, the WTO and GATT, our balance of trade is now spinning out of control, the dollar is worthless against global currencies, we've lost 3 million manufacturing jobs, the average wage-earner's net salary has dropped, and we're suffering the largest deficit in our history.

Back to the subject at hand, Fender just dropped a retaliatory bomb on the competition with the new Vibro Champ and Super Champs cheap and good tube amps! Challenge met and expectations exceeded!


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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 4:17 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Maruuk, I just went through a long search for an inexpensive all-tube amp that would deliver great tone at low volumes, with the ability to get lout also. I'm pretty sure I was reading comments from you about it too during my search that ended with a Blues Junior. Bottom line, who wants a Carvin that can sound pretty close to a Fender and has a reverb tank that conks out all the time? Quality of assembly's good but the reverb thing is a design problem. Same price as the Blues Junior and not as good. Then you look at the Crate Palominos, and Peaveys and and they are getting slammed a lot in the message boards for not keeping the quality together once they moved assembly out to the far east, and they don't have Fender's warranty at all. Surveying the universe about quality amps, the Blues Junior is always in the thick of it, really a lot more than the big brother Hotrod deluxe that I was considering because the Hotrod Dx is getting a lot of quality complaints but it's really a design that's more fragile, not assembly. Epiphone does have some amps they're getting together but not better. Surveying everything and then talking with the music stores and here, the Blues Junior's the best choice.


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Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 5:27 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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I'd say it's a GOOD choice, but not the only one. For instance, the new Super Champ XD has the same 15 watts as the BJ, a lot more tonal and efx options, and at least to me, the far superior 6V6s. And it's not only 100 bucks cheaper, it has a line out for recording or PA volume enhancement.

Then there's the oft-neglected Blues Deluxe Reissue, which many including me feel is a better choice over the HRD, and hasn't got the QC issues.

Fender in competition with itself. You can't beat that with a Rogers #10 drumstick!


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Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 9:47 am
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Aspiring Musician
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They're hybrids listed as solid state on the website. That's going to bring pluses and minuses. The modeling's a good feature and some of the other stuff that comes with solid state components are good as well like the line out for phones and so forth. Personally, I was ready to get to all tube and that's what I went for and I do love the Blues Junior. I was playing it last night and it's just a great little amp that fits me perfectly where I am as a musician and what I'm into. I don't model because I know exactly what I want after all these years of playing. However, I do think that a lot of people (many younger than me) are going to prefer these new hybrids with the extra features and tube output at a lower cost and will go for them in a big way. Personally, I'm getting great tone from my Blues Junior and when it is time to change tubes the options are great because the Blues Junior is such a cult. After I make my first 10 million though I'm going to get one of those awesome black piano finish Custom Shop '57 amps. It looks so good, even my wife will be able to deal with it near the end of never when I get there.


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Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:49 am
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Aspiring Musician
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No question the Bill M mods, tube swaps (I went with JJs and they sound nice) and speaker options (I've got a Celestion Rocket 50 in mine) give you a lot of customization headroom.

The issue on whether the new amps are true hybrid remains open, pending whether they use the 12AX7 in the pre-amp gain stage or not. A true hybrid would have a pure solid-state preamp stage. If the 12AX7 is used as a phase inverter like the old Music Man hybrids, then true hybrid they are. Otherwise they'd more correctly be termed a modified hybrid. Kind of like the Saturn Vue simple hybrids!


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Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 3:15 pm
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Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2007 4:07 pm
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Location: Hobart IN
You can also buy used but a new hotrod delux is not much over $ 500 if you do some bargining I got my 60th mex made blues deluxe for just over $600 and with trade of a used 212r it was just over $400. The guy down the road just bought a hot rod delux for 399 from a outlet store it was a demo and it sounds great. I,m not rich and the differance in the price of a 400-500 dollar amp to getting a 599 dollar hot rod delux isnt that much just do some dealing you dont have to pay floor price just wheel and deal.


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Posted: Mon Oct 15, 2007 11:50 am
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Aspiring Musician
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I'd say gigging players considering bigger, much heavier, more costly amps such as the HRDs now have a really interesting alternative in the SCXDs. Neither the BJs nor the HRDs nor even the BDRIs have a line out. You see a lot of players having to go through the annoying hassle of miking their amps and routing it through their PA to get a good balanced projection in the room.

With a SCXD, you just run a guitar cord over to your PA. Bingo. Need more bottom? Add a little 12" spkr cab below it. The times they are a changin.


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Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 3:51 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Sometimes you win just for showing up! Latest ETA on the Peavey Windsor is January, the Kustom Defender is off the charts--sometime in '08--and the Bugera 333 series is having trouble getting a UL cert so no telling when or if it'll ever show up Stateside. I don't even count the L6 Bugera-Spider Valve which starts at $700 and has no firm delivery date.

The winner of the lo-cost tubular war is obviously Fender if it can actually bring the sub-$300 XD series to market as early as they claim, which is currently "in November". Hope that Chinese container ship doesn't run into any typhoons!
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Godspeed Xin Los Angeles!!!


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