$1000 Reliable/Work Horse Amp

[Powdered Toast Man]

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.

We're not talking about Mesas or Marshals, I'm talking about the HR series amps. I'm not advocating FOR anything, I'm just saying avoid the HRD. I also wasn't bashing PCB amps, I was bashing the design flaw of having the tube sockets soldered directly to the PCB. The more logical method is to run leads from the PCB to the sockets. I have no problem with PCB amps. What I have a problem with are poorly designed amps.

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.

I've owned an HR Deville and I agree. Speakers ain't great.

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.

This rattle has nothing to do with the cabinet construction and everything to do with tube rattle. These amps are designed with the tubes ridiculously close to the speakers which makes them very prone to developing tube rattle. Eurotubes even sells a specific grade of JJ for HRD amps because of this.

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.

Funny, cause the Peavey Classic 30 and 50 are in this price range and have exactly the same features of the HR Deluxe and Deville (dual channel, reverb, etc...) except none of the quality and design issues. I didn't say anywhere in my original post that he should go out and buy a hand wired boutique amp. I just said the HRD are prone to issues.

Go find a Peavey Classic series amp - they're great workhorse amps and probably within your budget.

Oh, and to add another possibility, Traynor makes some very good stuff in your price range too. The YCV40 would completely meet your needs.