Speaker sugestion for HRDX

Fingers Mcginty

Hello there me ould squires,
Well it's time to bite the bullet and upgrade the speaker in my hot rod deluxe. I have changed the tubes to JJ's already. Changed the power tubes to lower output 6v6's. But still this amp ain't doing it for me. The speaker sounds flabby at high volume. i like celestion V30's but where is the best place to buy from? Maybe another speaker suggestion ?? ...help!

Ancient1

Everything you ever needed to know about the HRDx:

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

Also, check out the Fender Forums - there's a massive thread about the virtues of the HRDx, so just do a quick search.

I still have the stock speakers in mine and I see no reason to swap them out.

Fingers Mcginty

yeah...been on that site alright....lots of good info.
Just wondering if anyone on this forum has had any experiences with these amps....The only time i've ever got mine to sound half decent is by feeding the power amp in with a line 6 POD and disabling the cabinet feature in PODs software. The amp just has a harsh nature to it. Hard to describe without hearing it.

Ancient1

I don't know what you mean by harsh. I just roll off the bass a bit (coz it can be very low end) and it's just perfect.

I plug in my strat and that's that - perfection.

Fingers Mcginty

And you've doen no mods whatsoever?

Ancient1

Some of the mods on that site are very tempting, but I haven't done any.

I'm more than happy with the amp the way it is. Sure, there are some things that could be improved, tweaked etc, but I just haven't convinced myself that it's entirely necessary.

I find the OD channel is a bit weak and could be improved, but that's about it.

Fingers Mcginty

I find the amp is fine at home but during practise when i have to open it up it sounds harsh no matter how it's eq'd ....By the way do you gig with this amp?

Ancient1

I haven't gigged with the amp, but I do crank it up in rehearsals.

Mine sounds fantastic when it's cranked up. It's not unreasonably noisy either but, like I said, it's very low end so I need to roll off the bass and boost the mids and treble.

There's more than a few guys who've had the same complaint as you and they've been very happy with the amp since either swapping out the speaker or doing some mod or other. It's all down to what you prefer and how it sounds to your ears, so there's no universal fix. It pays to read that whole thread on the Fender Forums though, I'm sure you'll find someone with the same issue.

Eoin Madsen

I've always found the Deluxe is a little shrill when I've had to work with them live, so I think I know what you mean. But short of getting hold of a schematic and then changing a couple of the cap values, I can't think of any way to get rid of that characteristic all together. The speaker might help.

Fingers Mcginty

Well thanks for the info and nice chatting to ya...i'm gonna check out that forum now.