Subway Blues kicking some major tail , but still needs help

[Zoner]

I've been more inclined to fire up the Subway for quick practice sessions or product testing lately and have come to believe it may even be gig-worthy in the right setting with a touch of assistance. I'm pushing the front with both a Fulltone GT-500 and a Gaspedals Carb, and am really liking the range of quality tones I get with this combo. I have a new EV loaded 3/4 back 1x12 cab coming in a couple days and this should be a great way to get the little 'way up off the floor, but 2 nagging issues are making me doubt its ability to be my go-to rig(although its small size makes it VERY attractive - plus saving wear on my IIC+). I am having a horrible time tracing a sympathetic vibe that makes the amp unusable in certain keys, and junk for recording. It seems to be emanating from the INSIDE of the reverb pan, but I have yet to take the tank all the way out and investigate. It is attached properly but the noise continues. I also have trouble with the effects loop. I can't get the balance right on my effects or the mix high enough to make it worth messing with, so I run my time-based stuff into the front and miss out on having a graphic eq in the loop for a solo boost. I use a Boss DD-2, a CE-2, and a GE-7 in the loop of my MKII and it works perfectly. Not so with the parallel loop on the Sub. I'd love to mod the loop to series if anyone knows how (I should call Boogie and ask I guess), but have heard the loop is suspect and noisy on the Subwaysto begin with so we'll see. I wish the bright/fat mini switch were footswitchable as well, but otherwise, this little rig cooks very nicely. If I can get the volume up around 12:00 and use the treble and especially the mid controls to zero in on the perfect amount of grunch, it can do anything my IIC+ can on a slightly reduced scale. Can anyone help me weed out these irritants or share SB stories as anything other than a practice or recording amp? Can this little mother hang if clean headroom isn't much of an issue? Z

 

[carlosasi]

Hey man glad to see you like the Subway. I have the Rocket Reverb and love it. I have plugged it into a 4 x 12 live once with great results. No one could believe it was only 20 Watts. It is as loud as my Mark III (which you so kindly sold me) and much lighter to lug around. This is a very under rated amp imo. What I am curious about is what is the Lead and Contour sound modeled after in the Mesa line? Rectifiers or Mark IIC+ or ???????

Rock on!

 

[tiktok]

Do you have another cab you can connect the amp to and not use the internal speaker? I've had tube-related issues in the past with my Subway Rocket that were due to the speaker vibrating the chassis and causing one of the tubes to ring on certain notes. Using with with another cab, and making sure to not set the amp on the cab provided a temporary fix until I could troubleshoot the tubes.

 

[carlosasi]

At home I just use the combo 10" speaker no issues other than deafness. The one live setting I used it in I had the Subway set to the side of a 4x12 and had no issues with noise or tube / chassis vibration either. I should try and slave one of my other boogies from the SRR just for fun.

 

[Ken j]

I purchased a Subway Blues late last summer off of ebay. I am in the process of restoring this amp to its former glory as it was not in as good of condition as described in the ebay listing. I had a problem with the reverb that was most likely caused by shipping or miss-handling. I could even see this happening while riding in a car on a bumpy road. The reverb when turned up would start to generate a tone almost like a feedback. I tried a few things but ended up removing the reverb unit. I found that the metal piece that contains the four long springs floats on four short springs in all four corners. This piece's movement is controlled by two allignment dowels that go through two holes with rubber grommets. The dowels were not going through the holes. The piece was sitting on the dowels causing it to be grounded mechanically to the outer case. It must have been dropped or bumped hard enough to dislodge the piece. All I did was put it back in position and it now works fine. This was a no-cost repair. It may be worth taking a look at yours.

I also run mine with a 1x12-3/4 back in addition to the 10" speaker.

 

[JW123]

I bought a Subway Rocket on a whim 10-15 yrs ago. It is a great amp to have around.

I used to sit in with a few bands and one of them had a young guitarist who played thru one of those SS Marshall half stacks. I came in and put it on a chair next to his rig. He started laughing at my "little Breadbox amp". After a couple of songs I noticed he was tweaking his amp and getting all frustrated. He says "Man that thing is bad". I looked at his amp and he had everything dimed and sounding like crap, I think I had the master around 12 oclock. It was worth having that amp just to see this young punks face when I cranked it up.

I agree they are a highly underrated amp. If you can pick one up for 300-400 dollars they are great.

Back to the original post, I dont use a lot of effects so I cant comment on the dropout you are experiencing.

 

[SixVeeSix]

I found a complete reverb unit from a Mesa on ebay for about $25 shipped. I needed the tank and cords for my Maverick but the padded bag is now in my Subway Blues. Take a look at how Mesa mounts the reverb tank in their premium amps, there is a plywood sheet guarding the open side of the tank and several strips of heavy duty foam weatherstripping on the top of the tank to dampen vibration. This is slid into the the padded bag and strapped down tight with a single strap screwed in the middle of the tank. Very effective at eliminating vibration in the tank and it improves the tone of the reverb as well. So that is what I did and it works great.

Subway Blues is very responsive to changes in the first preamp tube (V1). With a 5751 it is hard to get much more than a bit of grind, with one of the old yellow letttered Sylvania 12ax7/ECC83/7025 tubes it screams.

If you can find a Peavey Scorpion 10" speaker, pop it in there for fun. The bass will become much bigger sounding and the highs less fizzy.

Subway Blues is a great little amp, hard to get a bad tone out of one.