It is just hype though. You can't convince me that PRS of all companies is the one who finds out about some secret JH circuit that existed in a Marshall amplifier... This secret circuit that has not been revealed until PRS is able to see it and analyze it, and then conveniently release several years later as the HDRX. No one else over the past 40 years has seen of it or heard of it, but it's suddenly a thing. And then when you do read up on it, it is based on an amplifier named Dickenson, which was basically a circuit very similar to the Marshall Superlead.
My understanding is that it is a few very basic value tweaks in the preamp, and a variation of the Marshall power supply of that series. I.E. nothing crazy, nothing ground breaking, just different. The PRS HDRX is supposedly a copy of an amp that JH supposedly copied by having his Marshall Superlead modified to be like the Dickenson.
So what is the PRS HDRX? It is a modified Marshall, plain and simple. Just like almost all Freidman amps, Bogner amps, and many other famous amps, they are modified Marshall circuits. Of which a Marshall circuit is a modified Fender Bassman circuit, which for the most part is taken straight from the RCA Tube Manual.
The reason I don't believe for one second that PRS is privy to this secret data, is that PRS has only been making amps for perhaps the past 13 years. It started off weird too, PRS met with " boutique " amp maker Doug Sewell in 2009. You're no longer boutique when you start designing for companies that make an amp in a factory. This automatically means that you know Doug Sewell isn't privy to the circuit tweak either, and he is known for making modified versions of many popular amps. So nearly 10 years into Doug's relationship with PRS, they are the ones to get this magic amp to analyze and recreate... BS. They found the story, they found an amp, and they sensationalized it into the HDRX. We don't know 100% for sure that it was done to all of JH amps, and we know that there was JH amp that was made that already had that circuit tweak in it. It was actually called the JH100.
My main point is this. Let's say you made a truly amazing amp that was lauded and sought after, but it was only because you sold it as an homage to some other famous sought-after design; that takes away a lot of the glory doesn't it? Where it would be more meaningful to me, is to have the same amp and see similar success with it, but the story is that it is a design that has no origin, no lineage, but is not novel either. It is not based on anything, it just is. Companies like Fuch's, Two Rock, Friedman, Bogner, Top Hat et all, are all living off the back of another. They are evident homages to amps that are sought after. While some of their designs are novel, most ALL popular companies are making modified variants of some other more novel designs. Divided by 13 is known for making Fender variants. Fuchs and Two Rock for Dumbles ( which is more or less a Fender variant ), so on and so on. This is why companies like Peavey, Engl, and Diezel are less popular. They are not really making copies or variants, they are making more novel designs that stand on their own. When I see an amp maker that says his stuff is just his stuff and not trying to use " some name you know " to sell it, I am much more interested in it. Dr. Z amps are not safe from borrowing either. When Ken Fischer made his amps, it was not based on anything, when Alexander Dumble made his amps, he didn't sell them on Fenders fame, when Bob Gjika sells his amps, they are very much his own thing and he doesn't ride on any ones back.
That is all, now aside from my mindset on it, I have no doubt that the PRS HDRX sounds just dandy, I just hate the marketing BS.
