lance_lau

The Fender Blues Deluxe is a great amp for the value conscious, but for me, it falls short of the classic Fender sound that it's attempting to invoke. I find that compared to the black and silver face ams of the 60's and 70's, the Blues Deluxe Reissue has far too much midrange, even with eq scooping and overall, a sound that lacks definition, particularly in the low frequencies, where it can sound "farty". Also, it has just two volume settings: Off and loud as fuck, which as an urban apartment dweller, can be problematic. I've managed to dial in a sound that I like by tweaking the preamp and eq on my Boss GT-5, but it's disappointing to not get that sound from the amp alone. I've also reduced power output on the clean channel by switching the 12AX7 preamp tube to a Sovtek 5751 and added a Volume Box from Carl's Custom Guitars in the effects loop that has mollified my neighbors concerns about noise. Next step will be to change the speaker and take it to Rootbeer Audio to have it gone over and possibly have them do something like a Frommel mod and upgrade the capacitors.