Fender Blues Deluxe Amp Reviews 4

Purchased from Guitar Center, San Marcos, CA, in 1996 new in box for $394 plus tax. I listened to many amps this size and liked the warm bluesy sound of this amp the best, especially for the price.

My main Guitar is a Lonestar Strat and when I gig I always bring a American Standard Strat with Texas Specials as a back up. I also have a Gibson ES-135 with PAF's that really push the amp and and make it break up very nice. This amp sounds great with my music style which is predominantly blues, 50's to 70's R&R, and Surf. I mainly use the clean channel and put a bunch of efects in front of it. I have a TS-9 tube screamer that has been retro modded to a TS-808 that really works well with this amp and I use a Mesa V-Twin pedal for high gain. This amp is very loud for its size. I highly recommend replacing the original speaker that came with it though. I use a Celestion Vintage 30. The clean channel starts breaking up around 5-6. I really like the sound I get from this setup. I have gotten many compliments on my sound with this amp too, it's very warm sounding and I do back of the bass to about 4. I run the mid at 6, trebble at 7, presence at 7 and the bright switch on. Dials go from 1-12.

The original speaker was junk and as I stated before I replaced it soon after buying the amp. The input jacks are cheap and I replaced one when it started to crap out about a year ago. I put in new Svetlana tubes then and had the shop tech add a bias adjustment too. It sounds even better now. I highly recommend the guys at Top Gear in San Diego they're very friendly/helpful and do good work.

Aside from some cheap components the amp has held up very well riding around in the back of my truck to regular weekly gigs.

I've been playing for about 34 years. I'm giving this amp a very good rating because it definatly meets my needs. It is not to heavy to lug around and it has great sound for the price I paid including the cost of a better speaker. It has been hauled around in my truck a lot and held up very well considering it's circuit board construction inside. If it were lost or stolen I would truly be bummed out and would get another, maybe two and go stereo. In fact I may get another anyway if the price is right. I have three other tube amps, two Fender combos and an older Carvin halfstack which sounds very Fender/Mesa Boogie.

Steve Eichinger rated this unit 4 on 2003-11-08.

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