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Post subject: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard Strat
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 1:34 pm
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So excited to be able to buy myself a Fender American Standard Stratocaster (first strat!) but I am wanting to start looking into finding myself an amp for this guitar. I am currently playing out of my first amp ever bought (Fender Mustang 1 with that said only been playing about 2 years). I'm looking for more of a tube amp. I love learning to play blues and jazz so I feel I like more clean tones are the way to go. I feel a little overwhelmed at guitar stores when it comes to amps and not sure what I should look at, stay away from, or run toward. Any guidance would be awesome! I'm clueless about amp heads+cabinet or combos being a better way to go. I play at home and with small groups if that helps and I was looking around $1000 + or - . I'm open to opinions. Right now I've been kind of attracted toward the Blues Jr. (not because of price just sound) but I don't want to miss out on this purchase so please suggest! (also thinking of adding 10 guage strings)


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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 2:57 pm
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Congratulations on your new Strat. For 1K I would look at the Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue. IMO it's a great sounding amp.
Kenny V


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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 4:55 pm
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That's a fair sum of money to be spending. By the sound of it you are looking more towards clean sounds than gnarly overdrive so Fender is perhaps the best option.

As for which one? To some extent you are coming over as "I need a car, I don't know much about them so I think I'll buy a Ferrari". I'd spend less in the first instance, certainly no more than a Blues Junior. In due course you may then decide you want more but will have established why based on your experience with the Blues Junior.

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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 8:38 pm
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Hi Mattbj24,

Congrats on the new guitar, great choice. A budget of around $1K gives you some options, up to a DRRI, which would be a fine choice. A couple of other suggestions to save some of your budgeted money, since you liked the sound of a BJr, get a BJr and put a CRex speaker in it for some excellent tones, clean and driven, or check out a HRDlx. With any new tube amp, you might want to try some other tubes for tonal variation, and it's a good idea to have spare tubes.

Does the Am Std Strat have the Fat 50s pups? If so, any of the above amps would sound terrific when paired with the Fat 50s. As always, try to check out as many amps as you can (with your guitar), to see what sounds good to you. 8)

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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 8:40 am
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I do want a clean sound and yes I do have Fat 50s pickups.


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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 7:50 pm
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Apparently you have option of music stores. Go try some amps in person. I would start out w/the Deluxe reverb. Either the '65 reissue or the custom '68. Both are around $1000. Just make sure the one you get doesn't have any issues. I might also check out a Peavey Delta blues, preferably the 1x15".


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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 8:05 pm
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Have to agree with mojjett on this one. Grab your guitar and try out a bunch of amps, a Deluxe Reverb is certainly a fine choice, but Tone is subjective so try out as many as possible. With the $$ you have to spend you owe it to yourself to take your time and conduct a thorough search.

T2

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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 10:59 pm
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Mattbj24 wrote:
So excited to be able to buy myself a Fender American Standard Stratocaster (first strat!) but I am wanting to start looking into finding myself an amp for this guitar. I am currently playing out of my first amp ever bought (Fender Mustang 1 with that said only been playing about 2 years). I'm looking for more of a tube amp. I love learning to play blues and jazz so I feel I like more clean tones are the way to go. I feel a little overwhelmed at guitar stores when it comes to amps and not sure what I should look at, stay away from, or run toward. Any guidance would be awesome! I'm clueless about amp heads+cabinet or combos being a better way to go. I play at home and with small groups if that helps and I was looking around $1000 + or - . I'm open to opinions. Right now I've been kind of attracted toward the Blues Jr. (not because of price just sound) but I don't want to miss out on this purchase so please suggest! (also thinking of adding 10 guage strings)


Great suggestions so far.
Best thing is to not get overwhelmed by all the choices and spend time in some music stores and try out some amps. Bring your new Strat so you can hear what your guitar sounds like through the different amps.

