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Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 10:40 am
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shimmilou wrote:
bluesky636, which speaker came with your BD?


Ummm, a 12" one. :lol:

"Fender Special Design" by Eminance.

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Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 10:53 am
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Oh no! :o Mine is only 11.85 inch! Dang it! :lol: Is that the same one that I have, the "Gold Label Reissue". Just trying to keep track of the similarities/differences between the BD and HD, thanks. :)

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Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 12:38 pm
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shimmilou wrote:
Oh no! :o Mine is only 11.85 inch! Dang it! :lol: Is that the same one that I have, the "Gold Label Reissue". Just trying to keep track of the similarities/differences between the BD and HD, thanks. :)


I have no idea. I haven't looked at my amp's backside for some time. :lol:

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Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 1:07 pm
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+1 to Shimmilou and Blue, as I said my BDRI matches perfectly with my '52 Tele ! An I try the '57 deluxe, it really better in the sens that the notes are more airly and the speaker less agressive in my opinion. 8)
I just wanted to share on what I like my BDRI.

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Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 3:41 pm
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shimmilou wrote:
That was quite a big transition, going from "Overall, though, I really like this amp" (BDRI), then to "unacceptable hiss/hum...terribly over-boomy bass ", after reading some negative opinions about the BDRI. :?:


Good eye, shimmilou !!
Believe me, it felt like an odd, radical transition for me, too. I think the difference must have been the store environment: certainly the background cacaphony was a factor (ranging from cheesy "background" music, and extending to 2 or 3 teen-shoppers/teen-plus-salespersons whanging out roof-lifting riffs and power chords all 'round me, with that same "cheese" filling the gaps.) The amp's mid- & treble-tones came through, but there was far too much noise there to hear the sensitivity/response balance from string to string, especially when fingerpicking an noise-buried (with melted cheese :wink:) elaborate pattern with my ear focused on "acoustic-replica" reproduction of those mids & highs.

Likely the electrical system -- A/C power -- variations were a factor, too, in the hum & hiss departments. The humm/hiss elements weren't noticeable on the sales floor; they were overwhelming in the quiet of my home. Sure, they varied a lot at home (regardless of whether plugged-in cable, cable+guitar, or just amp), depending on which power strip or wall outlet I plugged into, and depending on how close the amp or cable came to any of our laptop computers. But regardless of the setup, those electronic distractions were totally unacceptable in my home.

So, too, with the BDRI's overwhelmingly boomy bass response: at home, with plenty of time to try a bazillion different settings, and a chance to "shade" my test-playing many different ways, it was impossible to ignore the consistent bass-range dominance. It was always there, relative to the upper 6 strings -- always a significant offset, as if I'd strung my guitar "up" with low-A as a 6th string, and was playing any notes below that on a nearby electric bass. Not only was that bass-boom bigger and rounder than the other notes -- it was also louder. Truly, I was beginning to wonder about my 6th-string pickups, and my bass-picking thumb became seriously suspect.

(Remember, too, that I was playing the first quality Fender amp that I'd plugged my 335 into in maybe 25 years, so that "classic" Fender sound was a big ear-pleaser in the store, and my initial smile-response to "the Sound" likely caused my cheek-dimples to partially block my critical ears.)

Back at the store, set up in GC's quiet acoustic guitar room, the Fender's hum & hiss were quite noticeable, though not as bad as the worst at home. As noted above, it was also uniform across the the BDRI amps in stock -- and was unacceptable. (Bass-boom was the same, back in the store. I was watching for it, and made a point of not overlooking whether or not it was still overwhelming ... which it was.)

Regardless of the apparent problems, that "Fender Sound" was still there, in all locations. The more I played with the BDRI, though, I realized that the price of "the best Fender sound" was the amp's inability to step outside of that same Fender Sound. Try as I might (location, setting, different sweater, whatever) that Fender sounded Just Like A Real Fender. Nothing more, nothing less. If you're gonna get trapped in one-only "Sound" playing my kind of guitars and music, that "Classic Fender" sound is likely the best cell to do your time in. So except for the annoyingly-boomy bass, if you can live with "... oh, all tube amps hiss and hum ... that's just how they are . . ." -- the BDRI was NOT a bad choice.

Problem is, NONE of those problems were there with the Egnaters I tested. Dead-quiet at rest: any hint of hum was too low for ear-to-the-grillecloth testing, at any setting in any of the environment, and hiss was only detectable only in the extreme corner of some of the drive settings' vast range. The Rebel-30 had a significantly roomier Clean-Zone (headroom, baby!) than the BDRI, and had such a wide variability (settings options) that it could not only duplicate the "Classic" part of "that Fender Sound," but could also step outside the Fender Sound and venture where no BDRI has gone before.

