HRD owners who have experience with vox and dr. z

[shawnshack]

I regularly use my HRD, but I'd like to pick up another amp to run stereo with it. A few amps that have caught my attention are AC15 and 30's (heritage) as well as dr z maz 18 and 38's. I'm not trying to make a comparison of those tones, just other amps that I think would work for me.

Here is my basic question, I usually run my HRD on around 2, which is pretty loud, especially when I push it with pedals...I need to know if the lower wattage of these amps will keep up. I will run them on the edge of break up (so obviously not total saturation, but not sparkly clean) and be equally as loud as my HRD. I won't always run stereo, but I want to be able to .

If I go with Vox, I think I want the hand wired editions, unless you can convince me otherwise, and the Dr Z maz amps have been what sound good to me. I don't care about reverb or tremolo on the amp. I also don't care about effect loops or multiple channels at this point. If you have another amp feel free to recommend it. I'd like to pick these up used as well.

what do ya think?

 

[gstan]

The real question is whether your HRD will be loud enough, the AC30 and Maz 38 are loud, both have more balz than a HRD in my experience.

 

[shawnshack]

I should have stated that I know the 30 and 38 would be plenty, the real question would be about the 15 and 18. But I'm willing to buy the higher wattage amps if necessary.

 

[gstan]

The Maz 18 is damn loud as well, shouldn't have any problem keeping up. The AC15 with a Blue is going to be loud too, perhaps not quite as loud as the Maz 18, but close with the Blue.

 

[Mike Fleming]

Maz 18 will keep up, in fact depending on the speaker in your HRD, the maz 18 might stay cleaner longer than your HRD. But with the master you can dial in good edge-of-breakup tones at lots of levels. Maz 38 will be overkill. Despite the rated output being similar to the HRD, the maz 38 is LOUD with miles of clean headroom.

I've owned both the 18 and 38. I consider the 18 to be the amp for hair and crunch, and the 38 to be the amp for clean. Although i like the 18s cleans better too; the 18 is noticeably fatter than the 38.

 

[shawnshack]

helpful stuff here guys, thnx! Have any of you guys ran either of these along side an HRD? I know a lot of people don't like HRD's and think they are a sub-par amp, but I really enjoy mine.

I definitely hope to hear more about ac15's. I was leaning toward the heritage hand wired version, although I've been hearing a lot of good things about the c1 versions. I played a c1 recently, but didn't get to spend much time with it. But I think I want to go with something a little "higher end".

 

[Mike Fleming]

I think the HRD is a real good sounding amp (clean). Very fendery. All the ones I've played with a stock speaker though, I've hated the stock speaker. flat, flabby, breaks up way too soon.

Anyway to answer your question... i think either a maz or a vox will be a good complement tonally, becuase they both have a much different thing going on in the mids compared to a standard fender sound.

 

[shawnshack]

I actually just started using my HRD on the drive channel with the drive almost all the way down. It's that edge of break up I'm wanting to use with the second amp as well. With light pick attack it's still fairly clean, but aggressive pick attack brings out some drive. What it helps the most though is the reaction of drive pedals. All of them that I own (ocd, dls clone, sd-1, luther drive, mxr distortion 3, rat) sound far better with the amp breaking up a bit. But using any more drive than that with the HRD is definitely lacking. Mine is a '99, and I actually like the speaker as well. I tried an eminence swamp thang, and it didn't give any improvement to the tone (although I didn't get it broke in). The stock speaker in this is very well broke in and sounds good. I've played it up against newer HRD's (not the new version that just came out) and mine has some characteristics that was lacking in the others.

 

[Mike Fleming]

That's cool man, I get you. Also I have set them up like that too, using the drive channel as a clean channel, and I like that sound. Though that changes things a couple ways - the clean sound is a little fatter that way, and it also has a little less bass than the clean channel (in my experience with them), which probably helps keep the speaker from farting out. Also i haven't played one that old since probably 2000 or 2001 and i remember that one sounding really good. That could be a better speaker you have than the one's i've played through in the last couple years.