I agree w/ your comment regarding the pots (and input jack) attatchment to the circuit board. They are easily broken and require a bit of finess to replace. If there is a good side, it must be that the pots are cheap (under $4). On the other hand, while you are correct that the tubes are inverted, a good number of Fender (and other) amps are arranged in the same way and, in the case of the Blues Junior, there is a tube retainer which holds them in place. But the tubes are remote to- not attached to- the circuit board. The board is parallel to, forward of and above the location of the tubes. I sincerely doubt there is any adverse effect from rising heat. If you are concerned about it being an issue, when you “change it a tad”, you might consider drilling or otherwise cutting some heat relief holes in the top of the cabinet. I’m really curious, too, how your tubes “went bad just from sitting around”. I’m thinking that, if that were the case, it would not be a fault of the Blues Junior amp, as every tube amp in existence would suffer the same problem. The tubes are, after all, sealed inside a vacuum. What could possibly harm them other than use or rough treatment?

poorly engineered. The attached pots to the board is the worst I’ve seen. Forces the tubes to be inverted and then the heat rises into the base and into the board. I’ve owned this amp for about 14 years and admittedly did not use it much. (didn’t care for it once I had it home) Tubes went bad from just sitting around so I decided to replace all of them. Was taken back by the lousy set up. I will change it a tad.

You are certainly justified in your concerns regarding the way the pots and input jack are mounted in the Blues Junior. They are prone to breakaged at the first opportunity. On the other hand and as I mentioned above, the pots are cheap to purchase. Also, a decent Switchcraft input jack is $2 or less. If you can run a soldering iron and a de-soldering tool, installing a jack (and some short jumpers to the board) or the pots is not a difficult task. Bill M has mastered the art of modding the Blues Junior and you can’t hardly go wrong with his kits. But his workload is such that, if you wish to have him do the minor surgery, his waiting list is a year long. I mentioned above that I don’t play anywhere near as much electric as I do acoustic guitar, but I’ve gigged this amp at a few pretty decent size places and it’s plenty loud. The biggest problem I have in those instances is dispersion of sound. My solution is micking the little amp to the PA. (Then again a friend of mine, Denver Collins, has struggled with toting two Twin Reverbs to gigs for 30 years and isn’t going to change until they kill him).

Not a bad amp for what it is, although after peeking inside I was a little shocked at some of the electronic layou/construction. My main concern are the hard wired pots to the PCB board, a possible recipe for disaster and the junky plastic input jacks. Planning on having some mods done by the youtube famous Bill M (aprox $ 100.00 s worth) to sweeten the sound and get past the presently “boxy” sound; this will open up the amp and beef up the tone. In closing’ it s ok for a bedroom amp & practicing around the house, some jams here and there but I wouldn t gig w this amp on a regular basis; will stick to my 2 SF Deluxe Reverbs for real playing out.

great amp, handy