"Most people spend their lives bumping their heads on the ceiling, and never realize that there are holes in that ceiling that let you rise effortlessly upward, into the stars."
(Jerry Garcia, ca. 1968)

Also: None of the Egnaters I played had ANY 6th-string bass-boominess -- they had a very easy balance across the guitar's range. (Remember, though, it is possible to easily duplicate that bass-boominess with the Rebel-30, if you choose to. But prolly "alcohol may have been involved ...")
No hiss, except at the extreme edge of settings-civilization -- again, a choice, should you become afflicted with serious aural taste issues.
No hummmmmmm -- unless you wrap the guitar cable a couple of loops around your nearby laptop.
No need to change the speaker, just to get what you thought you paid for in the first place.

For me and my "ear," the Egnater Rebel-30 is today's extension of a blended line of development that's somewhere pleasantly downstream of the early Fender amps, a little VOX that I slaughtered music with in the early '70's, and my beloved, dear-departed Mesa Boogie Studio.22 -- the most tone-versatile amp I played in the 20th Century. For someone, anyone, else, another amp might be so much better than my "little" Rebel-30 that ol' bobwords is just babbling on here . . . But I do believe I've found what I was looking for.

For now, I'm a happy camper. If that's gonna change as I spend time with this sweet little chameleon, it'd better get 'er done in the next 30 days.

But Hey! What do I know? I ride a Classic Moto-Guzzi, the most versatile ear-pleaser of a mechanical music machine there ever was. It don't do Harley, it don't do Ducati or Beemer, and it damn sure don't do GSXer. But that crosswise Guzzi plays the best ear-music of any bike I've ever heard. (I actually get stopped by Beemer-jockeys, who ask permission to just hear that Classic Guzzi-sound. No surprise that most of those guys turn out to be musicians -- just like a huge subset of Guzzi riders.) Sooo -- maybe my bike is giving me enough "sweet Classic Sound" that I don' need no steenkin' Fender, ¿eh? :wink:

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Last edited by bobwords on Sat Dec 11, 2010 2:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2010 4:06 pm
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bobwords wrote:
So, too, with the BDRI's overwhelmingly boomy bass response: at home, with plenty of time to try a bazillion different settings, and a chance to "shade" my test-playing many different ways, it was impossible to ignore the consistent bass-range dominance. It was always there, relative to the upper 6 strings -- always a significant offset, as if I'd strung my guitar "up" with low-A as a 6th string, and was playing any notes below that on a nearby electric bass. Not only was that bass-boom bigger and rounder than the other notes -- it was also louder. Truly, I was beginning to wonder about my 6th-string pickups, and my bass-picking thumb became seriously suspect.


I find that my humbucker equipped guitar sounds bassier than my SCN equipped Strat when played through the clean channel. My solution is to play the humbucker guitar through the drive channel which reduces bass slightly. My settings are Treble = 6, Bass = 4, Middle = 2, Presence = 8. Sounds great with my SCNs through input #2/clean channel as well as with my humbuckers through input #2/drive channel. No boominess at all.

I don't have a problem with hiss and hum as the JJs are much quieter than the stock GTs were.

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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 11:16 am
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bluesky636 wrote:
bobwords wrote:
So, too, with the BDRI's overwhelmingly boomy bass response: at home, with plenty of time to try a bazillion different settings, and a chance to "shade" my test-playing many different ways, it was impossible to ignore the consistent bass-range dominance. It was always there, relative to the upper 6 strings -- always a significant offset, as if I'd strung my guitar "up" with low-A as a 6th string, and was playing any notes below that on a nearby electric bass. Not only was that bass-boom bigger and rounder than the other notes -- it was also louder. Truly, I was beginning to wonder about my 6th-string pickups, and my bass-picking thumb became seriously suspect.


I find that my humbucker equipped guitar sounds bassier than my SCN equipped Strat when played through the clean channel. My solution is to play the humbucker guitar through the drive channel which reduces bass slightly. My settings are Treble = 6, Bass = 4, Middle = 2, Presence = 8. Sounds great with my SCNs through input #2/clean channel as well as with my humbuckers through input #2/drive channel. No boominess at all.

I don't have a problem with hiss and hum as the JJs are much quieter than the stock GTs were.


