Eric H. wrote on Wed, 24 June 2009 14:36 |
I never liked the hot rod deluxe from the 90's, but have gotten nice clean sound with the Blues Deville 212. The overdrive channel is not very usable unless you put the drive in the first half and get the amp loud. It is a 25W amp i think. What do you think of this amp? Is it worth keeping?
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It's one of the best in the series, IMO.
I held a part-time job as EE (amp tech) in a reputable guitar store in London for many years. In that time I must have heard literally hundreds of these amps - Blues Deluxe, Hot-Rod Deluxe, Blues Deville, Hot-Rod Deville, Blues Junior, Pro Junior ...
As has been said, replacing the stock Eminence speaker with a Celestion Greenback or Vintage 30 can make a big improvement in tone, but the 212 always had a sweeter vibe. Something about the interaction between two or more speakers helps a lot.
Suddenly I'm remembering a 310 - Deville? - that was perhaps the favourite in this regard.
What I remember best about these amps is their design faults which led to, amongst other things, regular failure of the plate resistors in the driver stage, and dry solder joints on the 5w dropper resistors due to them being mounted flush against the board and the copper pads on the board being too small to dissipate the heat.
Finally, let's not forget the
horrible, brittle plastic PCB-mounted jack sockets that all these amps use. They regularly fail due to, first, the nut loosening, then the thread stripping off the bush when the nut is tightened, then the plastic cracks and falls apart because of the free movement and the pins fall out completely.
To replace the jacks necessitates complete removal of the main board to access the solder side and of course, because of the pin configuration, you have to replace the broken jack with the exact same type and take bets on how quickly the whole procedure will need to be repeated.
Some of the most expensive amps to maintain ever made by a company that proclaims affordable quality to the masses!