Fender Hot Rod Deluxe

Bought new 08/16/2008
Play rock/pop. Clean channel outstandingly good. Despite majority opinion on here I prefer amp overdrive channel to the o/d via my Boss ME50 but then my style is clean stuff mainly
2 channels + "more drive" effects loop which I use for Boss ME50
Like amps simple. Previously used Line 6 Flextone 3
modeller - not even in the same legue as this Fender
Small/medium gigs ample power
Dipped my toe in the tube amp waters with a Grainger (Epiphone) Blues twin. Could not go back to tranny ammp now

Parker P38 & Fly mojo
Suits style fine
No noise problems so far
Clean & mild o/d . Not much variety but the clean is good enough basis for stomp sounds especially chorus & delay
Never had to crank it that high. In fact the volue is too high too suddenly so I tame it through the volume pedal of the ME50
not the best distortion but if yu want metal grunge stuff you wouldn't buy this amp

Early days so fingers crossed. Spooked by some of the previous reviews though

not applicable

8 years in band
Would buy again
Clean sound is awesome > Not keen on limited range of the volume control - a bit all or nothing
Marshall & Peavey. Clean sound did it for me
Anti gravity device we lug our own stuff to gigs

3 years old,
2 channel switching
Not many features
Vintage rock R&B dance band 14 years, playiny 40 years
7 'cause channel 2 is useless except for maybe blues but can't hang with high end stomps in channel 1

PRS '87 bought new, '53 tele my Dad bought new (yep real deal), PRS HB 2 McCarty, strat, many others..but gig with PRS HB2 and '53 tele
Lets' just be brief. Side by side the CLEAN is almost as good as my Boogie rectoverb, the clean sounds great if you spend time. What tis amp does BEST is high end stomp boxes.
Boogie V-Twin is UNREAL close to Boogie I was shocked. Channel 2 blues maybe, mostly useless.
Keeley BD2, Fulltone OCD makes this very close to Marshall for small gigs. It KILLS with high end stomp boxes ONLY! Keeley SD-1, Barber, Keeley TS-9, I have 15 stomps high end..none stock. For the $ the clean is probably the best buy..not even close to the BUDDA 18 watter but that is a whole 'nother level of sound and & $ (1400) and worth twice that!
As this is a 550 amp the clean is worth that...best buy at this price range new. Of course the '53 tele sounds awesome through anything..isn't that ironic after all these years and gabuddles of guitars available. leo fender got it right in his first 5 years! Spot on "Stones" and a rocker to a point..vintage.

Yea Fenders are reliable..not a Boogie or Budda but very good..65' twin my dad bought new still going strong

Have never called them

40 years guitar..45 drums...10.5 years drumming and guitar in college.
no I'd get another Buddah 18 for stereo! PLEASE go play a BUDDAH
I hate channel 2

why have 3 to 10 guitars worth thousands and a $550 amp? so common though. So many scrimp on amps.

8 for clean channel & price point and "stompability factor" is awesome! truly! great 1st amp with a couple good stomps

brand new in box. not shure of year. basic eq, clean vol. dirty vol and drive knod, fx loop, ext speaker out. only 8 knobs and 5 tubes, perfect!!!! A+

singles and hums. perfect amp for my style. LP standard gibson and strat. classic rock to punk, garage punk,90's alternative. there must be differences between each amp b/c mine sounds great to me. the clean side is awsome imo, warm and bright and clean. crank it and it breaks up. i like it but its very loud that way. the drive channel fits the bill. think black sabbath, zepplin, the strokes, queens of the stone age, social distortion etc...single eq is fine guys, learn how to play guitar and buy a good axe for christ sake. this amp sounds like a Fender.

i bought this amp and gigged it that night and it was good stuff. easy to dial in. I used a les paul standard using only the supplied footswitch and the crowd and manager was happy with the sound of my band.

well, you never know with these. some say they suck some dont with the hot rod line. my new twin in 2005 was in the shop every month. i tried a new vibrolux and it snap crackle popped like the rice crispy guys and the deluxe reverb reissue had problems too. bad luck i guess. save the reciept for warrenty service. this hrdx runs quiet. i use a fan behind all tube amps and it helps trust me. tubes get hot and melt every thing. use a fan man!!! A+

fender makes good on warrenty

20 years playing. ive owned these before and always go back to them. ive owned other fenders and marshalls. try the amp you plan to buy. the hrdx's with the white or blue label 6l6's will sound better than the red ones on the drive channel. earlier break up helps. the clean will still be loud as hell and clean enough for most folks. i also own the hot rod deville 410 and love it! nothing is perfect, nothing. remember that. but i like this amp for size and power and tone.