Crazy thing is, with the Egnater the boominess isn't there to begin with, but you can correct a lot of room deficiencies with just the twist of a dial. The tube mix, watts control and bright and tight switches as well as a tone stack that actually does something is a valuable asset. I find it really hard to get a bad tone out of it. It still amazes me over a year later.

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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 11:53 am
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63supro wrote:
bluesky636 wrote:
bobwords wrote:
So, too, with the BDRI's overwhelmingly boomy bass response: at home, with plenty of time to try a bazillion different settings, and a chance to "shade" my test-playing many different ways, it was impossible to ignore the consistent bass-range dominance. It was always there, relative to the upper 6 strings -- always a significant offset, as if I'd strung my guitar "up" with low-A as a 6th string, and was playing any notes below that on a nearby electric bass. Not only was that bass-boom bigger and rounder than the other notes -- it was also louder. Truly, I was beginning to wonder about my 6th-string pickups, and my bass-picking thumb became seriously suspect.


I find that my humbucker equipped guitar sounds bassier than my SCN equipped Strat when played through the clean channel. My solution is to play the humbucker guitar through the drive channel which reduces bass slightly. My settings are Treble = 6, Bass = 4, Middle = 2, Presence = 8. Sounds great with my SCNs through input #2/clean channel as well as with my humbuckers through input #2/drive channel. No boominess at all.

I don't have a problem with hiss and hum as the JJs are much quieter than the stock GTs were.


Crazy thing is, with the Egnater the boominess isn't there to begin with, but you can correct a lot of room deficiencies with just the twist of a dial. The tube mix, watts control and bright and tight switches as well as a tone stack that actually does something is a valuable asset. I find it really hard to get a bad tone out of it. It still amazes me over a year later.


I do not believe that the BDRI is inherently boomy.

1. I have the BDRI tone controls set for my SCN equipped Strat using the neck pickup. I have it set for a warm, round tone. The other postions accent/diminish the treble and bass as they are selected.

2. The GFS Fat Pat humbuckers are extremely hot. The neck is wound to 10K ohm and the bridge is 14K ohm. The GFS Fat Pats have a very powerful bass and lower mid to begin with. In contrast, the hottest SCN pup is the bridge and I believe that it is no more than 7K ohm.

3. My BDRI sits on an old wooden stereo stand with the cabinet's open back about 1 foot from the wall behind it. That placement by itself will boost the upper bass/lower mids by a considerable degree. Moving the amp out into the room further greatly diminishes the boost, but I have no easy way to accomodate this positioning.

4. I find the tone stack on the BDRI to be extremely flexible and excellent sounding. The very fact that I can compensate for the idiosyncracies of two very differently voiced guitars and the positioning of the amp with regard to the wall behind it aptly demonstrates this.

I too find the tone of the BDRI to be amazing as do the people who have heard it in my room.

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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 12:18 pm
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When I was amp shopping, the Blues Deluxe RI to me anyway, sounded like a blanket was over the speaker. It just lacked that "sparkle" that I like. It just sounded a little dark to me. I'm not saying your particular amp sounds that way, I'm just saying the one's I tried did. I tried several at different stores. It's just a bit too warm and dark for my taste. When I amp shop, I usually bring my 72 Strat and my 63 Supro. The Strat covers the single coil or my 63 Supro the Humbucker style. It just didn't do it for me, but then again I'm pretty much a minimalist. Even when I do recording sessions with other people, they add effects and EQ later on. If I can't get what I want from the amp in stock form and with the amp unmodded using just the tone controls, I usually take a pass. With the HRDlx I had, I had a momentary lapse of reason. I trusted Fender. The last amp I bought before that was in 1976 when I bought my Twin LOL. Boy was I behind the times. I didn't do much research.
Some folks love the BDRI, it's just not for me. Some people don't like Egnater or Marshall. It's all taste and it's all good.

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Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2010 12:44 pm
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Always interesting talking about tone. I sometimes have a hard time putting it into the best words to describe accurately. But, related note, Ive been playing my HRDlx with the new external cabinet. The external cabinet with Celestion had huge low end compared to the stock Eminence speaker. After playing for a few weeks now, getting things dialed in on the amp for the new speaker, I have kind of gotten used to the sound of the new speaker, and although still a bit on the bassy side, I like it fairly well. Yesterday, I unplugged the external speaker and just used the internal, and the sound was so thin and harsh compared to the Celestion, that I thought something was wrong. It was just a matter of dialing the amp settings back to the way that they were, to get the sound that I liked again. I can not get the stock Eminence speaker to be anywhere near as "boomy" as the Celestion. So, I would say that the type speaker will have a huge impact in the sound and tone, as well as which output tubes are used. :)

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Posted: Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:33 am
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63supro wrote:
Crazy thing is, with the Egnater the boominess isn't there to begin with, but you can correct a lot of room deficiencies with just the twist of a dial. The tube mix, watts control and bright and tight switches as well as a tone stack that actually does something is a valuable asset. I find it really hard to get a bad tone out of it. It still amazes me over a year later.


