Excellent comparison. Thank you very much. I’m about to build a 5E3 amp snd your demo had made me even more of a a fan of the 5E3 than before watched it.
Great idea. I love the sounds of both so far, they sound beautiful. The Tweed I do have a desire for.Obviously , for what I've heard with Neil Young. Well done on the video and I look forward to more.
This was great! They sound remarkably similar before you pushed them to break up and that’s where you can tell the difference. For the price the blues junior is pretty great. If you want more bass out of it you try running it into an extension cab and with a different speaker
Ya that about sums it up, if all I needed was clean rhythm and the occasional slight overdrive for lead parts I would be completely satisfied with the Blues Jr. Believe it or not, I ran the Blues Jr. through an actual bass cab and still felt it lacked bass lol! It definitely made a difference though. I ran each amp through the others cab and speaker in Part 3 of my comparison if you are interested to hear that. Thanks for the input!
Thanks! The BJ reverb can be pretty strong as well, I usually have it around 2 or 3 at the most. It is always nice to have a real spring reverb and I wouldn't hesitate to use.
@@DisorderlySoundStudiosThe stock reverb of my bj3 sucked, it was either too subtle or too over-the-top, with little usable range in between...replaced the Ruby tank with an older Accutronics, and the improvement was immense, it has a more natural sounding ambience and usable range on the knob
My friend, to get the full beauty of the Blues Jr, you have to crank the master volume all the way to 11 or 12, then preamp volume between 4-8 for taste. Yes, it's LOUD, so put your attenuator on it. This is how you will get those beautiful, full, warm, round tones you never knew were there.
The 5e3 is what it is and will always have "that" sound and a baseline usability and familiarity to it that everybody loves. The Blues Jr. Is a modern workhorse amp that benefits from speaker swaps and playing around with different tubes...it can sound a bit boxy and underwhelming depending on a lot of things. However, it's a modern classic as a grab-and-go amp and does what it does well. Try it with a greenback or cannabis rex/hotrod hempster and you'll be shocked. Having said that; I started with a Humboldt Hotrod Blues Junior, loved it, and then sold it for a Cox built 5e3 with a vintage Jensen speaker and some old GE tubes lol. There's just something about the 5e3 in the end, and just about everybody will end up there or at a Deluxe Reverb or both when it comes to amps of this size. Your observations are spot-on; the Blues Junior is good but requires constant tweaking and fussing with ways to "make it better" where the 5e3 is just there from the start.
I had the same Humboldt Hotrod Blues Junior..the speaker was great and pedals sounded amazing but it’s stock sound was nothing special. The “character amps” like PRRI, Deluxe and Tweed deluxe just have “that sound” we have heard on so many records. I agree with what you are saying. Cheers.
The 5E3 sounds better in almost all respects to my ears. I agree with the overdrive sounds. The 5E3 is clearer with sweeter harmonics. Some else said the BJ sounded boxy, I would agree with that also.
I had a blues jr about 20 years ago, not sure what version, but new from 2004. It was too loud at home and wasn’t loud enough for rehearsal, so it wasn’t of much use for me. I recently purchased a tweed vibrolux clone, a mostly 5f11 circuit, and it’s better sounding and louder than the BJ was. I would go as far as to say it sounds twice as good, and cost as much. I think I’d probably buy an AC15 over a BJ, or a used Marshall dsl40, if my budget was for a new BJ
I wouldn't buy a new bj, especially now, but a good deal on a used one could leave enough cash for some much needed upgrades and a trip to a tech for some reliability mods...personally all these late model pcb amps are lacking compared to handwired and need work to make them worthwhile
Your very scientific comp matches what I have noticed. Tweed sounds much more balance and the high freqs are pleasant. Bjr is passable but its missing something in the low mids. I actually have a Bjr w/ a Swamp Thang to keep it as clean as possible - as soon as gain hits the front end of the circuit it falls apart. It does nice with slight attenuation, however.
Honestly, I like the Blues Junior a bit better. Also, why does your camera pan to settings that obviously aren't correct (ie. tons of reverb present, but reverb knob at zero)?