Fender hot rod deluxe, 2006. 3 channels, clean, drive and more drive, equalization, reverb, bright and fx loop. You can switch channels with the fender footswitch. I wish it had a different eq for the clean channel and the drive channel, but if you loose some time you can make sound good every channel. Is very loud for a 40w amp, very good for gigging and for small clubs.

I play a PRS custom 24 20th anniversary, with HFS and Vintage pickups. I play mostly rock/blues and sometimes a bit of prog metal and instrumental music like Eric Johnson or Joe Satriani. The amp is very good for rock and blues, need some pedals if you wanna play prog. I discovered anyway that is not really necessary to use stompboxes to get a good sound. It really depends on the amount of gain you really need. I've used many pedals, mostly OD, and it makes every pedal sound good, but I was getting tired of all these pedals, so I've loose some time adjusting the knobs, and I've seen that if you play AT ALMOST 3-4 of volume in the drive channel, you can get a really good crunch sound! The clean is wonderful, I've got almost the same tone of John Mayer with the neck pickup splitted, and I use for it, try and you will be surprised! I've not noticed problems with the clean channel, also at 5-6 of volume it remains clean, but I use splitted pickups for clean.

An year ago I've had problems with the amp, I've got to take it to a technician to fix it, he said to me that the electronics was really ugly and he needed to fix everything. After the fixing the amp sounds REALLY better. Take care when you transport it in your car.

Never used.

I've been playing for ten years, and I've played many other amps and guitars, mostly Jackson and Gibson, I like humbuckers, but I will get a Fender Stratocaster Eric Johnson as soon as is possible. If the amp was stolen or lost probably I would get a new one, but maybe I would like to try a Mesa Boogie mark IV first. The amp is good but there are some things that I really would like to change. I love the clean sound, the headroom and the loudness, is very good for small clubs and for gigging, but it really lacks of separate equalization for the channels and the crunch channel could be way better. I've compared it A/B with other amps of the same category before the buying: the Peavey Classic 30 really sucks, it sound like is closed in a box; the laney vc 30 is a good amp, the crunch is very good but Fender cleans are better.

Mexican model - a couple of years old. Same features as every other HRD on the planet.........

Plenty of power. Just not a great sound. Using a 72 reisse tele with Rio Grande pickups. This guitar should sound better....Play country, jazz, ragtime, Clean sounds is ok..early breakup not good. This amp just lacks character. Sure it's loud. I wouldn't buy it for tone though...What is it with other people, are their ears turned off, or haven't they owned many amps?
I just use a true bypass OD pedal and a guitar. What else do you need? Don't use the OD channel, you'll just embarass yourself...Messy reverb sound. Better buying a Fender from the days of your and just look after it.

Not keeping it long enough to find out! They just dont seem to make amps the way they used to unless you're paying thousands and thousands of dollars.

Bought second hand, but did have a problem with a new strat several years ago, and I must say that Fender Australia bent over backwards to help and the problem was rectified. Sure they're a big company, but staffed by real people. I always treat people respectfully and courteously and usually get great service and results in return....

Save your bucks and get something older (sounds weird, but true) or new and a lot more expensive. If you're a bedroom basher and want to hear your pod-korg-boss-I have 19 pedals in my chain and I'm a god sound through a mediocre amp, then go for it your tone is lost anyway.

2005 green tolex/Celestion V30 model; apart from that it is exactly the same and has the same features as the standard HRD which have been listed previously. Has everything needed for an amp of this class, isn't particularly heavy and is a decent, robust gigging amp.

I use several US Strats, a P90 Tele and a Parker Mojo. Out of the box the sound was loud, curiously sterile and lacked that Fender "sparkle" but I figured a few months of breaking in the V30 and letting the amp settle in would clean it up.

Six months later it was still the same, so I pulled the standard Eminence speaker from my Blues Junior and swapped them over. That got the classic chimey sound back again, but it still wasn't great. (The V30 went in the BJ and it was a perfect match for the EL84s.) I have lots of tubes here so I spent a few days swapping the preamp and power amp tubes, checking out different brands and types and trying a wide range of bias settings. I ended up choosing a full set of JJs (pre and power), biased around 65mA and that came closest to that warm, bright edged, chimey Fender sound. (Higher bias settings gave a warmer sound but cut the tonal spread.)

