fender blues jr.

[blue]

Originally Posted by zabdart

What constitutes "good sound" or tone is subjective. What pleases some people turns off others. Some folks won't settle for anything less than a Fender spring reverb tank. To others it's a turnoff. With reverb and distortion, it's all a matter of how much you choose to use. I rarely go above 2 or 3 on the reverb setting, and never above 5. As for distortion, it's there when I need it -- most of the time I prefer clean tones.
But that's just me. Everybody's different.

Any question of the versatility of the amp is answered by the fact that it is the platform for George Benson's signature amp. It's just too dang big for me.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by eyesore

well the reverb was not to my liking at all, and the overdrive was just too distorted. i even had new tubes biased and all...too heavy; but not the issue.

While I'll agree 100% with zabdart - tone will always be a subjective matter - part of the allure of tube amps is that you can tweak them to your liking; just given your list:

• electronically-compatible substitute aftermarket reverb tanks are readily available for about $25 - a 15-minute DIY mod that allows you to fine-tune the depth and decay time to your taste...
• sometimes "new tubes" per se are not the answer - tubes with the same nomenclature often have very different sonic characteristics (a trick that many golden-eared pros use to tailor their tone) and what you might really need is a different brand/type of tube; since you probably weren't running your amp at sufficient levels to introduce power-stage distortion, you need to look at the preamp tubes - a 5751 in the first OD gain stage (V2) can straighten things out in most cases...
• there are some new guitar-oriented neodymium speakers on the market that combine the "Holy Grail" characteristics of light weight, great tone, quick response, and high power handling (Pat Quilter's using a couple of Celestion's offerings in his amps); one of these could save 8-10 pounds (or more) of weight over some OEM speakers - or you could just hit the weights a couple more times a week...