Thank you for your question! The reason the reverb is at 0 but you are still hearing reverb is bc I used a pedal for reverb so that it was consistent between amps (the Tweed has no reverb built in). I assure you that all settings shown are correct. Blues Jr. is great!
@@DisorderlySoundStudios Aaaahhhhh, that totally makes sense. I probably skipped that part of the video! My bad! That's a very believable spring verb pedal 😂 Either way, thanks for the great video!
Great Viddy,, better off wirh the "Pro-junior" for an off the shelf 15 watt just vol and tone...the "Tube Depot" 5E3 sounds warm and clear with single coil or Humbucker and no ear fatique. Warm up the soldering irons or find a "Good" sparky , the days of having faith in a "Brand-name" are being severly tested now and no amount of sugar is going to make a bad design sound better only different . Keep it simple .
Many people say Blues Jr. has different possibilities depending on the speaker and tube replacement, but I think that's a bullshit. The same goes for all the other amps. The fact is that Blue Jr.'s sound is very sloppy and vomit-inducing. It's not even very cheap these days.
Mic placement? Of course you're going to get more bass response placing the mic closer to and the reflection from the floor as you showed throughout the whole video.
The Blues junior is a greatly in the mix amp. Not so pleasing on its own. The 5e3, if a true circuit design is warm and fatter on its own but still stands out well in a mix. I built my own 5e3 as close to the original as poss
the tweed is a classic fender design from the 50's that will always sound good. the blues jr is a modern toy from the 90's that never sounds good, it's a poor design with crappy parts and a crappy speaker, i managed to make one sound better using the best nos tubes on earth but why bother? there are so many better designs out there.
Fender Excelsior makes a good poor man's tweed deluxe.Shallow MDF cab aside they're built pretty well,have a big sounding 15 and is better built than the BJ and can be had for a cheap price.
The Fender Excelsior is a great amp! It still lacks the low end (especially from a 15) that I love in the Tweed but is very unique and a great value. Love the trem on it!
@@DisorderlySoundStudios It's a better behaved cathodyne PI amp but it can pump out the lows and more gain with basic tweeks.That amp is a good platform for basic mods.Much better than the BJ imho,Excelsior features chassis mounted tubes and pots.Simple accessible layout,no real heat on PCBs(unlike BJ designed to eventually fail).Great amp for the money,One on CL in my area $350 with Eminence speaker upgrade.I'm tempted.
Blues jr is a poorly built amp.Over biased,pain INA to rebias,I owned one,Fender is cheap,they keep the MDF made cabinet too shallow to accomodate many speaker upgrades.. A .5 inch increase in depth (again of cheap MDF) would improve tone and allow larger magnet speakers.Nope.This fact also keeps it sounding boxy,limits low end.Sorry to offend,these things are known to cook the PCBs the tubes are soldered to.
Excellent comparison. Thank you very much. I’m about to build a 5E3 amp snd your demo had made me even more of a a fan of the 5E3 than before watched it.
Marvellous! What an amazing young man! Great work! I got the Tweed!
Great job young man ! I’ve had them both. Jr got sent packing but Mr Deluxe has had a happy home for a long time 🎉
Thanks! Good choice!
Great idea. I love the sounds of both so far, they sound beautiful.
The Tweed I do have a desire for.Obviously , for what I've heard with Neil Young.
Well done on the video and I look forward to more.
I appreciate the feedback!
This was great! They sound remarkably similar before you pushed them to break up and that’s where you can tell the difference. For the price the blues junior is pretty great. If you want more bass out of it you try running it into an extension cab and with a different speaker
Ya that about sums it up, if all I needed was clean rhythm and the occasional slight overdrive for lead parts I would be completely satisfied with the Blues Jr. Believe it or not, I ran the Blues Jr. through an actual bass cab and still felt it lacked bass lol! It definitely made a difference though. I ran each amp through the others cab and speaker in Part 3 of my comparison if you are interested to hear that. Thanks for the input!
Your channel has lots of promise! Keep it up! I felt the reverb pedal was too much and was curious about the BJ reverb.
