Blues Deluxe Reissue

[thunderbyrd]

you guys all have tons more technical knowledge than i do - so i'm asking for your opinions in general about fender's blues deluxe reissue. i'm thinking about getting one, for playing bluesrock and classic rock, booth with a les paul and a strat. i'm worried that one 12" speaker might be too muddy or dark with the les paul...
opinions, please?

[vegetablejoe]

Hi thunderbyrd,

(I spoke about the BD on the Blues DeVille thread, but the info more rightly belongs here... sorry for the redundant info)

I have a '95 BD, and it does give out quite a thump when I pound out some power chords, and it vibrates the glass panes and walls in my apartment. A 40w tube amp is a loud mofo...

But the amp does have a fair bit of EQ capability with it's separate bass, mid, and treble controls, plus the presence control. And I do take the trouble to choose my humbucker pickups. I try to avoid bassy (=muddy?) neck pups like an SD '59 and prefer to use Antiquity and Seth Lover models. I also try to avoid annoying the neighbor by setting the bass pot to 2 or below...

I prefer to play with strats, and I don't hear any muddiness with single coils nor P-90's for that matter.

The only faults I find with this amp are:
(1) the linear-taper pot on the Master Vol. control needs to be swapped with an audio taper pot, to gain smoother incremental control over volume increase (or use an external volume box in the fx loop like I do); and
(2) I wish the drive channel could give out more gain (I still need an od pedal, even for blues and classic rock).

It's not an amp meant for an apartment-dweller like myself, but I'm very happy with it. Even though I rarely get the opportunity to crank it.

I say go for it... but my 2 cents is from a home player/wkend-warrior-to-be point of view. YMMV

Btw, if you've got problems with unfriendly neighbor regarding volume, like I do, you might try (at some point) to bring down the amp's power with Yellow Jackets. Although the jury is still out on what that swap did for the amp's tone. Fwiw, to me it now sounds like a big brother to my Pro Jr. Which may or may not be a good thing, depending on one's tone preferences.

[blueswaite]

If it has an effects loop putting an eq in the loop will make an amazing difference.

[mr_sooty]

Or you could just buy a Peavey Classic, then you wouldn't need an EQ pedal.