20 Best Guitar Amps For Blues (2023 Updated)

Overall: I have to say as LOUD as I can. this,amp is outstanding. I put me wah , fuzz, and a Unit 67 Rangemaster pedal in front of this puppy and it easily rivals me Fender Hot Rod Deville III. and it weighs nothing to transport.

The line out solves all volume issues if there even is one to begin with. This amp is one of the best I have ever played amd I have been playing the blues snd jazz for 50 years. Only complaint is the inability to hitch me 212 cab to it.

But Iwill solve that easily by adding an external speaker jack. Not that it is needed but it would be nice to have the option. zZounds is at their very best once again in their availability of top notch gear.

Thank you zZounds. you have made this old bluesman a happy player with a releived back. oh the tone !!!!!! OUTSTANDING.

I bought my new Fender Blues Jr v4 about 2 months ago from a guy who decided he was more of a “Marshall Guy After All” so I got a bargain, but that was just the beginning. I wanted to spend some time and several sessions playing with this thing before I rushed into a review, but it turns out my first impressions have been even more reinforced since playing this thing for several hours, and the big word here is WOW.

I have been playing for over 62 years (that’s right, got my first guitar at 7) and bought my first Strat in high school. I’ve played and owned a LOT of different amps, and even now I have a few pieces for which I have some sentiment, but now it seems I will have to seriously reconsider.

Good thing there is no “Amp Limit Law”, but if there was I could finally happily liquidate all the others if I could have just my new Blues Jr. I have read voraciously for years about concepts such as “touch sensitive”, “controlling breakup with the guitar volume”, “takes pedals well”, etc.

Turns out these have only been myths to me all this time until now. Everything good and superlative that’s been written about this amp is absolutely true. The preamp section is like pure magic in shaping the tone and delivering it to my favorite-EL84 power amp section.

I have never been a fan of the usual Fender tube lineup, and when I heard this runs EL84s I was already excited. I am still a Strat guy to this day and love everything about it. But I have never even dreamed it could sound so good.

I have an Egnater Rebel 20, a vintage Crate 15 watt blonde with a Dr Z speaker, and my prior favorite-a 5 watt Epiphone Valve Jr into a 12″ Eminence Lady Luck. I have some others, but nothing I own or have owned can even come close to this thing.

And what has been said about the Celestion speaker choice is again, absolutely right on. The sound from this amp would be as if you had an old Deluxe Reverb, did a cap job, retube, and maybe speaker upgrade.

I guess I’m trying to say that it sounds.

I have about five amps and 11 guitars that I use. some are more high end and expensive amps and guitars and some are cheap and basic gear. As far as portable amps, I also have a Fender Champ 20 and an Orange Crush 12.

Similar to the Orange Crush 12, this amp only has basic controls. Which is actually not a bad thing. Very easy to operate. In my opinion, this sounds better than the Fender Champ 20 a bit and is easier to use.

The Champ 20 has some settings you can change. But, nothing really useful in my opinion. The Frontman has very basic settings and it also has a clean and overdrive channel that you can select. It has a pretty good level of sound and is perfect for practice.

You are not be able to add a bunch of effect with this amp to match a complex sound. For that, you will definitely need pedals (delay, etc). But, for a small portable amp, this does a wonderful job. I keep this amp and a basic squire guitar in my office and sometimes when I want to take a break, I play a little.

Even with no one in the office, i never turn it up more than 4 on the volume knob. I think for a portable compact practice amp, this is one of the best at the price point.

Im really disappointed with this amp. I know its not supposed to be super loud because its only 10 W, but I was hoping that the sound quality would be better. The sound reproduction frequencies are all mid range.

Sounds like cardboard. Color is grey. Bass and treble tones are all but nonexistent. The eq is useless because speaker cannot reproduce bass and treble frequencies. The sound is very cheap and does not give a representation of the Fender vibe whatsoever.

You are better off just playing your guitar with no amplifier at all rather than using this, because it make a good guitar sound bad. I equate the sound to that of an a. m. transistor radio. Its really bad.

I actually read some of the favorable reviews on this amplifier before I bought it, and Im seriously starting to think that none of those reviews are actually real. There are better practice amps with better fidelity out there, and I would avoid this one if your ear demands quality sound.

I’ve just started to learn the guitar. Won’t say play cause I’m not there yet lol. The items well built and is loud enough to fill a large room and possibly the neighbours too. Basic functions with volume tone and drive.