Thanks! The BJ reverb can be pretty strong as well, I usually have it around 2 or 3 at the most. It is always nice to have a real spring reverb and I wouldn't hesitate to use.
@@DisorderlySoundStudiosThe stock reverb of my bj3 sucked, it was either too subtle or too over-the-top, with little usable range in between...replaced the Ruby tank with an older Accutronics, and the improvement was immense, it has a more natural sounding ambience and usable range on the knob
Where's the stratocaster to compare the clean sounds?
My friend, to get the full beauty of the Blues Jr, you have to crank the master volume all the way to 11 or 12, then preamp volume between 4-8 for taste. Yes, it's LOUD, so put your attenuator on it. This is how you will get those beautiful, full, warm, round tones you never knew were there.
And meant to say, great comparison video BTW
Totally agree about the Master! For preamp I prefer to keep it under 5 bc I still don't love the overdrive, Thank you for your input my friend!
Whats with the studio monitors? The position?
The 5e3 is what it is and will always have "that" sound and a baseline usability and familiarity to it that everybody loves. The Blues Jr. Is a modern workhorse amp that benefits from speaker swaps and playing around with different tubes...it can sound a bit boxy and underwhelming depending on a lot of things. However, it's a modern classic as a grab-and-go amp and does what it does well. Try it with a greenback or cannabis rex/hotrod hempster and you'll be shocked.
Having said that; I started with a Humboldt Hotrod Blues Junior, loved it, and then sold it for a Cox built 5e3 with a vintage Jensen speaker and some old GE tubes lol. There's just something about the 5e3 in the end, and just about everybody will end up there or at a Deluxe Reverb or both when it comes to amps of this size. Your observations are spot-on; the Blues Junior is good but requires constant tweaking and fussing with ways to "make it better" where the 5e3 is just there from the start.
Thank you for sharing your experience and I appreciate the input!
I had the same Humboldt Hotrod Blues Junior..the speaker was great and pedals sounded amazing but it’s stock sound was nothing special. The “character amps” like PRRI, Deluxe and Tweed deluxe just have “that sound” we have heard on so many records. I agree with what you are saying. Cheers.
I like the 5e3 better, but it was closer than I thought.
In reality, 5e3 is way better than blues jr. But i agree, in this test, it' s close.
I love that 600 Hz spike on the Blues Junior
Great video bro.
The Blues Junior will be tighter on high gain settings but sounds anemic compared to the 5e3 the only thing they have in common is the tweed covering.
Thanks for sharing settings
No problem 👍
The 5E3 sounds better in almost all respects to my ears. I agree with the overdrive sounds. The 5E3 is clearer with sweeter harmonics. Some else said the BJ sounded boxy, I would agree with that also.
I had a blues jr about 20 years ago, not sure what version, but new from 2004. It was too loud at home and wasn’t loud enough for rehearsal, so it wasn’t of much use for me.
I recently purchased a tweed vibrolux clone, a mostly 5f11 circuit, and it’s better sounding and louder than the BJ was. I would go as far as to say it sounds twice as good, and cost as much. I think I’d probably buy an AC15 over a BJ, or a used Marshall dsl40, if my budget was for a new BJ
I wouldn't buy a new bj, especially now, but a good deal on a used one could leave enough cash for some much needed upgrades and a trip to a tech for some reliability mods...personally all these late model pcb amps are lacking compared to handwired and need work to make them worthwhile
Your very scientific comp matches what I have noticed. Tweed sounds much more balance and the high freqs are pleasant. Bjr is passable but its missing something in the low mids. I actually have a Bjr w/ a Swamp Thang to keep it as clean as possible - as soon as gain hits the front end of the circuit it falls apart. It does nice with slight attenuation, however.
Totally agree! Keeping it as clean as possible is the best way to use the Bjr in my opinion
@@DisorderlySoundStudios selling it is better, it's one of the worst tube amps on earth
a vintage mullard i63 tube at v1 and pressing the fat switch solves everything, more low mids less highs you can get them used for around 70$
@@yaniv-nos-tubes Thanks for the tip! Where do you see them for 70? I've been rolling tubes through it but never any of those.
