Guitar Gear

In a previous post, I mentioned that I may not get a boutique amp after making mods to my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. But after playing several boutique amps over the past few months, I’ve changed my mind. There are a couple of reasons for this:

1. First, a boutique amp has a distinct tone. You might think that the distinctiveness is limiting. But it’s not. To me, boutique amps represent the ideal tone right out of the box. For instance, I played a VersaTone 57 from Faustine Amps the other day. It had the tone I’ve been after: Smooth bass, thick mids (but not overpowering), and beautiful, harmonically-laden highs that seemed to float in the air. When driven, the resulting distortion was absolutely smooth as silk, with no high-end break-up. To achieve this tone with my Hot Rod, I’ve had to swap tubes, re-bias the power amp tubes, and throw a few effects at it. And I still get a high-end break-up, which means I have to bring the amp back into the shop to have a couple of resisitors changed. In essence, with bench time and equipment, I will have spent just a couple of hundred bucks short of what I would’ve paid for a VT-57.

   Mind you though, because boutique amps are very distinctive, you have to play a lot of them before you make a decision. I’ve tried out at least 20 different amps, and I’ve finally narrowed my search to two amps, and this search has taken a few months.

2. Secondly, almost all boutique amps are completely hand-wired. Mass-produced amps such as my Hot Rod use a PCB board to route all the electronics – it’s efficient and cheap. The advantage of hand-wiring is that if you happen to blow a resistor or a capacitor, you can simply swap it out for a new one. On the other hand, you have to replace the entire PCB board if you blow a resistor since it resides on the board itself. Not fun. From what I understand, the typical life for a Hot Rod is about seven years under regular use. There are hand-wired amps from 40 years ago that still function great. For instance, I know a guy who still plays his ’65 Fender Twin Reverb. Back then amps were completely hand-wired, and he’s just made simple repairs over the years. So the point is that boutique amps are designed and built to last for decades, not just a handful of years.

So what about my Hot Rod Deluxe? Frankly, I still love it, and because I’m so satisfied with how it sounds, I’ll continue to play it until it dies. That may be 10 years from now, it may be a couple of years from now. When that happens, I’ll go with a boutique amp. But not before.