Blues Jr vs Night Train

rikus

I'm in the market for a 15 watt amp and I'd appreciate some insights.

I was seriously considering importing something for a while, but I've decided against it for a bunch of reasons...

The amps available locally that tickled my fancy was the Blues Jr, the Night train and the Superchamp XD. I really want something with a 12" speaker, so that excludes the Superchamp.

I can get a new Night Train head and cab at a reasonable price and Blues Jr demo for a fair bit cheaper. I really like Fender cleans, but I also like the Vox sound.

What are your thoughts on these amps? How are the night train's cleans? Which takes pedals better? I play mainly blues and rock (contemporary worship stuff), but no high gain stuff.

Keira-WitherKay

rikus wrote: . I really like Fender cleans,

you said it .. yourself is you love that fender clean sound...... then there's no way you'd be happy with anything other than Fender amp for it .......... cos hey no one does fender cleans better than a fender tube amp ......... btw what guitar will you be using cos , i also love fender clean tone and i found the magic mix is a fender strat or tele into a fender amp ...sure win ..........

HOWEVER the vox night train (although i'm not a huge vox tone fan) but it's a great amp and i seen it used in many studio sessions......

and as for pedals go........ to the respective stores with your pedals and plug em in and hear for yourself ......... but i'm sure both would take most pedals pretty well .........

THE VOX will be beter than the fender for high gain drive tones

BUT you said drive is NOT what you want ............

so if you NOT wanting huge drive both amps should cope just fine for cleans ( but the night train will get 'dirty" much sooner than the fender which means the 'good' clean tone will be lower in volume than say the fender ............so the fender will stay clean(er) at higher columes ) .....

.but no doubt if it's that fender clean tone you want the fender will give you a more 'fender clean " tone than the vox ever could

but the vox's offer another sort of clean ...........

so try em both ? and decide

AlanRatcliffe

Both good amps, but head to head I'd go for the Vox.

The Blues Junior IMO needs a few mods to really shine. In the stock form the overdrive channel isn't great sounding and the clean channel isn't very loud for a 15W. Mods are common and easy to get info on though. A speaker swap does go a long way to curing both these problems though and In a P&W setting, volume isn't really an issue. What bothers me most about it is it is not very pedal friendly.

The Night Train has better drive sounds, loves pedals, has plenty volume - even clean (but has a triode/pentode switch, so you can run it at 7W) and the stock cab comes with a Celestion Greenback. The whole head cab thing of course makes it easy to use different cabs for different playing situations.

Nicholas-L

I have to agree with Alan. The Night Train will stock give you more tweakability. But I'm about to through a spanner in the works, have you considered the Ibanez TSA15 with the 1x12 cab? In my opinion it will be an awesome amp especially in a P&W setup.

StefStoep

+1 on the Ibanez TSA15.

Our electric guitarist in the worship team uses one.

IceCreamMan

of the 2 i would choose the Vox, better value for money in ZA , the fender pricing is meshuggah ....

but look at other 15 watters as well, loads of choice these days

rikus

Thanks very much for the inputs folks.

I gotta admit, As much as I looove fender cleans, that Vox sound is staying with me! You're right Alan, I don't need massively loud clean tone for P&W. It's also good to know that the NT loves pedals! I think it would be best to try them both out side by side.

The Ibanez leaves me slightly cold and I really don't like the white tolex... ???

Nicholas-L

Either way the NT is still a cool choice

Warren

I have a Night Train. Things that might bug you:

1) No built-in reverb, no effects loop
2) No foot-switchable "thick" (gain) channel

Other than that, it's an awesome amp. If you use pedals for your gain tones, you won't worry about point 2 above, and a decent reverb pedal works just fine with the amp set to clean to gritty (not so great with heavier drive).

rikus

Warren wrote: I have a Night Train. Things that might bug you:

1) No built-in reverb, no effects loop
2) No foot-switchable "thick" (gain) channel

Other than that, it's an awesome amp. If you use pedals for your gain tones, you won't worry about point 2 above, and a decent reverb pedal works just fine with the amp set to clean to gritty (not so great with heavier drive).

Thanks for the heads-up Warren. I'm aware of both of these and I reckon I should be able to live with it... ?

nicovlogg

I play the Vox myself, on very loud stages, running it into a 4x12. No problem with volume whatsover, it has plenty, plenty of power. Way more headroom than an AC15 as well. Doesn't take well to higher gain pedals, can do TS type boost or OD pedals fine. Really a very nice amp for the price. ?