Honestly, I like the Blues Junior a bit better. Also, why does your camera pan to settings that obviously aren't correct (ie. tons of reverb present, but reverb knob at zero)?
Thank you for your question! The reason the reverb is at 0 but you are still hearing reverb is bc I used a pedal for reverb so that it was consistent between amps (the Tweed has no reverb built in). I assure you that all settings shown are correct. Blues Jr. is great!
@@DisorderlySoundStudios Aaaahhhhh, that totally makes sense. I probably skipped that part of the video! My bad! That's a very believable spring verb pedal 😂
Either way, thanks for the great video!
5e3 for my tastes every time.
Great Viddy,, better off wirh the "Pro-junior" for an off the shelf 15 watt just vol and tone...the "Tube Depot" 5E3 sounds warm and clear with single coil or Humbucker and no ear fatique. Warm up the soldering irons or find a "Good" sparky , the days of having faith in a "Brand-name" are being severly tested now and no amount of sugar is going to make a bad design sound better only different . Keep it simple .
Tweed Deluxe all the way
Many people say Blues Jr. has different possibilities depending on the speaker and tube replacement, but I think that's a bullshit. The same goes for all the other amps.
The fact is that Blue Jr.'s sound is very sloppy and vomit-inducing. It's not even very cheap these days.
Mic placement? Of course you're going to get more bass response placing the mic closer to and the reflection from the floor as you showed throughout the whole video.
Wish you wouldn’t have used the reverb, it muddies them up too much
Totally agree, it did not come across that strong in the room
@@DisorderlySoundStudiosI'm actually glad you used reverb. Cause that's how I would be playing them.
less bass and gain / more treble and middle
Reverb maybe to much as well for my taste
Darn good amps going through time
Perfectly put! I agree, the reverb was less overwhelming in the room vs the recording
The Blues junior is a greatly in the mix amp. Not so pleasing on its own. The 5e3, if a true circuit design is warm and fatter on its own but still stands out well in a mix. I built my own 5e3 as close to the original as poss
Totally agree!
5e3 is much better the bjr is harsh. used to own a bjr 3 and it sounded terrible until i did all the billm mods and changed the speaker.
The Tweed ! Not saying the Jr isn't good it just don't have that nice midrange! Tweed is punchier and just better mids when cranked!
Wayyyy too much talking about insignificant aspects
"it's not smokeable" :(
8:20 for actual tones...
Ha ha, blues Jr, with the speaker...Damm, so cool, do you have a real amp???
the tweed is a classic fender design from the 50's that will always sound good. the blues jr is a modern toy from the 90's that never sounds good, it's a poor design with crappy parts and a crappy speaker, i managed to make one sound better using the best nos tubes on earth but why bother? there are so many better designs out there.
Honestly, the jr sounds better except for the reverb.
Huh? How's your hearing?
Fender Excelsior makes a good poor man's tweed deluxe.Shallow MDF cab aside they're built pretty well,have a big sounding 15 and is better built than the BJ and can be had for a cheap price.
The Fender Excelsior is a great amp! It still lacks the low end (especially from a 15) that I love in the Tweed but is very unique and a great value. Love the trem on it!
@@DisorderlySoundStudios It's a better behaved cathodyne PI amp but it can pump out the lows and more gain with basic tweeks.That amp is a good platform for basic mods.Much better than the BJ imho,Excelsior features chassis mounted tubes and pots.Simple accessible layout,no real heat on PCBs(unlike BJ designed to eventually fail).Great amp for the money,One on CL in my area $350 with Eminence speaker upgrade.I'm tempted.
Blues jr is a poorly built amp.Over biased,pain INA to rebias,I owned one,Fender is cheap,they keep the MDF made cabinet too shallow to accomodate many speaker upgrades.. A .5 inch increase in depth (again of cheap MDF) would improve tone and allow larger magnet speakers.Nope.This fact also keeps it sounding boxy,limits low end.Sorry to offend,these things are known to cook the PCBs the tubes are soldered to.
Both amps sound like crap
😊
What do you suggest at this price range?
Does your solid state Crate amp sound better?