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MGR/Anonymous « Fender Hot Rod DeVille »
Published on 06/25/01 at 15:00I bought the amp in a Music Store stopping on my way home from work on a Friday evening. I had had a tough week and just wanted to talk a bit to the people at the store who were always friendly. So friendly in fact, that they told me to try out the - at that time - new Fender Hot Rods. In the end, I bought one - see below why. I paid about $ 440 for it - a good price in Germany.
The clean sound is the best I've ever heard and I've played a number of amps, tube and solid state. Warm, full and with a light sparkle. The weak side of many Fenders is the overdrive sound and that's where the amp completely convinced me to buy it. The drive sound gives you a rough overdrive, ideal for classic rock and blues while the more drive switch (channels are footswitchable) adds drive and volume, nice for leads. Add to this the Fender reverb and you're set for a very versatile, good sounding amp.
I don't know which pots they used, but when practicing, you have to be careful with the volume control, just breathe at it or it gets too loud too soon. The reverb gets also a bit too much after "3" on a "10" scale, but until that it's great. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to dial in an eq setting that works equally well for the three sounds the amp offers. All the channels share one eq section. I'd like one eq section for clean and another one for overdrive. But it works, it just needs more work.
Rock solid, I bought it 4 years ago and had no problems whatsoever.
I'd buy it again any time. Great amp for a lot of styles: Blues, Classic rock, Country and even some Jazz. What it can't do is Heavy metal - but that's what stomp box distortions are for.
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com
The clean sound is the best I've ever heard and I've played a number of amps, tube and solid state. Warm, full and with a light sparkle. The weak side of many Fenders is the overdrive sound and that's where the amp completely convinced me to buy it. The drive sound gives you a rough overdrive, ideal for classic rock and blues while the more drive switch (channels are footswitchable) adds drive and volume, nice for leads. Add to this the Fender reverb and you're set for a very versatile, good sounding amp.
I don't know which pots they used, but when practicing, you have to be careful with the volume control, just breathe at it or it gets too loud too soon. The reverb gets also a bit too much after "3" on a "10" scale, but until that it's great. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to dial in an eq setting that works equally well for the three sounds the amp offers. All the channels share one eq section. I'd like one eq section for clean and another one for overdrive. But it works, it just needs more work.
Rock solid, I bought it 4 years ago and had no problems whatsoever.
I'd buy it again any time. Great amp for a lot of styles: Blues, Classic rock, Country and even some Jazz. What it can't do is Heavy metal - but that's what stomp box distortions are for.
This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com