$1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

[trevorus]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

What are prices of amps like in Oz?

[viewaskew2k5]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

Amps here are crazy. Deluxe reverb's are 2K + . I played one the other day...took me wayyyy to long to dial my sound it. I played a tweed Blues Jnr, took me 30 seconds to dial it in..just not enough clean/head room on that thing. That's why i was thinking the blues deluxe.

[SirJackdeFuzz]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

Amps here are crazy. Deluxe reverb's are 2K + . I played one the other day...took me wayyyy to long to dial my sound it. I played a tweed Blues Jnr, took me 30 seconds to dial it in..just not enough clean/head room on that thing. That's why i was thinking the blues deluxe.

BUGGER . . . i did not see you are from Down Under.

In that case, my vote goes to the 60watter 4X10 Hot Rod DeVille (with four *Eminence Delta Demons)

* http://eminence.com/guitar_speaker_d...0&SUB_CAT_ID=4


I could ROCK that amp all day long

[ImmortalSix]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

Used Hot Rod Deville 212?

That's what I got and it rocks ass.

I scored mine in a trade for a Blackheart 5W mini stack + an attenuator and $85, which evens out to about four-hundred-and-something dollars.

[brunogio]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

If you are trying out used Fenders, make sure they haven't got old lousy power tubes (valves). They may just need a change to get the cleans and headroom you are looking for.

[Christopher Caruana]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

what about a Fender SuperSonic?

http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Fender-SuperSonic-112-Guitar-Combo-Amp?sku=480874

two channels:

1) 'vintage' channel with a "vibrolux" mode and a "Bassman" mode
2) 'burn' channel with two gain knobs.

all tube, 60watt amp

[Christopher Caruana]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

here is a demo of the supersonic. I think it sounds pretty sick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGVXO9G8T9k

[That90'sGuy]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

what about a Fender SuperSonic?

http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Fender-SuperSonic-112-Guitar-Combo-Amp?sku=480874

two channels:

1) 'vintage' channel with a "vibrolux" mode and a "Bassman" mode
2) 'burn' channel with two gain knobs.

all tube, 60watt amp

That was exactly what I was thinking.


It's the classic Fender sound just with some serious versatility. The overdrive channel sounds great in it's own right. Why use pedals through a Fender when Fender makes an amp with overdrive built in that sounds better than any pedal you could put through it? That amp is probably the only modern Fender I've played around with that I've seriously considered buying.

[Christopher Caruana]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

That was exactly what I was thinking.


It's the classic Fender sound just with some serious versatility. The overdrive channel sounds great in it's own right. Why use pedals through a Fender when Fender makes an amp with overdrive built in that sounds better than any pedal you could put through it? That amp is probably the only modern Fender I've played around with that I've seriously considered buying.

Ive played one a few times and Im pretty much an all Marshall guy, but I love the supersonic. On the "vintage" channel, you get crystal clear cleans with the vibrolux mode. Gritty, blues and rock tones with the bassman mode; and then all your harder rock and heavy metal tones with the "burn" channel.

[Powdered Toast Man]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

The Fender Hot Rod series are garbage. They're notoriously unreliable (just go over to the Fender.com forums or TGP and search "HRD or HRDv" and see what they think of them). The tube sockets are mounted directly to the board which, given enough heating/cooling cycles will result in cold solder joints. Not to mention screen grid resistors that burn out and the ridiculous linear volume pots on them. You'll read story after story about guys who've had them fail time and time again at gigs. Yeah, you see a lot of them as rental backline, but that's because they're cheap and plentiful.

I love Fender amps, but the HR series (Deluxe, Deville, Blues Jr, Pro Jr) are all not what I'd consider good reliable gigging amps. There's a few good ones out there, but there's also a lot of lemons.

[dr. ad]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

I'm going to say Rivera They're a great deal in the used market and they are know for their clean channel. I have no idea how plentiful they are there though.

if you come across one, i'd check out a rivera

[dr. ad]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

this may likely be an unpopular suggestion, but if you're looking for something affordable you can gig with, i'd also consider a 50w marshall dual reverb combo. cleans aren't as good as the fenders, but as these came with 6L6s you may find them favorable to some other options.

[guitfiddle]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

+1 for the Super Sonic. There's also the SS 22 watt model.

[Chickenwings]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

ive had screen grid resistors burn out on hand wired point to point fenders (princeton reverb II and a bassman 135). Both nice amps and gigging workhorses. I also used to have a hot rod which was fine - although i did do a couple things to make it more reliable for the same reasons but in terms of reliability theres no issues that any other amp do not suffer from. Amps of all builds and types have things break down fromn time to time. The reasons you hear about ppl complaining that their HRDs have broken down is because there a just so many of these amps around. Its simple a numbers game. Also searching on the fender forum is not gonna get a lot of ppl complaining that their marshall has broken down or that their rivera has gone awol so its really a waste of time. Sure the HR amps use pcb construction....but so do mesa/boogie! Yes they have cheap jack sockets....but they are cheap great sounding amps that are easy to fix/mod/replace parts etc.
My onlt two honest criticisms of the HR series of fenders (and i have owned and gigged an HRD as well as a BJR) is that the stock speakers are pretty lame and cant handle nice clear treble tones and definitely flab out in the bass end....but any cheap speaker will do that. With a speaker upgrade any of this series of amps is a serious gigging professional musicians rig. My other criticism is the cabinets which are prone to rattle as opposed to the lovely sexy heavy finger jointed pine cabinets of the really expensive amps from fender or even the chunky ply cabinets from some other manufacturers. However....any amp with the sort of cabs that you find in the Hr series will do the same. A heavy finger jointed pine cab will prolly add up to 500 bucks at retail level to the cost of an amp.
The guy has 1000 aussie to spend....hes not looking for the best sexiest amp in the world...hes after a workhorse for gigging. For 800 aussie he can get aused HRDLX and spend maybe 150 aussie on a Lorantz speaker (wicked sounding top quality australian built speakers) and have some spare change for brand new tubes and have a great sounding pro level amp.
Sure there are any number of amps out there...but for something that sounds good and fits the budget there is nothing better. 2 channels plus boost and spring reverb as well as any number of websited offering information on tweaking the amp to taste. These amps cant be beat. The only amps in the price range that can compare are the peavey classic 30 or the Laney VC30...both really nice also but they dont really fit his description quite as well. The other one too look at would be a DSL40 combo but the clean sound has nothing to compare withe the fender. FWIW I once plugged into a stock HRD amp when sitting in with a band in a live music night club and the engineer was pissing his pants at the guitar sound - and this guy knows what hes talking about...hes tour manager for peter green as well as Lulo Reinhardt and has been liver mixing bands since the early 80s. Now the guitar tone nerd inside me prefers some more expensive and sexy amps, but its a good example of what works for a live setting. So yeah there are a lot of ppl out there who have strong opinions on these amps, but thats cos these things have becomne pretty well the industry standard these days.
For 1000 aussie its really a pretty simple choice.

[dr. ad]

Re: $1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

For 800 aussie he can get aused HRDLX and spend maybe 150 aussie on a Lorantz speaker (wicked sounding top quality australian built speakers) and have some spare change for brand new tubes and have a great sounding pro level amp.

that's a pretty convincing argument, cam