Tonal Differences between the Hot Rod Deluxe and Deville 2x12

[taperocket]

Hi,
I'm going to be getting one of these two fender amps and I was wondering if someone could describe the general tonal differences, if any, between the two. I've heard the hot rod deluxe and I really like it. I'm not interested in the 4x10 because I'm looking for more headroom and I've heard a lot that the 10" speakers break up more quickly. Any shared knowledge would be great! Thanks..

 

[Outlaws]

Hi,
I'm going to be getting one of these two fender amps and I was wondering if someone could describe the general tonal differences, if any, between the two. I've heard the hot rod deluxe and I really like it. I'm not interested in the 4x10 because I'm looking for more headroom and I've heard a lot that the 10" speakers break up more quickly. Any shared knowledge would be great! Thanks..

Ummm....10" speakers don't break up any faster than any other speaker. Infact, they have their own unique tone to them since they have less bass response. I like 410 configurations personally.

Neither of those amps has much headroom when you crank them. I know they are two channels but its really just one dirty channel with a filthy/noisy channel.

 

[WERNER 1]

I've played alot through both of these amps --- The Blues Deville, and the Hot Rod Deville. I personally feel that the Hot Rod is a better amp. The Blues deville starts to break up on the clean channel around 3 1/2 on the Volume knob.......which is pretty premature in my book. The Hot rod stays cleaner a bit longer, but not a whole lot.

 

[IronFlippy]

As far as I know, the only differences between them is that the deluxe has one 12" and the deville has 2 12". The deville is also a 60 watt amp whereas the deluxe is 40 watts. Other than that, i think they're the same. I really want one of them also, but i don't know how much power i'm going to need. I'd have to try them both out in a place that'll let me crank them a bit.

 

[Hard2Hear]

I owned a Blues Deville 4x10, Blues Deville 2x12, and Blues Deluxe all at the same time. I don't like the Hot Rod versions of any of them. Have you seen that they're now reissueing the originals (Blues) in tweed? Theres a reason for that, cause they were better and most people can hear it.

Any of these amps will get very loud. They all have the Fender blues distortion sound and do a great SRV kind of sound. They also are excellent for country music. The 4x10 had a bit more headroom, but this is HIGHLY ADJUSTABLE by your tubes and bias settings. I had the 4x10 set up for a really cool bias to get tones very similar to my 59 Bassman reissue I was also using. The 4x10 had a really long throw to it, so I had to be careful about where I used it. You wouldn't hear much volume on stage, but the audience was blown away sometimes if I wasnt careful. The Deluxe is a more manageable amp for most things. The tone of all the amps is very similar, with the notable difference being speaker size. The 1x12 will break up easier because of less watts, less clean headroom. 60 watts gives you more to work with if you're wanting pure clean. As far as speaker distortion...it won't really come into play for most people with these amps. They are loud amps and I rarely played past 3 even with large scale PA and audience settings. The speakers are more than enough to handle the amp wattage and will split your ears before they cause speaker distortion.

The hot rod series changed speakers, gain staging, and added the extra boost. I have never liked them much, which is why I never bothered buying any of those.

H2H

 

[louloomis]

I think these amps are not terrible for the money, but they're not great. If I remember correctly (and I could be wrong), they have transformers which are MUCH smaller than that of an older Fender or similarly constructed vintage amp.

Peavey does the same thing, I believe. This greatly limits what you're going to get out of your amp, if you ask me.

I could be wrong, but my friend has one and it sounds bad and I just saw the MC5 (MC3+2, or whatever they're called) live and Wayne Kramer was playing through one and he could have had MUCH better tone. I also played through one at a rehearsal studio and thought "this is ok, but who wants ok?".

LL