NAD: Fender Hot Rod Deluxe (but which one is it?)

[crazyzeke]

Well, I mean I was browsing for a Fender, just a guitar not an amp as I was inspired to get a Tele of some description when I played the amazing 2011 MIM Tele that the bassist in my originals band has. I suppose you could argue that this is one of those times where online search filters being essentially busted across all the big brand sites (this isn't like the early 2000s where searches could actually consistently find what you want without paid for results being weighted towards the top) actually worked in my favour - thanks, crappy devs over at FB Marketplace, I guess?

A picture is worth a thousand words
That's what I heard
So the old adage goes
Let's have several of those :-

These are really hi-res/high quality so might take a while to load.














The only real problem I'm having so far is trying to work out which year and mark this is. It's made in Mexico so we know it's not a Mk. I (those are USA only I believe), there's no handwritten squiggle on the tube guide inside the chassis, I have no idea where else to look for the two letter date code. This is typical Fender bullshit when it comes to serial numbers, and I hate it. Guys, you used to stamp the butt of the damn necks in the 60s with actual date codes, that worked fine, why can't that just be the case forever rather than it being so inconsistent. They make some of the best musical equipment in the world yet they suck at this.



Anyway, rant over, this is the back plate. Anyone can throw me a bone I'd appreciate it.

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Now I get to gush about the actual amp for a little bit, if you can stand to hear it.

I haven't owned a valve Fender since about 2003 when I had a Twin Reverb RI, which I loved but didn't keep long as I needed the money (changing jobs), it was too heavy and too loud to cart across the London Underground for gigs etc, but back then I was nuts enough to take Marshall 4x12" cabs on the Tube and stuff so I think I'd had my fill. Lots of good stories from my time in London like that.

Anyway technically I bought this yesterday, but as you can imagine the desire to play through it was overwhelming, so that's where the majority of my evening went after I got back from Seaford buying this for the more than reasonable sum of £200. This is somewhat below the going rate, and the ones more expensive than this weren't in quite as excellent condition - yeah there's a small stain and a bit of a tolex bump but they're well hidden at the back, so it's not mint enough that I'll be sad when it starts to get roadworn, but it's nice enough I won't throw it into the back of the car.

The tone, well, I mean I haven't really messed about with the drive channel but that's not why I bought it. It's those lovely glassy Fender cleans - you've probably all played one at this point and know the HRD does a sterling rendition of that. But I'd forgotten how amazing the spring reverb is on Fender amps - they seem to be the only company that gets this right, when I use the spring reverb on something British like Orange, Laney (I own two) and Marshall amps they're always underwhelming and sometimes sound like delays rather than verbs. But on this, I can crank the verb level and enjoy the drip, which is beyond great for surf and gaze stuff. It seems like it takes pedals well - most Fender amps with a good clean do, in my experience - but I didn't have a vast amount of time to test because I noticed it was half past midnight and I figured even though I was playing quietly (I think - it's hard to tell because the voicing of the amp is so good) it was time to stop before it got annoying. There's a certain amount of tit-for-tat with my neighbours because they're sometimes noisy bastards too so as long as it's not excessive we don't complain, I like that arrangement and respect it because plenty of places I've lived it's not been that way.

Long (loooong) story short, both the Meteora and the Jag sound incredible through it - it has so much spare brightness that it can completely fix the "hot pickups don't have enough treble" problem I sometimes get with other amps in conjunction with my clean boost, so fair play to Fender for making such a versatile circuit, I can see why they've made so many of these and that they deserve to have been in production this long.

Love it to bits, the only downside is now I really have moved to a three amp rig and two of them are valve, plus I need to study this again to see how I can tame the mammoth amounts of volume this "only 40W" amp can produce using clever tricks.

[BoringPostcards]

Backplate just says Hot Rod Deluxe, so it should be the first version out of Mexico, otherwise it would say Hot Rod Deluxe II, III or IV.
I had a III for a few years. It was a good amp, but I sold it for no real reason. Maybe it was too loud for my needs. Can’t quite remember. I’m sure it was a good reason.
I really liked the sound of the clean channel. The dirt channel isn’t that great on these amps, but who uses onboard distortion anyways?
It was a bit bass heavy with my SG Standard, but I remember my Mustang sounding huge through it.

[JSett]

This will be somewhere between 2002-2010 as that's when it moved to Mexico and the III came out in 2010 (although they were never designated as 'II' I think, that's more of a colloquialism). Have you found the 'Quality Control sticker somewhere on/in the chassis? Sometimes the later ones had the two-letter date codes written on those.

I have 3 of these amps dotted around. I sold one last year as I didn't need so many. I accidentally sold the USA one I had though (1st year too and spotless) . I currently have blonde one, that's getting ripped apart soon, and a couple of traditional black ones. All of them sound identical. Once the heat/grid resistor issue has been sorted they're pretty solid really and get a bad rap for no real reason apart from a little bit of corksniffery. I'll happily use the drive channel if needed in a pinch but only set very lightly crispy and with judicious and careful tone control selection.

