I bought a blues junior and the input jack is made out of freakin plastic , I am having trouble understanding why they would be decide that these inferior parts would suffice for such an important part of the amp. The cost difference to put a metal vs plastic would be to small to worry about. I have to repair mine now. It needs to be tightened and the threads are gone. Where do I send a complaint letter?

Fender Musical Instruments Corporation
Attn: Consumer Relations Dept.
8860 E. Chaparral Road, Suite 100
Scottsdale, AZ 85250

I had similiar problems with my Blues DeVille 410. It's a quick fix but I understand your frustration. All that money we have to spend and cheap parts. I think Fender takes a few too many shortcuts making the amps, but to keep up with production and keeping costs down, they probably feel like they have to take these shortcuts. To get a similiar quality amp, you may have to go to a boutique company and pay a lot more. I just look at it like I do a MIM guitar. The basics are the same, now you up grades the pups tuners and bridge. Now you have the guitar you want and still less than you might have to pay for a custom shop model.

plastic? that sucks .... but I hope it can get easily fixed

A decent SwitchCraft jack is about 4$ retail each. So using them to replace all the jacks on the consumer priced Hot-Rod amps would have upped the base component price of building these amps.

The Hot-Rod series amps (of which the Blues Junior is a member) are built with a low price point in mind for sale to the general home consumer.
These Mexican (cheap labor) made amps use things like plastic surface mount jacks and pots, surface PCB mount tubes and PCB's instead of point to point wiring to get the cost way down.
All of which work mostly OK on home use amps, but are a major source of failure if used for gigging.

If you want pro level components then a Fender blackface or silverface amp is what you are probably looking for. And expect to pay 2x-3x what a Hot-Rod amp costs for it.

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Keep on Truckin, Going full speed ahead down the highway to hades.

A good friend of mine was the production manager of the amplifier department up until a few years ago. He's now moved up to manage some other part of the company. I know that he was always proud of the companies products and wanted to produce the very best for the price. But when you look at the prices and the demands on production in many 3rd world nations, you can understand the need to make it as easy and quick to assemble as possible. I too am not happy with the decission to use plastic jacks soldered directly to the PC boards. It's easy enough to hard wire a metal jack to the board and secure it to the face plat of the chassis. That is, AFTER the warrantee has run out. I have 7 Fender amps in my personal collection and 4 of them have suffered from this problem. Not to mention that I purchased 30 warrantee return amps a few months ago and well over half had this same fault. An easy fix and many were given to local kids that could not afford the purchase price of a new one. So, even though it's a poor design it has helped out some worthy kids in my area.

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South Paw hobbiest. Telecaster and Strats plus other brands of guitars. And 11 Fender amps. And 4 other brand amps. Latest toy is a Mitchell ukulele. A fun little guy to play.

If fender the company that done more for amplification than anyone else cant build a good quality 15watt valve, reliable gigging amp for £400 then they need to call it a day, its no wonder marshall and peavey are laughing their way to the bank. To mention MIM blues juniors as a inferior model is a bit out there too, they were way worse when they were MIA. I'm not impressed by certain aspects of either. PCB's dont matter much unless ofcourse you have a fixed bias amp with the bias way way too hot, just like the BJR. I thought fixed bias was done away with on push pull amps in the 70's.
Keeping costs down is one thing. I think this amp was designed to generate money through repair.

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No no and no

The BJ and other Hot-Rod's are not inferior models.
They do exactly what they were designed to do, they sound great for a relatively low price. They were designed to meet a certain price point the home player could afford, and that caused some compromises in the construction to get to that price point.

As I said If you want amps for serious gigging look to the black/silver face or Mesa, Dumbell or one of the many other amps designed for the road. And expect to pay accordingly.

[quote="nikininja"To mention MIM blues juniors as a inferior model is a bit out there too,[/quote]

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Keep on Truckin, Going full speed ahead down the highway to hades.

Serious when you can pick up a vintage modern marshall 50watt combo for £600. Yet as stated solely because of design reasons fender cant knock up a reliable giggable 15watt combo for £400.
I mean forget the crap reverb circuit and the noise problems how can anyone justify modern amps not having a trim pot to bias the valves. its 2009 not 1969. I strongly suspect its to just help eat those poor el84's up so the unwitting go and replace them with groovetubes valves rated the same. Whilst fender also own groove tubes.

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No no and no

I had the same problem with my son's Hot Rod DeVille 410...the plastic jack deteriorated over time and the nut just came loose. A couple of the jacks had to be replaced. So far so good on the Blues DeVille.

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Current Gear: Ron Kirn Barnbuster Tele,
Marshall: 1971 SuperLead 100>1997 1960-TV, bunch of pedals
and a 1987 Porsche 911 Carrera coupe named Veronica

I don't own a Fender amp anymore... or a full tube amp for that matter. But, my brother on the other hand does. He's had many Fender amps and he's always had problems with them not holding up. He says he regrets selling his old twin.

He owns a custom now (I think), and a G-Dec and both have been in the shop more than 3 times and they're still not right.

I used to own a Vibro-lux reverb back in the late 60's to 80's, and it had a crackling problem that no one could solve. It eventually was stolen.

It's a shame, because they still have the sound... even tho' their low price point isn't so low... I was jazzed about the Princeton '65 until I saw the price.

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"...The final truth is, there is no truth..." - (from "Nice n' Neat" by the Boomtown Rats)

I don't know quite what the conversion factor is but a Marshal 50watt vintage/modern tube combo amp is 1600$us
http://www.music123.com/Marshall-Vintag ... 4.Music123

The Blues Junior is about 550$us
http://www.music123.com/Fender-Hot-Rod- ... 7.Music123

That Marshal amp you are trying to compare the BJ to is 3x its cost and right in the ballpark of the silver/black face amps.

Yes you can get much cheaper Marshals, but then they are solid state, and sound rotten.

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Keep on Truckin, Going full speed ahead down the highway to hades.

Your paying about double money for marshall VM's. The £600 tag works out at roughly $850 at the mo. The Blues jr at £400 avg comes in at $600 (very rough estimation). No doubt due to import taxes on both sides.
Heres a dsl 401 for roughly the same money with a footswitch too.
http://spectrummusic.co.uk/itemdetail.php?i=284.

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No no and no

Perhaps its time you learn how to build your own amps. There are a number of kits and resources available. I am looking into this since I just want an amp, and not an amp with a bunch of digital effects and modeling crap I don't need.

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RAMA LAMA FA FA FA

Yes!
Some nice 5E3 kits out there!

Ths mission kit looks interesting.
http://www.missionamps.com/5E3kit.shtml

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Keep on Truckin, Going full speed ahead down the highway to hades.