The Steel Guitar Forum

I took my Vegas 400 into the local music store for repair & lo & behold there sit a used Fender Hot Rod Deluxe,in like new condition $499.99 w/ a cover & foot switch & I (as usual) was broke,damn I hate when that happens.If someone is looking for such an amp,I can give the business name & ph.#,send me a PM if interested.

that's about what i see them for on ebay, so i don't think it's any incredible deal necessarily.

There's several for sale here in Austin that are going for 350 up to 425. Hey, I might spring for one if they're that cool. How much does one weigh?

Just found out. 45lbs.

OK,not an earthshaking announcement but I just thought I'd pass the info. on seeing as how Tommy White uses one,figured someone might want one.I'd like to have one but I got 2 amps now so I don't need another one.

I bought 1 a couple months ago I really like it.

I bought one a couple of weeks ago and really like it. I wanted something I could take to smaller venues and rehearsal where I could take only my pak a seat,guitar,and amp. Sounds great without any effects,with the spring reverb.

There's one in a local music store for 350.00. I have one that I bought for 300.00. I used mine in chrches with Christian Country artist Mark Allen. They are great steel amps if you don't have to push them hard. One of the better sounding reverbs in the later Fenders.

Which are better for steel 2-12 or 4-10 or personal preference? I purchased one few wesks ago but returned it ... bad input jack...liked it mucho...was a 4-10

You raise a good point Vincent, bad input jacks. Unfortunately, most new amps have these cheap plastic input jacks soldered directly onto the circuit board. It is a failure waiting to happen. The one one my Hot Rod Deluxe is sloppy.

In 2003 Lloyd cut his "Revisted" LP on his Sho-Bud through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe with a 15" JBL D-130. This record has one of the best steel tones ever. In addition to replacing the 12" speaker baffle with a 15" baffle it's very possible he had the amp worked to match it up for steel. I have heard Fender sets the bias on these amps so the tubes will last past the warranty period. One of the first things guitar players do is turn up the bias for a hotter sound.

Personally I will state that the HR Deluxe is not a good amp for Steel on the gigs, Studio sure. If you want an amp that breaks up early with minimal headroom then this is it.

I bought one new when they came out in the mid 90's...used it for Guitar then Steel/Guitar for a year or so...It was my only amp at the time.

There are tons of discussions with regard to this amp and how people try to clean up the front end to get more headroom. Tubes/speakers etc...The fact of the matter is tube amps are designed to function with the tubes that it was designed with, changing tube types can alter tone and even a small amount of gain but at the end of the day it's still a 40 watt amp with no headroom to speak of.

I fought the headroom issue for about a year then caved..I finally fixed the problem. I sold it and got a 2x12 HR Deville...

Now I too , as Robert mentions above, heard the story of Loyd using one with a 15. for recording , I am not suggesting it is not true but I am here to tell you that there is no way a 15, (any frame/magnet size) can fit in the HR Deluxe cab with the way the amp chassis hangs. These are not conventional Fender chassis's that we are familar with, The 12 barely fits. Maybe Loyd used an extension cab...that would be my guess...

At lower volumes these are nice amps, for recording they also have a great tone. I use the HR Deville for any studio session that I may get called for, it offers a very bright tone with a smooth bottom end , very reminiscent of the early Fender Steel/amp days.

By the way, the HR Deluxes sell all day long around here used, in nice shape @ around $400...$499 is clearly a premium price for used.

t

I wonder if the new series 3 models behave differently with steel than the older ones.

I had a HR Deville 4x10, the one with the chrome control panel, I didn't like it for steel at all.

Last year I traded it for a new HR Deluxe series 3, and to my ear it's great for steel, very rich Fender tone, huge lows, nice reverb and stays clean at way higher volumes than I would ever need. I wonder if it's the speaker the new ones have in them, or maybe I just got lucky.

Tom Diemer wrote: Last year I traded it for a new HR Deluxe series 3, and to my ear it's great for steel, very rich Fender tone, huge lows, nice reverb and stays clean at way higher volumes than I would ever need. I wonder if it's the speaker the new ones have in them, or maybe I just got lucky.

Similair experience here. I've used HRD's in the past that sounded way stinky, and no presence in a bands mix. Then last year I had to play through one for a couple of weeks when my band went overseas. It was a snakeskin version, and it sounded pretty good, plenty of clean volume too. I was pleasantly surprised.

I/m sure if I had the $$$ at the time to deal I would have gotten it at least $100 buck less,maybe even less that that.But that's what happens when you're on a fixed Income.Never made enough to pay my bar bill when I was active in tha business so couldn't save any,catch 22.

It sounds like some design change happened on the series 3 to give it more head room.

My guess would be that the III is basically the same amp. What we may be experiencing here is differences in opinions...we each have a different opinion on whats loud and perhaps clean. One of us turns the volume up to 4 and thinks it's not loud enough another yells at us to turn it down !
------------------------------------------

from Fender:

Now for 2010, they receive a version III update, which includes a new top panel, different pot tapers, 'tighter' overdrive and new speakers in certain models.

