In my series of reviewing the gear I am trying out for future members I thought I would review my Blues Deluxe. I struggled doing this with G.L.'s problem with his, but wanted to get the ball rolling. No disrespect sir.

I bought mine used off of CL from a nice enough guy. He had all the internal wiring re-soldered and new tubes put in so this will not be an "out of the box" review.

Light weight at 40lbs. Transporting will be a breeze along with two guitars. It sports one 12" speaker and is 40 watts. Plenty enough for me seeing as I am only looking to start a three piece traditional Rockabilly band a lá High Noon.

Plenty of volume out of this amp. I have mine on a stand so it's at ear level. I play between 1 and 2 and have no problems. At 6 it starts to break up. Have not tried going to 12 yet, maybe this weekend. You do have the option of hooking up an extension speaker or cabinet. Just match your impedance!! They have the output set up in the owners manual or online so you know what the impedance will be. Tone was super easy to set up.

Drive. Ahhh the great debate. This will not get you a metal sound, blah blah blah. That being said in every review, you can get a cool overdriven sound. It has a separate channel just for the "overdrive" and is controllable with the foot switch included. There is a separate master volume just for the drive but it stills uses your treble, bass, and mids. I think this would be great since your are not trying to play the matching game with the channels. Final thought on this channel, you can get a cool blues sound. Dare say 70's type rock at best.

The reverb is lacking to me. It's there, but it feels like it is not full on or maybe it's just super weak. I hope someone who reads this tells me there is a better unit I can put in there. If not, I will just get a pedal and add it to the effects loop with the echo. The reverb can be controlled with the foot switch as well. After the novelty of being able to switch channels has worn off, the foot switch is going into the closet. Less is more to me.

Super easy to dial in your sound. Not a million knobs or extra bells and whistles. Ascetically it's beautiful. The tweed and oxblood are awesome. It oozes Rockabilly/Blues cool. I have seen a picture with Cliff Gallup next to one that looks identical. The lettering is upside down when looking at the knobs from the speaker side. Since its a basic set up this is easily over looked.

I would get another, but a used one so I knew it was put through its paces. For the money it's worth it being light, great sounding, and just cool looking.



18908

I don't know if I have anything bad to say about the amp really. Any amp can have a problem, I am more upset with Guitar Center and Fender backing their warranty. I can't wait to hear the amp when it is working like it is suppose to work. I may keep it may not, I am glad that you are happy with yours. My first fender was a Twin loaded with EV 12Ls someone had put in it great amp. The reason I sold it , because with the EVs in it, it was hard to get it to break up decent. Played very nice clean with the reverb. Of all the reverbs I have heard on the new amps these days, mostly smaller less exspensive tube amps. I prefer to run a digital reverb like maybe a Alesis Nanoverb, and just leave it on. Run it tru the effects loop and lot less noise.

Nice review
I love mine so much I sold my Vox and Marshall... Like u said, less is more !

18913

Another BD(RI) enthousiast here! :D

http://www.gretsch-talk.com/forum/attachments/ampage-area/11550d1295698774-nad-nad.jpg

http://www.gretsch-talk.com/forum/attachments/ampage-area/11642d1295981775-nad-dsv-bdri.jpg

I experimented with different speakers in it and even put a 15" JBL (http://www.gretsch-talk.com/forum/ampage-area/35756-scooped-15-jbl-k130-speaker-into-my-blues-deluxe.html) in it. But I kept coming back to the stock Fender Special design speaker; just love the clarity of that one.:)

I made 2 "mods" to it that are still in there: a NOS GE 5751 preamp tube in V1 makes the clean range more controllable (but more or less voids the gain channel, since it reduces the overall gain of the amp). And a pair of (somewhat mismatched) RCA blackplate 6L6gc powertubes in the end section.


Astrolux: not sure what the issues is with the reverb on yours. It won't give you the tons of 'wash' you'd get on a Deluxe Reverb, a Twin or any of the vintage Fender amps, but the reverb should be very noticable. Could it be the RCA plugs have been reversed on yours?
The Reverb pickup is done with a chip on the Blues Deluxe (a TL072 opamp), so it can't be a bad tube or anything. These chips usually go a very long way.

Check what happens if you bridge the FX in/out with a mono cable. Normally, the reverb will be switched to the FX output when you insert something there.
It's not uncommon for the connectors on the FX loop to become dirty and make poor contact when the loop is not used. This is a pretty common problem for FX loop amps.

I love my blonde 1992 Blues Deluxe. When I got it I sold my '74 Twin because the BD soulded just as good and was much lighter. I don't use the OD but it is not bad. My only complaints are the volume pot could be better and the jacks are plastic and mounted to the pc board. One of these days I will get a tech to swap them out.

My lead player bought a BD this weekend and I can't wait for practice to see how much better he will sound.