My point exactly.
Had I not liked the sound of my ES-335 played through the BDRI in the store's main showroom -- backed up against the building's structure, and surrounded by other amps (along with the aforementioned high ambient noise level) -- I wouldn't have taken it home in the first place.

But once home, without a requirement of backing the amp tightly against a carpeted shelf/platform thingie, I found that only by carefully positioning the amp just the right distance out from stuff in the room, in just the right position from carefully chosen "stuff" of varying sound-reflectivity (upholstered sofa, exposed glass sliding doors, textured sheetrock, wallpapered walls, carpeted and tile-covered floors, extremely angry large hairy dog, etc.), the boominess was there, regardless of the settings, with my vintage Gibson plugged in (and regardless of the Gibson's settings, too.)

I dunno 'bout you guys, but whether I'm just playing 'round the house, or playing one of my frequent stadium headliner concerts (dang fans are just so, so demanding! :roll: ) -- I have neither the luxury nor the patience to carefully reconstruct the best non-boomy setting for the ES335-BDRI pairing. (The overstuffed sofa and carpet squares aren't too bad to haul around, but the blasted dog just hates stadium venues, and has little tolerance for my bumbling herd of aging roadies . . . )

All I can say is that with MY favorite guitar in MY favorite playing settings, the BDRI was intolerably boomey at most any control panel settings I tried. I dunno if that was "just" a stock-speaker "thing", or if it was related to the dacron content of the grille cloth. I do know that it IS a problem for me.

Conversely, all the Egnater amps I tried (various Rebel-20 and Rebel-30 configurations) were astonishingly even and well-balanced in most all of their vast array of controls-settings. For me, if I can get that variety of tone/sound options in most any setting or amp placement, with a 1/4-twist of a small knob or two, it sure beats the heck out of dragging that dang dog and sofa around with me.

For the ultimate icing on the cake:
With just a couple more dial-twists, I can tweak the Egnater out beyond the Sanity Zone, kick back and play a few simple Telluride-style polka numbers, and there comes an endless string of people knocking on my front door asking,
"Saaay -- that wouldn't be an Old Guy on an Old Gibson, doing that boom-boom thing on a ReTread Blues Deluxe, would it?"

All I can do is smile sweetly and say,
"Well, not inherently so, y'know?"

Just sayin', man . . .

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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 6:52 pm
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Yep, I'll tell you what, If the Egnater gave me problems, I'd be the first one on Rigtalk and this forum bitching and steering you clear of it. I roll like that. LOL 8)

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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 10:48 pm
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bobwords wrote:
Just sayin', man . . .


... that I will happily play away on my non-boomy BDRI. :D

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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2010 11:29 pm
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bluesky636 wrote:
bobwords wrote:
Just sayin', man . . .


... that I will happily play away on my non-boomy BDRI. :D


Me too!

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Post subject: Re: Blues Dlx.RI vs. Hot RodDlx. III vs. Dlx.VM ?
Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 10:03 pm
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You guys are why I like the option of "used" gear and guitar shows. I don't know about the Blues Deluxe, but I've been playing my Strat through my Blues Jr. NOS lately and recently decided to pull out the freebie Epi Firebird VII and have a whack at it. It has Lollars in it, so I'm not going to blame the guitar, but the sound coming out of that amp was more nasal than George Jones' singing. To get a decent well-rounded sound I had to bring the treble up significantly and cut the mids in half. And guess what happened then? It sounded perfect. And that's my point, if you liked this amp in the store and thought enough of it to lay the cash or card on the counter, you could definitely have gotten the same sound out of it had you just wanted to. You probably succumbed to the disease of the internet, where you go to these forums and everyone tells you how much of a sucker you are for buying X when you could have gotten a Y. But don't think I'm being an a-hole, I too have succumbed to this disease on several different occasions. Such as the recent .357 Magnum that weighs less than 1 pound and is best used for facial hair removal by fireball. :shock:


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