Of course, Fender amps are great so if you want to stay with Fender, then you've got plenty of choices in your price range.
The 65 DRRI and 68 CDR are great amps, give both a try. I prefer the 68 CDR over the 65 DRRI as I like the less bright tones. The 68 has a silver face and the 65 has black face.
The CDR gives you 2 different tone stacks with input 1 and input 2, and both channels have reverb and vibrato.
The DRRI only has verb and vibrato on the 2nd channel.
The CDR gives more tonal options and that's another reason I chose it.

Those 2 amps will give you a great idea of what a Strat sounds like through a good Fender amp.
If you don't want or need to spend that much on an map the HRD3 is a great sounding clean amp.
It has a distortion channel but I didn't like it when I had my HRD3. The cleans however are great, very clean and great tone. It also stays clean at high volumes where the DRRI and CDR start to break into some very cool power tube distortion once you get it at higher volumes.
HRD3 is 40watts and uses 6L6 power tubes, and the DRRI and CDR are 22 watts with 6V6 power tubes.

There are variations on the HRD3, some come with different colored covers and different speakers.
My HRD3 was black and red and had an Eminence 'the Wizard' speaker, which I thought sounded pretty darn good. It's a bit "darker"/more mid range speaker compared to the stock speaker.

Used you can find a 65 DRRI for around $600 -$700 for one in very good condition.
In that price range there is also the SuperSonic 22 watt, which is also a very nice Fender amp.

The Peavey Delta Blues 30 is a really nice sounding amp too, but it's pricey for a Peavey.
It comes in a 1x15" speaker or 2x10". The 15" sounds really nice especially if you like a deeper bassier tone.
If you like that amp you should look for a used one as they are pretty dependable and the resale used price makes it a better buy.
Regular price is about $850. Good used versions are half that.
Peavey also makes a "Valve King" tube amp at a lower cost, but I'm not a fan of it's tones.

A really low cost tube amp that I think sounds pretty darn good is the Bugera V22 and V55.
The V22 is plenty of power and volume for a home player. It's 22 watts just like the DRRI and CDR.
The V55 is 55 watts if you need the extra volume.
People who have these amps really like them a lot.
Bugera now has the V22 and V55 with infinium and the cost is only $20 more than the non infinium versions.
The V22 infinium is $400. The V55 infinium is $450.
Pretty darn nice amps if you want to save some money.

Overall I'm partial to Fender amps. After having quite a large number of different brand tube amps I've sold all of them and now have just two Fender amps, my 68 CDR and 68 CVR/Custom Vibrolux Reverb.
The only other amp I'd like to have in the future is an Engl as I LOVE their super saturated high gain tones that at deep and tight for playing heavier stuff. But, with the great distortion pedals I have and my Fender amps I'm in no need or hurry for the costly Engl.

Happy shopping! I'm sure we'll soon see your "Just got my first Fender tube amp" post. :)


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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 2:34 am
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I too have an American Standard Strat (which I have had since 1990) and for many years I played it through a Peavey Classic 30 and more latterly a Peavey Classic 50/410. However, last month I bought a Fender 65 Deluxe Reverb Fudge Brownie Limited Edition (same as DRRI except for the speaker) and I have to say that this amp and my Strat is a match made in heaven. My tastes were changing and I wanted a cleaner tone and the DRRI is perfect.

A key deciding factor could be how much overdrive you want from the amp. You have said that you want a clean tone but for playing Blues you may also want some dirt as well. The DRRI has great break-up tones but not until you get to higher volumes. If you are happy to rely on pedals for the occasions when you want more overdrive then the DRRI will be prefect. If you want the amp to produce overdrive then an amp with a second gain stage or "lead" channel might be a better choice.

Some say the Vibrato channel on the DRRI is too bright because it has a fixed bright cap. I have not found this to be a problem and have been able to dial it out (when I want to) using the amp and guitar tone controls. I am also using a Radial Twin City ABY pedal (with a 180 degree phase shift) so that I can switch between using the Normal, Vibrato or both channels which gives me a wide range of tonal options.