If you can get it in a sale it’s a steal.

I saw that guys were raving about this amp on The Gear Page and since I’ve become a senior citizen, I was looking for something lighter than my 60lb tube amp combo that would still sound good. So far this amp has fit the bill.

It very versatile, multiple wattage settings for different situations and it does a good job of maintaining it’s tone in the different wattage settings. Obviously it can’t compensate 100% for the lack of air movement by the speaker when the wattage is reduced but it does a better job than most.

Two channels, clean and crunch, reverb, tremolo, BMT, presence and a master volume, one thing that I don’t care for is that the EQ is shared between the two channels. I’ve never been able to make both clean and crunch sound good at the same time with them sharing an EQ section.

It also has some push buttons to modify the tone of each channel and combine the channels. I’m using the clean channel with the tone button on. It talked pedals well. My board is small in comparison to some, compression, overdrive, delay and boost pedals but the amp sounds good with any combination of the pedals that I have clicked on.

I’ve gigged it a few times and overall I’m happy with it and will continue to use it.

In the past I have owned a 65 Princton Reverb that I purchased new in 1965, and a 75 Twin Reverb that I purchased used in 1990. I have owned many other amps though the years Tube and solid state. But not nave had the sound of the Fender Tube amp.

When the Blues Deluxe arrived, I unpacked it, checked for any damage from shipping and plug it in. It was love at first note! Nothing like it. The sound is true vintage Fender, Nice and fat. I highly recommend this product if you are looking for the sound that make rock and roll happen.

This amp has great cleans and edge of breakup sounds. A very responsive EQ. This 2-band works better than most 3-band, just dial down bass and treble to boost mids. I mostly emulate John Frusciante sounds so I need a bit of a mid boost and this does the job.

For context, I got this to replace a Fender Blues Jr. tweed that caught on fire(serious quality control issues on those amps). This amp is less hot and has a bit more clarity while still having character.

Stock tubes are really good. Not the usual overly bright tubes but also not up to par with NOS harmonics. My other rig is a JTM45 through a 2×12 ALNICO cab. This combo with a 10″ speaker still maintains great bass force and seems to move a lot of air but be realistic that it won’t have the same fullness that a half stack or full stack does.

I am glad I got the 10″ for portability and weight – also it just sounds better at the volumes I practice. Not just “bedroom” volumes but also louder studio practice volumes. Two complaints: 1. ) The indicators on the knobs are hard to seed from my height(they are just little white dots and one is barely white).

Otherwise seems well built. 2. ) The drive switch doesn’t sound great. A little to harsh and not enough definition across notes. Sounds okay when dialed back with the volume(that acts as gain control) to get more on the edge of breakup or slightly overdriven.

This is fine for me because I mostly play clean, edge of breakup, or lightly overdriven. The boost is also versatile and I use that more. Overall, this is the best sounding small amp I have played. I still don’t find it as magical as my JTM45 with channels crossed over at higher volumes but I have played about 30 different small amps over the past decade and haven’t found a small amp that does.

I have never written a review before but with so much gear available these days I wanted to let other guitarists know how good this 1 watt amp is. I need to keep my volume at low levels. I have been using a Bugera G5 for a few years and it is great and has the best sounding headphone jack I have heard.

It is a 5watt amp that also has an attenuator that drops it to 1 watt and even. 1 watt. It is an amp head with a 1X12 cab and on. 1 watt it sounds like something is missing. I got the Supro Blues King 8 yesterday not knowing what to expect.

It immediately put a smile on my face. I have it up on a table about 20″ high. It sounds fantastic and a lot bigger sounding than any 8″ inch speaker I’ve ever heard. It reacts and sounds just like a tube amp should.

It also takes pedals extremely well and can get pretty loud. I recently purchased a Catalinbread Naga Viper treble booster and it sounded ok through the Bugera G5 but I was thinking about returning it until I heard it through the Blues King.

All my pedals sounded great including Dirty Little Secret, Soul Food, Spark, Tube Screamer, etc. Pro Audio Star’s price is $239 and all other stores are selling it for $399. I have been disappointed and returned many amps in the past including a 1 watt Marshall and Blackstar.

If you need a 1 watt amp, give the Blues King a try. It’s Great!.