Still left a couple of problems - the reverb has a dreadful metallic "ring" if used over 4 and the master volume was very touchy, giving large increases in volume for small movements. A reading of Justin Holton's HRD site showed how to remove the treble bypass resistors from the circuit; that removed the metallic ringing and it now sounds like my Deluxe Reverb RI. I also replaced the linear master volume pot with the R-VHD-250KA audio taper pot as described in Justin's mods, which made it a lot more controllable.

So, better but still not brilliant. At this point I tried a set of THD Yellow Jackets for a bit of fun. Nice sound and it is worth keeping a set in your kit, but they break o too early and it is an EL84 sound after all. I asked Bob at Eurotubes about putting in JJ 6V6s, bought a set, replaced the screen resistors with 1.5KOhm parts and rebiased it to about 35mA. (A 6V6 normally operates around 21mV per tube. Setting the HRD bias pot to near the maximum setting takes it to around 18mV per tube or around 35mA at the test point.)

The result is fantastic. It has the same chimey, warm clean as the DRRI and now the (formerly) useless drive and more drive channels have that classic warm OD that is blues heaven. It is also still loud enough for gigging though it would be running around the 20-25w mark with the 6V6s. I use a Boss OD1 and a ProCo Rat for an OD pedal and I also have a Boss ME50 for effects, but since the change I haven't bothered with the pedals for OD. I use the Drive knob set on between 4 and 7 depending on the situation and it just sings. The last change was to wire in a THD Hot Plate, hard mounted on the back of the amp so depending on the size of the venue you can just lean over and dial in enough attenuation to keep the volume to bearable levels while the tubes are nice and saturated. The HRD is a seriously loud amp for a small combo, and I've owned Peavey Maces, Twin Reverbs and other monsters.

So, if you have a standard HRD you already have the Eminence speaker and the remaining parts (2 screen resistors and an audio taper pot) cost about $5 and it takes about an hour all up to do the mods. If you are careful you can replace the screen resistors with the board in situ rather than taking the amp apart. The amp unit has to be removed from the cabinet of course.

I have quite a few speakers here as well and I must admit I end up putting the standard Fender Eminence back in each time. It seems to work the best with the HRD. I also use an external 4x10 Celestion cab at times.

The HRD circuits appear to be well made and with decent parts so it should be reliable enough, plus it is one of the most common amps on earth so most competent techies would be able to repair it. The manual contains a full circuit diagram too. I've had a lot of Fender gear over the years and it has been very reliable.

12 month warranty to the original owner in Australia. Have never had to use a Fender warranty so I don't know how it would work out.

Been playing blues, R&B, swing/jazz and 60's pop for around 40 years. I have owned lots of amps from garbage to boutique and with the mods this is up in the top few; it is like a good DRRI but with a bit more presence. There are lots of them for sale used and they go cheap; the same mods can be done on the DeVilles too if you want a different speaker combo.

Fender wouldn't have sold so many HRDs if they weren't a decent amp.

I've had 2 of these, both were bought used. The amp is fine for what I do, which is indie rock. It has 2 channels, clean and overdrive with the option of more drive. I haven't actually used the drive channel in a while because I prefer pedals. It also has built in reverb which sounds great. I prefer the built in reverb over my Line 6 Verbzilla. I use this for gigging and have never had to turn the volume past 4 and it goes to 12.

I have an American tele, a 72 reissue tele and a epiphone dot and i usually have them set to the neck position to get a good ful sound.

I bought both of mine used so that was probably my problem. The first one I had came with a different speaker, I don't remember what kind, but it needed to be replaced but it got stolen before I could do that.

The second I bought from Guitar Center used and paid for the extra warranty which was good because the amp suddenly after 5 months of use started to distort and drop in volume. I took it to guitar center, they thought it was a tube, we replace it and it wasn't. They gave me a number to get it repared and I called the place and a week later they sent me a check for the amp and I still have they amp. I plan on trying to get it repaired. It wasn't the tubes, it wasn't the speaker, so I don't know what the problem is yet.

I think I've just had bad luck with these.

The Guitar Center warranty was worth it this time and it lasts a year.

