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Post subject: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 1:08 pm
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Hey guys, bear with me as this may be a little long. I want to start this off with I have spent over 6 grand on fender gear, and am not stranger to the company and want to say peace as a 20 year old customer who believes in the heritage and sound of fender.

I recently purchased a Pro Jr. III for my small music major ensembles as I tried an older one in guitar center that did not seem to have much noise or rattle.

I figured the III could only be better, and upon receiving it have realized it would be hard to record and is unfairly noisy. I took it to guitar center and compared it against the old one and the difference was extremely audible. Fender simply told me to buy a blues junior for recording as their answer to my plea.

This is not the answer for a customer who is very supportive and already owns and has owned many of their amps.

If I am correct this amp has been out for almost 20 years now? Since the early 90s?

1. The rattle cage (caused rattle)
2. The internet has various causes of these problems and fixes such as the zip tied cables/back screw/ and even HAVING to change tubes upon arrival.

I don't understand how Fender has not addressed and solved these problems a long time ago, especially when marketing the III to be of had a positive effect on these issues.

I am afraid I may order another and have the same problem, and should just return it and get the older one in guitar center.


My real question in this post, is can anyone be real and straight with me about your Pro Jrs, has JJ tubes fixed your old hums? Untying the wires (also I am not doing that myself and getting shocked by the voltage still left in the amp without a tech doing it) and more so I don't feel it should be the customers responsibility upon a day old amp. If I am not going to these results without mods then I guess that will be out of my own pocket.

For the record I already went through different tubes at guitar center for the amp and did not fix it. This is not a bash post or supposed to be filled with anger against fender, but as a huge fan of fender amplifiers and as a young man who takes stock in the legacy and simplicity of tone that fender has offered since I began playing at age 10.

thanks for any replies about comparisons of the III to old ones, and and information that anyone would be willing to share, as I would really appreciate it.

thank you so much


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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 2:34 pm
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In your unlucky situation, you are still lucky: warranty 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 2:41 pm
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+1 for the 5 yr warranty. Not all of us can get great results out of a Fender Pro Jr. like Jeff Beck.


Fender has a great 5 yr warranty. They replaced my amp with no problem.


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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 4:17 pm
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hey guys, thanks for the replies, and that is true, do you personally find the IIIs to run pretty well and without a lot of noise?


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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 4:38 pm
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I can just say that my BDRI is extremly noiseless (after changing V1 one year ago). I 've tried Bj and Pj I don't remember an annoying noise. :wink:

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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2011 5:28 pm
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I have an older Pro Jr. ('02 tweed model) and even with the volume on 12 it is dead quiet. Original tubes, speaker, etc, never had a single problem with it. If the noise is that bad, I would exercise my warranty and see if the replacement does it too... or if you just got a bad one. :(

T2

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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 6:38 am
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Mine is a bit noisy when turning the volume knob up or down.
Checkout the video I made for Fender Customer Service. But I got no response from them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxdFAGt0EzQ
Mine came with pair of Russian Sovteks 12AX7WC and a pair of EL84-GT White Label numbered 4´s.
Good luck with your warranty issue. Maybe I´ll change the volume knob myself and the tubes and the speaker in the hope of getting it sounding as silent as good.
The tone is awesome, don´t get me wrong, but the noises are annoying!


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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 8:53 am
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^ that is still a drag for a new amp.

I got another one on the way from zzsounds, will report back this week


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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 1:25 pm
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joaokorb, after listen to, I feel a kind of coupling, may be the pot is failed. :)

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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 3:00 pm
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joaokorb wrote:
Mine is a bit noisy when turning the volume knob up or down.
Checkout the video I made for Fender Customer Service. But I got no response from them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxdFAGt0EzQ
Mine came with pair of Russian Sovteks 12AX7WC and a pair of EL84-GT White Label numbered 4´s.
Good luck with your warranty issue. Maybe I´ll change the volume knob myself and the tubes and the speaker in the hope of getting it sounding as silent as good.
The tone is awesome, don´t get me wrong, but the noises are annoying!


Clean the pot. A squirt of contact cleaner will clear that right up..

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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2011 6:56 pm
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For what it's worth, I just played a PJ III in my local shop and it was pretty quiet. I'll bet you just got a Friday afternooner... :|


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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 5:23 pm
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Hi all and Happy 2019. I'm writing this post in hope of making a point. I'm a professional guitarist (Sydney, Australia) whose work covers live symphony orchestra, theatre show, studio and live band work. On average, I do between 8 to 10 gigs per week and as such, I own quite a lot of gear to cover whatever situation arises. My first amp was a late '60s twin reverb and since then I've also owned various boutique amps etc. My current Fender amp arsenal includes a blonde Supersonic 22 (brilliant amp) and a Blues Junior III (some BillM Mods) which would be brilliant with an effects loop.

