Out with the Vox... In with a Fender...

[SFW]

Well, after owning my Vox AC30CC2 for all of three days, it up and died. It was on one minute and dead the next. SO I took it back to GC and picked up a Fender Hot Rod Deville 2x12. So far, I will say that I like the Deville much better. The tones are warmer. The Deville also takes pedals much better as well. With the AC30CC2, no matter what overdrive pedal I put in front, it sounded the same. With the Deville, the pedals all sound different- like they are supposed to. The Deville has more clean headroom- I love this. The Vox would breakup at very low gain settings- i.e. 8:00. Where as the Fender I can get to 10:00 before I start to hear any clipping in the clean channel. This is a huge improvement in the ability to achieve volume levels that I need during a practice.

Now I realize that the AC30 and the Deville are ment to sound nothing alike... I am finding out that I'm a Fender guy anyway, so I guess it's all good. Anyway... Just thought I'd share the story of the poor QC on the AC30CC2. I'm not highly impressed with a $1000 amp that only lasts for three days. But I am very pleased with the Deville. So far it and my J&H Ultimate Overdrive are a match made in tonal Heaven!

 

[tiptone]

I owned a Hot Rod Deville, same as yours for several years before I ever even heard of a boutique amp. Not a thing wrong with them and they make a great base for pedals.

 

[morgan]

There seems to be a lot of reliability reports on the ac30cc's coming out. yeah we're a minority on the forums, but if our small population is seeing a lot of failures, I wonder what the overall rate is?

 

[SFW]

I don't know, but I wasn't going to take a chance on another one going down, especially during a gig. I’ve had a practice with the Deville, and must say that it fits much better in the mix than the AC30CC2 did. The Vox sounded good at what it did, but I’m quickly realizing that I like the Fender base tone much more.

 

[ratkent]

It's really hard to beat the Fender Hot Rod Deville. Especially the 2x12. It's a beautiful sounding amp and it's definitely on my list of amps I would love to have in my home studio if I had more room.

 

[Tag]

Originally posted by ratkent
It's really hard to beat the Fender Hot Rod Deville. Especially the 2x12. It's a beautiful sounding amp and it's definitely on my list of amps I would love to have in my home studio if I had more room.

GREAT to be hearing this from others as well! I LOVE my HR DeVille! I have had it since they first came out, and not one problem yet! It has seen many a boutique come and go. They went because they could not match its tone! Not even a bad tube in close to 10 years. This baby has been played and played and played too! World class tones for so little money. Way to go Fender!! Enjoy that amp.

 

[fr8_trane]

Who the hell wants to gig a 2x12??? You guys must have roadies. Me, I'll take the Hot Rod Deluxe. Same amp - less weight.

 

[hasserl]

FWIW any amp from any maker, mass produced or boutique, can have problems. Stuff happens. That's why things come with warranties, to cover those things that can happen and get you back on the road.

If you prefer the HRD to the AC30, fine. That's subjective and there's no right or wrong about it. Just keep in mind that those Fenders have had their share of reliability problems too.

 

[e-flat]

SFW:

Sorry to hear about your AC30CC experience. My AC had a bad reverb when it arrived at my house, but that was easily fixed. After reading all kinds of stories about probs with the AC30CCs, I'm starting to wonder if Vox's problems are attributable to the insufficient boxing/padding in which they're amps are being shipped. Just a thought.

Your description of the AC30 as breaking up at 8:00 on the dial is a little suspect...maybe the amp was busted from the get go? I can get a lot of clean headroom from mine . If I use the proper Bias setting (Hot?) and open the master up to about 3:00 I can get it to stay clean with PAFs up to about 10:00-10:30. And thats pretty damn loud.

Glad the Fender worked out for you.

 

[Madison]

I bought and returned an AD60VTX and several days later an AC30CC1, both for making odd sounds at idle. Intermittent swooshing, pops, crackles. The AC in particular was a killer sounding amp, but the thought of going down mid gig in a sea of strange noises was more than I was willing to deal with.

 

[Impulse 101]

I had a 4X10 Blues DeVille back in the mid ninetys. The Jacks were directly connected to the PC board and they kept breaking the solder connections. When other stuff started going wrong with it I sold it and bought a Dual Rectifier for $500.

It sounded cool, but I just couldn't handle an amp that would break everytime that it was moved from one place to another.

JT

 

[SFW]

Originally posted by fr8_trane
Who the hell wants to gig a 2x12??? You guys must have roadies. Me, I'll take the Hot Rod Deluxe. Same amp - less weight.

I'll take some extra weight for the extra 30 watts of headroom anyday. But I will agree that the HR Deluxe does sound nice. I just like the sound of 2 12s.

 

[madsr]

I just got a made in usa deville 2x12...so far it sounds great..the clean channel is really nice, and it takes my pedals very nicely too..fulltone '70-->zvex SHO-->vox v847 wah-->echo park..sounds really good..thinking about using the loop but have to play around with it..thinking I should keep the fuzz at the front and loop the rest?..anyway the amp sounds fantastic and hopefully I won't have many issues with it but too early to tell..

 

[fr8_trane]

I had a 4X10 Blues DeVille back in the mid ninetys. The Jacks were directly connected to the PC board and they kept breaking the solder connections.

Thats a well known issue with these amps. There's a website dedicated to the Hot Rod series that details several mods to make them better. I used this site to fix a buddies Deville that had a bad jack. Pretty simple really. Just hardwire a switchcraft jack where the crappy plastic one used to be. Problem solved.

 

[SFW]

Originally posted by fr8_trane
Thats a well known issue with these amps. There's a website dedicated to the Hot Rod series that details several mods to make them better. I used this site to fix a buddies Deville that had a bad jack. Pretty simple really. Just hardwire a switchcraft jack where the crappy plastic one used to be. Problem solved.

Link?

 

[fr8_trane]

My Bad. Here's a couple:

http://studentweb.eku.edu/justin_holton/inputjack.html

http://www.unclespot.com/inputjacks.html

 

[Lucidology]

Hot Rod Devilles are wonderful amps indeed...!

 

[guitarist58]

Not to mention 23lbs LIGHTER than the Vox!

 

[AfterDarkMusic]

Who the hell wants to gig a 2x12??? You guys must have roadies. Me, I'll take the Hot Rod Deluxe. Same amp - less weight.

Wheels FTW.

 

[BadAssBill]

The HRD and a Deville do not sound alike. They both have similar Fender qualities, but they don't sound alike. I use a HRD 70% of the time, the other guitarist uses a Deville 2x12...and they are very different. I prefer the HRD because during gigs it breathes at 4 or 5, while he is stuck on 2 or 3.