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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Mon Apr 20, 2015 8:11 pm
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Thank everyone for all the great responses! I don't buy anything unless I try it out. It is how I fell in love with this guitar. Just by chance I tried it out in a store. Really like this Blues Deluxe I ran across. Seems to have some warmth to it. Pretty loud though so I'm not sure how I would feel in my house playing with it but with a group it would be awesome!


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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:35 am
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The Deluxe is more than I would want to use in my house.

I have a Blackheart tube amp that I can run at 7 or 15 watts. 7 works around the house. Can get as a 1x10 combo or a head with a 1x10 or 4x10 cab. The combo sounds pretty much like a Blues Jr but better at low volumes and cost me less than $250 new. No reverb though.


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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2015 8:09 am
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Mattbj24 wrote:
Thank everyone for all the great responses! I don't buy anything unless I try it out. It is how I fell in love with this guitar. Just by chance I tried it out in a store. Really like this Blues Deluxe I ran across. Seems to have some warmth to it. Pretty loud though so I'm not sure how I would feel in my house playing with it but with a group it would be awesome!

I prefer my BDRI over a stock BJr. (I own both). For the BJr. to satisfy me, it had to have different speaker(s) and you're going to end up approaching the cost of the BDRI to get it to perform to my satisfaction. Playing at home......that means quite different volume levels to different folks. A helpful device to help control the BDRI's volume is this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Volume-Box-effe ... ash=item23 It's not a true attenuator, but does help control volume more easily. Plus, I'm assuming you'll keep the Mustang I which you can still use @ home.

I personally don't care for the HRDlx due to the tones of the "drive/more drive" functions. The clean channel is basically the same as the BDRI.

Certainly the '65 DRRI is also a very good choice.

I'd suggest playing the DRRI and BDRI side-by-side w/ your guitar and pick which sounds best to you. Be sure to test them at various volumes and settings and get a 30 day 'no questions asked' return policy ( which is quite common).

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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 12:10 pm
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The BDRI is a really good one for my strats, I am using Dimarzio pickups in two of them and I have Fender vintage noiseless in another one.. I have a Eminence C-Rex in it..

I play mostly Strats, so all of my amps are geared towards single coils..

I have quite a few tube amps from 100 watts down to 12 watts. The Egnater Tweaker 15 head I have has been a good little amp and I can hook it up to all of my tube combo speakers and I also have a 1 x 12 and a 2 x 12 I use with it and it has an effects loop. Very versatile little amp, I have jammed in a gig situation with it and use it for recording, although it was straining a little bit in the gig situation, it had some good tone.

I use Weber Mass attenuators with all of my amps. I have a 100watt one and a 50watt one, which pretty much fills the bill for all of my amps. Most of the time when recording I am running two amps with the Weber Mass attenuators in a stereo config, those Webers clamped down seem to get the tone I want without killing the wildlife. Probably overkill, but I do not dime them, just enough volume and attenuation to get good dynamics and bass response without it crapping out on the low strings..

That little Egnater sounds really good using my Blues Deville 410 as a cab, so I might get a 4 x 10 cab next for it..

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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 6:57 pm
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The only thing you didn't list in your post was what you are using the amp for... your initial foray into tube ampdom, the biggest thing to consider is wattage considering your budget gives you a wide field. If you go HRDlx, BDRI etc at 40 watts or higher you will not be able to drive the tubes in your home.

Blues Jr. at 15 watts will still be loud at home but manageable. DRRI is 22 watts, but a very clean tone so you might be satisfied not driving the tubes as much.

For lower wattage than a Blues Jr., you might want to stray from Fender and look at VOX, Ibanez or Hughes and Kettner. The VOX AC4TV is a great little clean amp for home use. Ibanez and Hughes and Kettner make good clean amps under 20 watts that are switcheable to even lower wattage for quieter use.

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Jackson USA Phil Collen PC-1
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Post subject: Re: Suggestions on an amp for my Fender American Standard St
Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2015 12:07 pm
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For the most part I'm playing Jazz and Blues stuff or rather say trying to learn the two on my guitar from a pretty cool jazz guitar teacher.


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