The best and cheapest thing these things can have done to them is one of those £20 Dr Watson Lion Tamer things to use as a master volume in the FX loop. Crank the clean channel all the way up and then bring it down to sensible with the Watson.

If the Bassman conversion goes well I have a couple of people that might want them too so I'll be scavenging up a few more cheap examples. Here in the UK you can pick them up for £250-350 any day of the week, often with flightcases! Probably the best value for money gig-ready amp on the market.

Enjoy!

[crazyzeke]

Maybe it was too loud for my needs. Can’t quite remember. I’m sure it was a good reason.
I really liked the sound of the clean channel. The dirt channel isn’t that great on these amps, but who uses onboard distortion anyways?
It was a bit bass heavy with my SG Standard, but I remember my Mustang sounding huge through it.

Yeah they are super loud, I think even in a band rehearsal/gig situation I'd be lucky to get it off 2 on the clean channel without doing some effects loop trickery.

No I don't tend to use the dirt channel on almost any amp, apart from my little Peavey practice combo because the clean is pretty brittle and only the dirt channel has any meaningful EQ control from the shared EQ.

Both the Jag and the Meteora, especially that latter one which is sometimes a little thin, sound like they should, all the Fender chime comes through if it's EQ'd properly for either guitar.

[crazyzeke]

This will be somewhere between 2002-2010 as that's when it moved to Mexico and the III came out in 2010 (although they were never designated as 'II' I think, that's more of a colloquialism). Have you found the 'Quality Control sticker somewhere on/in the chassis? Sometimes the later ones had the two-letter date codes written on those.

I had a look inside but I can't see a QC label or anything handwritten anywhere, nor any date codes. Maybe it never had a sticker, or it's come off over the years. Thanks for the info though, super useful - looks like a Mk. II which was my guess, just wish I could place an exact year. Suppose I could always remove the chassis and find out - are there any internal tells if the label isn't there either?

Once the heat/grid resistor issue has been sorted they're pretty solid really and get a bad rap for no real reason apart from a little bit of corksniffery. I'll happily use the drive channel if needed in a pinch but only set very lightly crispy and with judicious and careful tone control selection.

I'm thinking it might come in useful as a solo boost if the gain stages on the Affordaboard aren't cutting through, but that would be it. With the issue you mentioned, is that anything to be alarmed about? If I had to guess I think it's been opened at some point - the black screws have a very light amount of paint missing and all the chassis screws are there suggesting whoever did it was careful. Pretty sure the stock tubes have been swapped out. I also have some JJs spare from my Plexi clone head that I fired up last week and it hummed, then no output at all. It's been in storage for 6 years (indoors, not in a garage etc) but it's not particularly well made so that doesn't surprise me - me and my ex's brother had to glue it back together because the wooden box for the chassis fell apart and for whatever reason all the pots worked backwards anyway.

vThe best and cheapest thing these things can have done to them is one of those £20 Dr Watson Lion Tamer things to use as a master volume in the FX loop. Crank the clean channel all the way up and then bring it down to sensible with the Watson.

Nice, that sounds like a good solution because the volume control is pretty temperamental for anything under 2 - fair enough, they're meant to be gig cranked so it makes sense they don't respond amazingly well when they're run so quiet, but I would like to push the clean more.

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The real advantage here which I didn't anticipate for is that the first input (higher gain) can be used as one of the two amps for running the organ sim rig in stereo, and the second input (lower gain; I use a clean boost so the slight volume drop isn't a problem) for the guitar. So I can basically do stereo guitar and stereo organ with three amps not four (three is already getting a little out of hand) including finally running the Lester G (Leslie rotary) in stereo for more convincing stereo spread.

[crazyzeke]

This thing is gonna be deafening everywhere, and I've bought enough pedals recently/don't want to sacrifice one in the effects loop just yet, so I was rummaging around my collection of tubes (I've got a lot more than I realised/remembered)...



Original amp tubes, all Hamer - not a brand I've come across before, I'd guess some kind of rebranded Chinese made a la RUBY and GrooveTubes.



A motley collection of Mullards pulled from my Plexi clone - these are pretty sought after. Sadly these ones (or at least one of them) produced a lot of noise, like really loud pops coming through the power tubes/speaker plus volume drops and I didn't feel up to troubleshooting them one by one in V1-V3 positions combined with other tubes, so I put them in the storage tin.


These are mine, I forget from where but I recall replacing them from a Laney or something into the Plexi clone, so I tried them. Sounded great, don't hear any noise and they don't have this harshness in certain frequencies like the Hamer pair it came with, so they can stay for now.


