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King Loudness « Not bad »
Published on 10/31/11 at 07:28The Fender Hot Rod Deluxe is a fairly standard amplifier featuring two channels, an onboard gain boost for the drive channel, reverb, an effects loop and 40 watts of power driven by a single Eminence speaker. It is powered by a pair of 6L6s in the power section and it is basically meant to offer a decent Fender clean coupled with a reasonable drive circuit for everything from crunch to higher octane tones. It's a very common backline amp and I've used them at numerous club and festival shows. It's a pretty loud amp like many Fenders and cuts through in a band mix quite well.
UTILIZATION
Dialing in this amp for good tones is reasonable. It does suffer from a pretty awful sudden volume jump that can be a disadvantage when dialing in sounds. It has a fairly reasonable EQ and reacts as it should to control adjustment. The tones themselves are decent. I find this amp sounds a bit anemic due to the single speaker configuration. I've had better luck with the 4x10 Hot Rod Deville which has a punchier attack to my ears. It has a pretty good range of tones from clean to high gain and despite sounding a bit thin it can be made to be a great workhorse amp.
SOUNDS
This amp sounds at home with a variety of different guitars and in a variety of musical contexts. It has a great classic Fender clean sound that gets great sparkle and clarity especially with a single coil loaded guitar like a Strat or Tele. The crunch tones have a great raw energy to them that is right at home with a Les Paul or ES335. The highest gain tones have a nice open airy quality but can be prone to buzziness at uber high gain. It's not an amp that was built with metal styles in mind but it does sound good for classic or hard rock, especially if boosted.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe is a decent workhorse amp for some looking for a versatile amp with good clear Fender cleans and a reasonable drive tone. They can be had for about $500 used which is a fair deal. I'm not the biggest fan of the single speaker layout but it works well enough for what it is.
UTILIZATION
Dialing in this amp for good tones is reasonable. It does suffer from a pretty awful sudden volume jump that can be a disadvantage when dialing in sounds. It has a fairly reasonable EQ and reacts as it should to control adjustment. The tones themselves are decent. I find this amp sounds a bit anemic due to the single speaker configuration. I've had better luck with the 4x10 Hot Rod Deville which has a punchier attack to my ears. It has a pretty good range of tones from clean to high gain and despite sounding a bit thin it can be made to be a great workhorse amp.
SOUNDS
This amp sounds at home with a variety of different guitars and in a variety of musical contexts. It has a great classic Fender clean sound that gets great sparkle and clarity especially with a single coil loaded guitar like a Strat or Tele. The crunch tones have a great raw energy to them that is right at home with a Les Paul or ES335. The highest gain tones have a nice open airy quality but can be prone to buzziness at uber high gain. It's not an amp that was built with metal styles in mind but it does sound good for classic or hard rock, especially if boosted.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe is a decent workhorse amp for some looking for a versatile amp with good clear Fender cleans and a reasonable drive tone. They can be had for about $500 used which is a fair deal. I'm not the biggest fan of the single speaker layout but it works well enough for what it is.