I've been playing for 6 years.

I just bought a 70s Fender Musicmaster Bass Amp for guitar and have a small Marshall solid state that got wet and doesn't work anymore.

I'm currently borrowing a friend's Deville and I'm kinda bored with the Hod Rod's. I might stick with Fender because I love the clean, but kinda want to try something new.

I love the clean, the reverb and the tube.

I wish it came with casters because it's freakin' heavy.

built in 1996 American made... added hemp coned speaker and jj power and pre amp tubes which helps tone very much.

Was able to work some good tones after months of using

used the amp for about four years and then went down hill from there.. During a gig lost power and began to smoke out the amp.. along with non stop fuse blowing. Purchased a deville and same issues only much sooner.. Beginning to get very annoyed.. so all in all nothing but problems.. I would never again rely on and new made fender amps period.......

I play a range of styles, from blues and jazz right up to heavier experimental rock. This amp can cover most of these bases and the ones in between. The controls are responsive and very useable. The amps effects loop does its job well and the addition of a second channel is, whilst not normally needed, very useful. I have owned this amp for 3 months its already come in handy when teaching. 2 channels, clean and drive, treble mid and bass controls. The 'more drive' button can be very useful! I mainly use it, when i'm not in the studio or teaching, live with a PA, so its normally got an SM58 in front of it. The only thing that lets it down is that , as with all fender amps, completely unuseable as soon as the volume goes over 3, unless your playing for glastonbury main stage where you can probably get away with leaving it on 8. Its got 12 as its max volume setting, this is insane!

Clean channel - YOU WILL NOT FIND A BETTER CLEAN SOUND THAN THIS ON ANY OTHER MAKE OF AMP. Fender are renound for an amazing clean sound and this amp does not disapoint. I play an American Fender strat, and when i'm feeling a bit more rocky a Gibson Les Paul BFG, and on the clean channel this amp has more tone than any other. I compared it with the deville, same sound but ??200 more! and the twin reverb. Again a very good clean sound but for the price i could not see a noticeble difference! Its better, but not by ??700! this amp has its own unique tone which just sings. The controls alter the sound to what you want, without destroying the tone either. 10 for this side of the amp.

Drive channel - A good sound. The more drive button kicks it up a gear and adds a but more, it is not a boost tho, i used to try and use it to big up my solo's but it just made the sound a but muddier! Is good for that blues sound, has a great tone, but in the end i get my distortion sound from a Fulltone, so i prefer that! Non the less, when i play at my church, i often just take my strat, a wah and this amp and i'm laughing. Can get all the variety i need out of it. It scores an 8 on the drive channel for not being the best, not being overly versatile and for the sound getting a little bit muddy when you push the drive up. But non the less a very good and useable sound.

I used to play an old marshall valve but played this and took it. So much more versatile. Tried it in comparison to a vox ac30, and a marshall vintage modern combo. I went for this.

overall, this amp rocks! my chain is american strat, morely pro volume, vox wah, fulltone GT500, boss OD-3, MXR phaser, small clone, TC Nova delay, fender hot rod. For my clean stuff i just use the amp. Not other pedals, just the amp. Says alot about it. Its enough on its own. Brilliant amp.

never had any problem with fender stuff. built like a brick, wheigh's it too!

never contacted, have heard good things though!

i no longer have any other amp, and i dont fel i need it. I have found my sound and it comes from this amp. Very versatile, easy to use, some crazy rocking tone, some bluesy stuff and the best clean sound that you'll ever hear. Its not the perfect amp, but for the price it might aswell be. I paid ??500 for it and would well have paid more. Highly recomended.

I bought this amp purely for clean sounds as I am A / B ing it with a Marshall DSL 100 for the crunch sounds. It has just enough power for backline before it starts to break up. All I needed feature wise were the Fender reverb which is awesome and basic tone control. Yeah it fits the bill.

Everyone knows that Fender overdrive is crap but as stated I didnt want it for that. The clean sound is gorgeous. Although we mic up the backline so it doesnt have to work too hard, it has just enoguh headroom without distorting. The clean sound rings like a bell, especially with my strat and Yamaha elctric 12 string. The perfect clean sparkle methinks !!

No problems at all.

Not needed !

For clean sounds only its perfect, for versatility it will not do it all so you would look elsewhere. For what I wanted its perfect. Only paid ??350 2nd hand and would get another if it got nicked !!