While rummaging I also found two balanced and matched JJ ECC82 tubes, brand new never used for more than a few minutes. I remembered I'd ordered them with a whole bunch of others before the pandemic; the idea was to replace V1 in both my Laney amps to drop the gain and/or the phase inverter so the power stage can be cranked more (i.e. drop the preamp gain). It's a trick I used to use in my Marshall JMPs years ago; changing the phase inverter from ECC83 to ECC82 can produce a sweeter clean as well. I figured why not, time to tinker, so the amp is running a JJ ECC82 in V1, the Hamer ECC83 originally from V1 in the amp in V2, and then V3 phase inverter is another JJ ECC82.

The effect is pretty dramatic - cleans still sound great, but the volume control on the clean channel itself is actually usable now because of the gain drop, it's not immediately loud upon hitting 1. Better still, the gain drop has made the drive channel (orange) a lot less dirty but louder than the clean when the MV is on about 4-6, and acts like a booster pedal in front of the clean channel. Clean when you play soft, little bit of grit when you dig in. Really nice. More drive (red) still sounds a bit fuzzy and uninspiring but yeah, this is a huge improvement because it's not completely spiky with an uncontrollable dynamic range like when V1-V3 were all ECC83s.

[crazyzeke]

As this thread is getting no traffic I'm making a note of this because it might be useful for someone else in days to come, who knows. Google etc scrape OSG so it might answer a random "I wonder if someone has done this before" in future.

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Replacing all 3 12AX7s (gain 100) for 12AU7s (gain 20) absolutely transforms this amp for the better. V1 and V3 I already did yesterday, then I came across an old Jan Philips tube that is a long plate 12AU7 so I thought, why not complete the trilogy and stuck it in V2 between the two JJs.

It lowers the clean channel volume by a ridiculous amount, I mean it's usable as a 5-10 watt home practice/jam round a friend's place amp but would get drowned out in a band situation.

That sounds bad right? Like I've lowered it too much now?

Wrong. Because the tone/gain stack is so tied into the higher gain 12AX7s, when you replace them with 12AU7s you reduce the amount that the drive channel can distort by. As in, Drive (orange) is basically clean and More Drive (red) is edge of breakup.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

People don't always like the drive channel on the HRDs, myself included. Way too much gain and kinda fuzzy.

But it's not a drive channel any more now the amp is running 12AU7s, is it?

Think about it. The clean channel sounds great but is really quiet now, as in you can turn it to maximum and still nearly talk above it, so it's been repurposed. The drive channel is now a Master Volume Clean Channel, which either does totally clean or edge of breakup. It's louder than the new Quiet Clean channel.

"Fixing"* the HRD to have finer grained control and less volume/piercing transients at lower volumes was as easy as swapping out the preamp tubes. There's still plenty of headroom - an insane amount actually, so much so that I needed to turn the volumes down on the overdrive/distortion pedals a noticeable amount - and it still has those lovely cleans, it's just now you have so much more control over it because of the MV, and an ultra quiet clean to boot. That's how good this amp circuit is, and I have to applaud Fender for it because I can't imagine such a drastic gain drop working in any other tube amps I've owned.

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*(I say this in quotes because for bigger stages, original 12AX7 tubes were fine)

[s_mcsleazy]

i had to do a little bit of research on HRD's for my bandmate and if i remember rightly, there's no real MK2 but really the MK2 is more like a transitional thing where it's still the same circuit as the MK1 but made in mexico. it still says "hotrod deluxe" BUT it doesn't have the mk3 part on the back plate.



my bandmate's one. it's currently broken and neither of us can be arsed getting it fixed atm.

[BoringPostcards]

Thanks for the clarification, guys. I wasn’t aware there was no II marking on the mk2. Would explain why I’ve never seen one. lol.

[crazyzeke]

i had to do a little bit of research on HRD's for my bandmate and if i remember rightly, there's no real MK2 but really the MK2 is more like a transitional thing where it's still the same circuit as the MK1 but made in mexico. it still says "hotrod deluxe" BUT it doesn't have the mk3 part on the back plate.

Thanks man. The only other giveaway I can find is the ©2002 Fender... on the main PCB for the amp - can't find a QC label anywhere and I don't see the point of removing the chassis from the box yet just to check the places I can't see. So it's a MIM Mk. II basically.

Thanks for the clarification, guys. I wasn’t aware there was no II marking on the mk2. Would explain why I’ve never seen one. lol.

Yeah it's classic Fender - hard to pinpoint anything specific about a model, and having several variations that aren't always clearly marked doesn't help. I'd like to be able to track mine to more specific than a 6-year range, still any input is good.

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Talking about inputs, having 2 on the HRD is actually super useful not just for the tri-amp thing I was considering, but because it also means taking only 1 amp to wedding band rehearsals because it'll handle guitar and organ together. Sure, neither will be stereo but when space and time is limited - drummer's studio is tiny and being able to set up/pack away more quickly counts - that's a result.

Better demo it like that now I've done the tube swap, see that it works properly with the new Master Volume Clean Channel.