So, I was given a used (virtually new) Pro Junior III by a relative and I really believe this little baby has the potential to be "a great amp for small situations", especially with a focused 10" speaker. After some research, I re-biased the output valves and rerouted the internal cabling with twisting to calm down some of the inherent hiss which accompanies these amps. This hiss is even present when the amp is on "1". There are so many blogs about this hiss on the internet that I am truly perplexed as to why Fender chooses to ignore such concerns. The Pro Junior amp is such a basic simple design that I wonder about the R&D process and pre-production bench testing. I've used it live but in studio I've had to reluctantly resort to using a bigger and heavier amp for the sake of "Quiet".

We all recognise that Fender is a major iconic brand, even by people who aren't involved in music and has been making fine industry defining products for more than 70 years. All companies look to cut costs, but I believe it to be unacceptable for consumers to have to have their amp modified to reduce/remove a deficiency that shouldn't be there in the first place. Cheap capacitors seam to be a common issue too.

In closing, I believe the Pro Junior is almost a professional standard amp for specific circumstances and certainly isn't intended to be in the same category as a cheap 15W solid state "bells & whistles" amp.


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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 12:25 pm
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Yes, the Pro Jr can be noisy. Fender hasn't ignored the problem. The lll has extra capacitors across the diode bridge for 120hz pulse noise reduction. C19, 20, 21, & 23 are to filter the diode noise from the circuit.
The diodes used are avalanche diodes. They offer transient protection and better resistance to failure by uniformly leaking overvoltages, not shorting. They also balance their loading better with multiple diodes in series to attain higher reverse voltage ratings, like in the Twin.
The downside is that they have more leakage and noise than standard silicon with a forward voltage of 1 volt as compared with silicon at .6 volts.
The addition of the caps is a significant step forward for the lll. Older models can be easily retrofitted by soldering the caps right onto the diode leads.
It would be interesting to try silicon or even Schottky diodes to see if they generate less switching noise.

I've found excessive hiss in a couple of CC plate resistors, but most hiss comes from the V1 tube that is selected. This is plate noise. That's the sound of electrons bouncing off the coatings instead of being absorbed. The JJ gold pin ecc83s or the Telefunken Black Diamond ecc83 are the lowest noise new production tubes that I have found.
There's no doubt that production Fenders are variable quality and a ear like yours will pick out the deficiencies quickly. You have competitive experience and expectations of performance to suit your needs. But this is a 19th century technology. There is a reason it became obsolete 60 years ago. The deficiencies you describe are exactly why technology moved on. As long as you insist on plugging tubes into sockets to make music, this is the devil you invited to play along, regardless of the amp. While some are better than others, its expensive to drive high performance off the showroom floor.
And for tube amps, most aren't quiet enough for studio use. To set up an amp for recording, try a 12ay7 for lower gain and noise.
With simple mods, the noise can be cut even more in two ways, cut the input impedance by paralleling a 1 meg resistor across R2. This reduces first stage gain and noise. It will load a guitar pickup, so a buffered input is preferred.
Second is the feedback resistor at R27. This 100k can be lowered to 47k or even down to 10k to reduce gain and noise in the main stage and phase inverter.
I really like the sound of the Pro jr with a hot bias. Hopefully that can happen for you too.


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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 7:17 pm
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Dear TimsAudio, thank you for your extensive and thoughtful post. Your discussion on V1 plate noise is an area I've always considered the first problem. I will try some JJ gold pin ecc83s or the Telefunken Black Diamond ecc83 as you recommended. The 12AY7 at V1 makes a lot of sense, so I will give it a try as I don't care about the amp not being so loud if "quite & tone" in a small environment is achieved.

I like your comment "As long as you insist on plugging tubes into sockets to make music, this is the devil you invited to play along, regardless of the amp. While some are better than others, its expensive to drive high performance off the showroom floor".

Do you think lowering the feedback resistor at R27 (100k) to 47k along with using a 12AY7 at V1 may reduce gain a bit too much? I guess it's trial and error.


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Post subject: Re: extremely noisy pro jr. III
Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:55 am
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For studio use, changing out the 100k r27 gives better results. The tube can make a 30% reduction in gain, but the feedback circuit can drop it by 200% if necessary. This lowers noise to inaudible levels better than tube swaps.
So to get a target for reduction, The Pro Jr, with controls centered and a 1khz, .005vrms input, will put out @2volts rms.
You can take it down to .5 like an old Twin or even .1 volts like the old Vibrochamps. This tames dynamics and noise for quiet studio recordings.


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