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Hi,
Last night I played both my ?77 Princeton Reverb and my 90's era tweed Blues Junior for a side by side comparison (with my ?92 USA Reissue ?62 Strat). I set the master on 10 for the BJr so they were both similar in setup. Now note that the speakers are very different. The BJr has a C12N type speaker (stock Fender 50 watt). The PR has a Jensen C12R (25 watt) speaker. The C12R alone brings a TON of jangle and brightness to the PR. The C10R is the standard speaker on most 60?s PR?s. When I bought the PR, it had a generic Fender replacement speaker (Eminence no label type), which was actually very similar to the BJr. It was less bright and more midrange heavy. It had a larger magnet.
But the main thing I did was play both at full volume to hear the distortion characteristics of each. Here's some insights I had:
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PLAYED FULL VOLUME (10)
Blues Junior sounded a lot louder at 10 that the Princeton Reverb. More Bass as well. Probably from the larger wattage speaker. Scary how loud it can get! When you have it 6-7, it had a nice warm distortion. It just oozes blues. I think that's its strong point in design.
The Princeton Reverb, with the stock-type speaker, has a lot of brightness which you have to turn down to get some bluesy distortion out of. Otherwise it gets raw sounding. Seemed to have slightly less distortion. If I was thinking blues all the time, I would have kept the speaker it came with or get a blues friendly speaker.
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PLAYED MEDIUM/LOW VOLUME (3-5)
Blues Junior sounds overall pretty flat in terms of frequency response. You can't really take out the mids. It kind of dominates. Even with the Mid turned down all the way, you still have a lot of mids and not enough bright end (for me).
Princeton Reverb has a really nice jangle and thinness to the sound. More scooped. The speaker is really accentuating that. It pushes the brightness (if treble on 10), which gives you that Clapton "Let It Rain" type Strat sound. Not everyone's cup of tea. But I love having the option to dial up the treble to get that. You can always turn it down for warmer sounds. It also helps with brightening my dark sounding ES335.
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CONCLUSIONS:
Noodling factor:
I do like the ?noodling? ease of use with the BJr where you sit down in front of it, turn the volume to around 6-7, Master on 1-2 and jam away some Blues licks without killing your ears. The PR is more of a clean ?noodling? amp at lower volumes. For me to have more cranked sounds, I have to plug into boxes to get that.
Love to keep both! But I think I really need to have the better clean sounding amp, which the Princeton Reverb gives me and couple it with a good distortion/overdrive pedal. When I jam, it?s mostly clean rhythm playing with distorted solos dropped in. I also want better spring reverb, which the PR has. The Blues Junior?s is mediocre.Having a tremolo is just add-on gravy. I also play with three different types of guitars: Strat, ES335 and a Ric 330/12. The ES335 being the darkest sounding. All three guitars really shine with the PR.
Speakers play a major role in the tone. I chose the brightest speaker I could because I love that jangly, raw sound. Think early Johnny Cash picking, Surf style stuff, etc...
To do: I?m going to try and play the Blues Junior through the PR speaker and cab using an extension cable. Curious to hear how the speaker sounds with it. If I do, I will post my thoughts on that as well. Also,will still look into attenuators. I also own a 60?s era Gretsch 6150T amp, which could be a nice candidate for attentuation. That thing rocks with my ES335.
External speaker cab: I?d love to get one so I could take advantage of bigger sounds from both the Princeton Reverb and the Gretsch amp. I think my favorite sounds are from these low wattage amps.
Last night I played both my ?77 Princeton Reverb and my 90's era tweed Blues Junior for a side by side comparison (with my ?92 USA Reissue ?62 Strat). I set the master on 10 for the BJr so they were both similar in setup. Now note that the speakers are very different. The BJr has a C12N type speaker (stock Fender 50 watt). The PR has a Jensen C12R (25 watt) speaker. The C12R alone brings a TON of jangle and brightness to the PR. The C10R is the standard speaker on most 60?s PR?s. When I bought the PR, it had a generic Fender replacement speaker (Eminence no label type), which was actually very similar to the BJr. It was less bright and more midrange heavy. It had a larger magnet.
But the main thing I did was play both at full volume to hear the distortion characteristics of each. Here's some insights I had:
-------------------------
PLAYED FULL VOLUME (10)
Blues Junior sounded a lot louder at 10 that the Princeton Reverb. More Bass as well. Probably from the larger wattage speaker. Scary how loud it can get! When you have it 6-7, it had a nice warm distortion. It just oozes blues. I think that's its strong point in design.
The Princeton Reverb, with the stock-type speaker, has a lot of brightness which you have to turn down to get some bluesy distortion out of. Otherwise it gets raw sounding. Seemed to have slightly less distortion. If I was thinking blues all the time, I would have kept the speaker it came with or get a blues friendly speaker.
-------------------------
PLAYED MEDIUM/LOW VOLUME (3-5)
Blues Junior sounds overall pretty flat in terms of frequency response. You can't really take out the mids. It kind of dominates. Even with the Mid turned down all the way, you still have a lot of mids and not enough bright end (for me).
Princeton Reverb has a really nice jangle and thinness to the sound. More scooped. The speaker is really accentuating that. It pushes the brightness (if treble on 10), which gives you that Clapton "Let It Rain" type Strat sound. Not everyone's cup of tea. But I love having the option to dial up the treble to get that. You can always turn it down for warmer sounds. It also helps with brightening my dark sounding ES335.
-------------------------
CONCLUSIONS:
Noodling factor:
I do like the ?noodling? ease of use with the BJr where you sit down in front of it, turn the volume to around 6-7, Master on 1-2 and jam away some Blues licks without killing your ears. The PR is more of a clean ?noodling? amp at lower volumes. For me to have more cranked sounds, I have to plug into boxes to get that.
Love to keep both! But I think I really need to have the better clean sounding amp, which the Princeton Reverb gives me and couple it with a good distortion/overdrive pedal. When I jam, it?s mostly clean rhythm playing with distorted solos dropped in. I also want better spring reverb, which the PR has. The Blues Junior?s is mediocre.Having a tremolo is just add-on gravy. I also play with three different types of guitars: Strat, ES335 and a Ric 330/12. The ES335 being the darkest sounding. All three guitars really shine with the PR.
Speakers play a major role in the tone. I chose the brightest speaker I could because I love that jangly, raw sound. Think early Johnny Cash picking, Surf style stuff, etc...
To do: I?m going to try and play the Blues Junior through the PR speaker and cab using an extension cable. Curious to hear how the speaker sounds with it. If I do, I will post my thoughts on that as well. Also,will still look into attenuators. I also own a 60?s era Gretsch 6150T amp, which could be a nice candidate for attentuation. That thing rocks with my ES335.
External speaker cab: I?d love to get one so I could take advantage of bigger sounds from both the Princeton Reverb and the Gretsch amp. I think my favorite sounds are from these low wattage amps.
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