[Harp-L] Fender Blues Jr tube swap ?

[Michael Posey <harrpoe@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

IMHO, the best thing I did for my pawnshop-found, "Made in America" FBJ was to send the chassis to Ron Holmes for some "tweaking". He lowered the gain, changed the caps, added a  line-out, changed a bunch of resistors - basically made my little FBJ a barking, harp-friendly, tone-meister. 

He also checked and replaced the power tubes with a new set and checked my pre-amp tubes. With the mods, I can run 12ax7's accross the board and crunch it without the dreaded feedback beast rearing its ugly head until much later than before, depending of course, on the room and stage set. I find placing it on an amp stand, directly to the side of me is best.  Sounds great with any mic I throw at it but my favorites are my CAD VC50 and SM57. I swapped the stock "Fender Special Design" Eminence with a new Weber Vintage series 12F125-0 ceramic speaker with the harp dustcap. Big, fat, ceramic generated botton end with great cut and much louder than the stock speaker. With my 2 guitar band, I can run a line out from the amp to the PA in addition to micing the speaker and get huge, varying tones by utilizing the Master and Volume knobs. Super clean to mega crunch..on command!

Probably spent about 250 on all the mods inclusive of the new speaker. Reverb on these things is less than stellar but I dont use it anyway. I run a Boss DM-2 pretty which is pretty much on all the time. Can't say enough about Ron Holmes and Ted Weber insofar as advice, explanation, execution and delivery of quality products and services at reasonable prices.

Highly recommended!

No affiliation, just a happy harper with some good sounding gear.

Sounds great with guitar as well. Next step is either a Sonny JR 410 or a Cruncher however I have to feed the kids for now.

_________________________________________________________________
Windows Live™: Keep your life in sync.
http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_BR_life_in_synch_052009