------------------------------------------
Pretty much the same amp with some added glitter to keep up with the market. Adding the Celestion speaker is probably the biggest change in sound, getting away from the bright Emminence tone. If you read Fenders discussions on the HR Deluxe they already think it has great headroom! And it does for a small stage amp for guitar players.

It is a nice amp though..I liked mine when I had it, it just was not the right amp for CLEAN STEEL guitar. ( for me )

t

The worst thing about the hot rods is their reliability. My sister in law has one, and it's great, but it's only on for a few hours at a time.
Someone working with one 4-5 hours a night will experience an early failure due to the design. A fellow in Texas has made a business of pulling the melted circuit boards out of these, and using the chassis and iron, to build classic tweed era amps. Poor design!

Bill A. Moore wrote:The worst thing about the hot rods is their reliability. Poor design!

Perhaps , but I can attest to my HR Deville being very reliable...I used it every weekend for about 6 years , other than a couple of tubes now and then the amp has been great, it's still 100% operational..it's a 1996 built amp , I bought it used in 2000... Now there are some issues with the jacks that Fender used on these amps .. they are not near as good as the older switchcraft. There is a $35 upgrade kit to change them to the old style swithcraft. I have not done this but may sometime in the future. My bandmates have had a few different HR Devilles and Deluxes, they also did not have any issues. Maybe it's isolated ?

t

Tony, check out TJ's site, he has pictures of the pattern failures.
http://www.tjadamowicz.com/amps/HRDConv/convert.html

Bill A. Moore wrote:Tony, check out TJ's site, he has pictures of the pattern failures.
http://www.tjadamowicz.com/amps/HRDConv/convert.html

Bill, I'm sure amps die, I repair tube amps all the time. Components fail...that's what they do sometimes.

All I can say is MY HR Deville has been problem free since birth in 1996...like I stated above, my amp was used for 6 years non stop...maybe longer...it's still 100% operational...

My friends have also used HR Deluxes and Devilles, no issues...

I would never argue that amps die, any amp...

even Twin Reverbs !

If the HR series was THAT bad it would be all over every guitar website on the net , there are thousands of them in use, maybe millions..who knows....but rather they are pretty highly regarded, very popular, sure, they could have done a few things better...I would certainly agree to that...

t

Tony, check out TJ's site, he has pictures of the pattern failures.
http://www.tjadamowicz.com/amps/HRDConv/convert.html

I looked at Tj's website and only 1 example of the board failure. Is 1 failure supposed to indicate widespread failure?

Richard Sinkler wrote:

Tony, check out TJ's site, he has pictures of the pattern failures.
http://www.tjadamowicz.com/amps/HRDConv/convert.html

I looked at Tj's website and only 1 example of the board failure. Is 1 failure supposed to indicate widespread failure?

I have no dog in this hunt , but certainly agree with Richard here... This design is basically used across many Fender amp models, and has been since the early 90's... this is not just a HR series design. The Blues Deluxe series is the same as the HR series, the HR series was updated to add the 2nd drive channel...the new RI amps use similar design and components, if things are astray..they are REALLY astray !

From the photo I would like to know what caused the burning PC bd, the burn is a result of a problem, not the actual problem. I have seen serious PC bd burns but they were the result of something major occurring rather than the result of a bad design...that PC bd had an out and out flame on it...open traces typically cause open circuits, not shorts...circuits stop working, they don't start burning. To me it looks like someone dropped something on the pc bd , caused a huge short or tried a mod and wired it wrong...he doesn't actually say what caused the problem..he just says it's a bad bd...and he's right it is really bad now !

regardless I still like my HR Deville !

The #1 reliabilty problem these amp had (the old ones were worse) was overheating of the two 5 watt dropping resistors in the + and -16 volt supply rails. Seen it over and over. They get so hot that they de-solder themselves after heating up, causing the amp to switch channels or just plain go out until it cools off. Had one so hot that the Zener diode fell out of the board! I have repaired many of these amps due to this failure.

I had one here for repair a few years ago that had a good tone, but the reverb was just too harsh & metallic sounding.
That's the only section that's not tube driven like the old Fenders.

Ken Fox wrote:The #1 reliabilty problem these amp had (the old ones were worse) was overheating of the two 5 watt dropping resistors in the + and -16 volt supply rails. Seen it over and over. They get so hot that they de-solder themselves after heating up, causing the amp to switch channels or just plain go out until it cools off. Had one so hot that the Zener diode fell out of the board! I have repaired many of these amps due to this failure.

well ok !

Ken, ..

Mine is a 96, I looked at the bd today, looks good to me..no burns, no parts falling off. Is this issue consistent with the HR Series and the Blues Series ? Have you run across amps that had pc bds burned like the photo above ? Is that a common thing as mentioned above ?

I guess we should ask, or I should ask...seeing these amps are so popular, and many of us participate on many other net boards, why are we not reading or hearing about issues with this series ? On the guitar boards these amps are talked about 24/7 by many, novice to pro's...there is no mention of on going issues especially resistors burning out...and as we know, there are thousands of these amps out there on bandstands all over the place...one would think we would hear something ....my personal experience is with many players in my area, many who use these amps, have owned them etc..nobody has anything bad to say..My own HR Deville is now 16 years old..with plenty of ON TIME...no issues...



thanks

t


t