After spending some hours on it, I love it! When I want to get some great tones at bedroom volume, it really hits the spot. Sometimes, even 10 watt tube amps just blow my face off when I’m just trying to practice lol.

It is super bluesy/glassy, which is exactly what I was expecting and wanting. It takes a loop pedal really well. I have not tried a distortion pedal on it yet. With the distortion flipped on, it is OKAY for some rhythm stuff.

Maybe it will sound good with a distortion pedal, but with the built in distortion I don’t plan on doing any lead stuff. The distortion is OK enough to suffice for a band practice if you don’t want to haul your bigger rigs.

The reverb is actually pretty decent too! I have been keeping it around 10 O’clock for my bluesy stuff. All in all, it does exactly what I expected it to do. Clean, glassy blues and good tones at a level that your family/roommates can tolerate.

If you are somewhere in the Blues/Rock spectrum it’s great. It will NOT metal, I can promise you that lol. It has become my daily plugin due to volume and great tone at low level. The Supro sound is something I am excited to continue exploring.

I’ve been playing guitar/bass for over 38 years so I’ve played all types of instruments through all types of amps, tubes and SS. I switched to solid state a few decades ago when my Ampeg tube amp had too many problems to fix.

I found a nice 60W Jazz Chorus. It was a totally different sound than the Ampeg, naturally, but I quickly learned the advantage of really clean tone. Fast forward a couple of decades — was using a Fender SS Ultimate Chorus amp, which was very sterile sounding and the reverb and distortion were lifeless.

Traded it in for cash, a couple years later saw a used BC60 Victoria model for $300 — bought it, played it for a couple years and really loved it. Always got a lot of positive comments from other players.

I decided to trade it in on new BC60 Stage because only one row of switches, the features are more streamlined. But it still has the fantastic Roland tone. I am a big fan of Roland products, have been for decades so I am a little biased I’ll admit.

But for my money this amp is equal to any tube amp and beats all other SS amps that I’ve tried. I compared in to the Fender Champion 100 SS, a Vox, and Fender Blues Deluxe tube amp. I’ll be sticking with Roland from here.

Bought this as a small grab and go. I have had many boutique amps as well as other high end Marshalls, Fenders and Mesa Boogie amps. Right out the box this little amp just puts out some great tone. It also takes pedals very well.

I was not sure about the Cannabis Rex Speaker but it is def a great sounding speaker. When I first got the amp I put it in my closet and cranked it and pounded the speaker for about a hour straight with fast percussive chords and power chords.

The speaker sounded really good out the box but after breaking it in it sounds even better now. I also took those metal feet off and put rubber feet on mine it was super easy to do. Just a flat head screw driver to get the metal feet off and ordered 4 rubber feet from Mojo Tone.

Super easy mod. Anyway this is a great amp. It does not sound boxy either. As I stated earlier it loves pedals. Run a Friedman BE-OD through it and you know what Im talking about. The sky blue color is cool too but I had to get a studio slips cover to protect it.

It’s def a great sounding portable amp that you can play at home or gig with it no problem at all. The master volume is a huge plus. I have a Mesa Boogie Fillmore 50 combo for my bigger venues but I am just as happy playing through this Blues Jr it sounds fantastic.

Fender struck a homer w this one. Got it from GC and it arrived in excellent working condition. Sonic blue looks like fenders dolphin blue. Very close ! C Rex speaker sounds awesome. Slightly different than the original fender cleans but sounds incredible.

This is an improvement over the 3rd version. Improved reverb crex speaker limited edition. Now having played the 3 version I liked it as well. So if I had one I probably wouldn’t trade up. ( Fender is awesome.

) Close race between this and the vox ac15. But I’m very satisfied with the fender. Just something about a good fender amp. Can’t be beat. Matches my pro2 strat perfectly. Plenty of power head etc for 15watt.

This one’s a keeper love it best small amp in the category. MIM but the 2 plants are a 3 hour drive apart so don’t let that determine your choice. Play it and see for yourself. Vox is made in china. It sounds great.

I just would rather have it close to California plant in Mexico than China any day. Both designers are the original fender and vox dealers specs etc. But for my money give me my fender please. ( vintage Greek) also this is my 4th experience with GC.

Not sure about some of the other reviews. But all of my items were shipped fast and in perfect brand new condition every time!! Never had to return anything from GC. Thanks GC and fender for keeping the legendary tones alive and well.

