Blues DeVille vs. DeVille Hotrod & 2x12 vs 4x10

[black_box]

So I'm thinking of getting a fender amp to go with my strat... moving out from my metal youth (peavey/ibanez) into a more blues/rock vein.

I spent a few hours in a guitar shop the other day trying out different amps with my guitar and my favourites were the fender blues deville and the deville hotrod.

What do you all think about these? Which is your preference?

Also, in the shop they didn't have 2x12, just 4x10. Is there much difference between the two and are there any issues (more likely to break, etc) with getting say the smaller 10" speakers over the larger 12", or vice versa?

[mikeboone]

These amps sound OK if you have a nice pedal board to use on the clean channel. The clean channel is pretty nice and fat. The drive channel is totally useless and will rob all of your low end present a nasal midrange that is hideous.

I am fan of the 4x10 in this series as it is a little more versitle. It has a slightly tighter sound than the 2x12. I also find that the 2x12 has too much of a rock tone if you are playing blues. It gets a little flabby - I find.

As for maintenance, this amp is going to break if you gig with it alot. The solder joints on the tube board will fracture. The input jacks will fail eventually as well. Use a right angle connector on your input to preserve the life.

You might want to consider the Reiisue Bassman or the Super Sonic as well. I have worked on those and they seem to be a little better constructed.

Just my opinion. I would suggest reading reviews and posts in here to get a broad cross section of information.

[black_box]

Hey thanks for the pointers, I will have a look at the other posts to see what people say too.

[cminor9]

I have had a Hot Rod DeVille for 12 years now. It still sounds great. I voted for the Blues DeVille, though, since I only use the clean channel anyway and I understand the only difference between the two is the More Drive channel on the Hot Rod.

All of those amps have their problems (underrated resistors, bad input jacks, and linear taper volume controls.) But those are easily corrected if you need to.

There something about a Fender with 4x10 cab that is just so nice. I still love mine.

[mac1amps]

It really depends on what your style of playing is. The Hot-Rod series has a fair amount of more gain on the lead channel (it has 2 modes of gain), whereas the "Blues" series has only one mode of gain in the lead channel, which is more moderate than the "Hot-Rod" series higher gain mode. You also need to take into consideration what volume levels you'll be playing at. If you're going to be playing at "bedroom" levels (i.e. using it with your master vol. set low), well, you might be better off just using a stomp box with the "clean" channel. Whereas, using it at higher levels, where some actual power tube clipping will come into play, you can get some decent tones out of the lead channel IF you can keep the master at higher settings (and back the "gain" off a bit). FWIW, I recently serviced a "re-issue" Blues Deluxe (no, not a Deville, but basically a lower power version of virtually the same amp), which had been brought to my shop by a "seasoned" Blues/Rock player who also said that the "lead" channel was "unuseable". In the process of "tweaking" the amp for him, I did my usual "once over" of all the P.C. board connections (all "cold" solder joints-as usual, from the factory). When my client got his amp back, he couldn't believe how much better the "lead" channel sounded, simply from having resoldered all the connections. This scenario has happened numerous times with my customers, which is why I do it "religously" whenever I service newer amps (Fenders and otherwise).
As far as the speaker configuration goes, my vote goes for the 4x10's. It's really a significant factor for the universal popularity of old tweed Bassman's and Super Reverbs. Then again, if you're more of a hard-rock or metal player, you'd probably prefer the sound of a "sealed" enclosure, but in that case, I guess you'd also be less apt to be buying a Fender in the first place.

[black_box]

Thankyou so much for all the advice. I have now got an amp, in the end I went for a (sublime) twin reverb. It's absolutely gorgeous, and having pedals I don't really need the distortion channel.

Thanks again!

[bwdavis99]

You won't regret that

Barry

[mr.jetski]

great choice

[Mark Cauley]

is there any schematic or internal difference between the Blues Deville and the Hot Rod Devile (Both 410)??

[Mark Black]

is there any schematic or internal difference between the Blues Deville and the Hot Rod Devile (Both 410)??

Absolutely.

Schematics for both can be found here:
http://www.fender.com/support/amplifier_schematics.php

You probably should start a new thread in the future, rather than tacking on to one that has been dormant for a while...

[Mark Cauley]

Thanks Mark.

I guess I went in over my head. Im not capble of understanding those diagrams. But when I went to the fender site., I didnt see any real diffence in the parts between the Blues and the Hot rod. So, I assumed there had to be some changes on the inside. I was hoping their were more then just the cosmetic distinctions.

Mark