USA.

Picked this up at PMT Manchester today. As usual, staff were great and let me try the amps in my price range then left me to it. Got this as an alternative to my vox ac15, which is in need of repair and I need an amp this week.

Some of the other amps were decent, cheaper and had more features, but this just has the sound. I’m not sure if I prefer this to the vox, but maybe. Seems to break up a little earlier and the reverb is nicer- though can’t be controlled with the foot switch.

If you were in the market for a valve amp in this price bracket, I’d give this and the ac15 a go before all others. Would definitely recommend. Can’t comment on reliability as I’ve only played it for a few hours.

I’ve been looking for a great, clean amp that would really accent my guitar’s natural sound. I first tried the Blues Junior which was nice but didn’t have quite enough warmth and power behind it, I needed something more.

I did my research and landed on this beautiful Princeton. It has everything that I was looking for. I am an experienced player but also prefer not to have a super complicated setup with switches and pedals and knobs; this Princeton keeps the focus solely on the tone and sound.

Yes, there is a reverb knob which can add a little more, but I usually keep that off. What’s great about getting an amp like this is you really get CLEAN, crisp open/clean channels and can really hear your axe sing.

Because of that, it also allows your pedals to shine without being bogged down with too much of this or that, or in my opinion not having enough power behind the amplification. This amp is perfect for those who just want a clean guitar sound, or who want to throw in an effect here and there and still get everything you want in the sound.

1000% recommend.

This amp is exactly what I’ve been looking for. My favorite amp of all time is my 65 Twin but is just too loud and too heavy for home use and small gigs. So for the last couple years I’ve searched for that clear, articulate and glassy Fender blackface tone in a smaller/home/small gig friendly package.

This Princeton fits the bill exactly. I had the 68 CPR for awhile and though it sounds great, it isn’t the exact tone I’m looking for. This has the GORGEOUS black face fender clean tones and has a bit more volume and headroom than the 10″ speaker on the 65 reissue.

The reverb is great but the vibrato/term is the star of the onboard effects. So lush and natural sounding. The amp had no problem being loud enough during band practice and small gigs. I’ve also never had a small tube amp that sounds so good at low volume.

Clearly I rate the sound a 5 out 5. It’s absolutely stunning. For the construction and finish I only give it a 4. 5 out of 5. The Bordeaux Tolex is stunning as well as the wheat grille clothe. Such a classy color combo! My only gripe is (and I’m being nit picky) is that there is some glue residue that can be seen where the tolex meets the face of the amp especially on the corner near the inputs.

You can’t notice it unless you really look thigh. Other than that this thing is perfect for me. The looks are what got my attention but sound of this is what stole my heart. This beautiful Princeton will be a mainstay in my collection forever!.

I bought a Blue’s Jr. new in 1996. I simply loved it and it sounded really great for many years. The EL84 tube retainer is its nemesis. The spring pressure pushing on the tubes, mixed with the vibration caused the soldered connections to the circuit board to fail causing the EL84 tubes to arc inside and the amp laid down on me.

I used it mostly around my house and never did push it hard. Now I’m trying to decide if it is worth the cost of having it repaired. I loved the amp but I think Fender could have done a much better job with the tube retainer.

I need to mention that I have 2 other Fender Amps from around 1971. They have been trouble free and great amps, they have different tube retainers.

Ive been looking for a lightweight compact tube amp for a while and this one fits the bill. Great sound and look, under 30 lbs. With the master and gain volume you can dial in your sound. I was prepared to change out the speaker , but the stock blues king speaker is comparable to a vintage 30 or cannibis Rex , both of which I have owned.

Great tone not too dark no ice pick treble sound. This one fits the bill for me. Its loud enough to keep up with my drummer , Ill drop a mic on it for larger venues. Very satisfied with it. I went ahead and ordered a footswitch for the gain and boost effects.

It’s the most ideal amp for putting on a jam track to play to at a TV level and get great authentic tube sound with great touch sensitivity. I run a cheap EQ and analog delay in front and it’s beautiful.

Recommend getting a pedal to operate the boost drive. That’s where you bring in the grit. I bought it used through MF. In my mind the regular price seemed spendy but after having, I feel it is totally worth the price.

I bought this after buying the BK 12 and falling in love with it. The BK 8 gives me the same tones without waking up. Put an over drive or boost in front and it gets pretty loud.