After having my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe for a few years now, I finally decided to swap the stock speaker for an Eminence Red Coat “The Governor,” which is a moderately-priced ceramic speaker. What’s difference now? The Hot Rod Deluxe is a very mid-rangy amp in the first place, but at higher gain, the tone became a little flabby. In fact, when I knew I was going to play at gig volumes I had to dial down the bass to about 9 or 10 o’clock, and set the mid and high around 3pm to get a more crisp sound. I was able to alleviate a bit of that flabbiness with better tubes than the stock Groove Tubes, but I always suspected that the speaker had a lot to do with the flabby bottom end. I don’t know why I waited to do this simple, simple modification. It literally took 10 minutes to swap it out.
So why the Eminence Governor? Mainly because I wanted a nice mid-range focused speaker that had a smooth bottom end, and slightly sparkly highs. I had also played the Governor in a couple of different amps, and was really impressed with its brighter voicing. Here’s a frequency response chart for the Governor:
As you can see from the chart, the bottom end portion of the curve is a nice, smooth line. In the mid-range, the frequency response is fairly complex, then in the highs, you get some nice peaks in the 2-3 kHz range, finished off with some subtle motes above 10 kHz. The tone in the amp reflects this well. The bottom end is there, and very tame, and the mid- and high-freq response creates a gorgeous, and spacious tone. I’ll probably have some clips in the next few days, but here are clips directly off the Eminence site:
Clean
Heavy Distortion
Overdriven
All in all, this has got to be the most significant improvement to my Hot Rod’s tone!
Guitar Gear 
hey I just replace my fender hot rod deville speakers with EMINENCE LEGEND V12 and it made A big difference. I highly recommend it on the hot rod series!
A very mean tone for lack of better term.
Nice. It makes a HUGE difference!
I also replace the gain potentiometer on the drive channel with a genuine fender snap in 1Meg Pot audio tapered,(www.darrenrilley.com) and then replace the pre-amp tubes 1 and 2 with 12AX7WC then the inverter tube with 12AX7LPS.
The results are incredible mean tone on the dirty channel,my band mates were blown away and very impress! and still preserves the incredible fender clean tone.
whatever you do do not mess with any other parts of the circuitry or everything else leads to a very muddy sound.
here’s the mod over view.
for the hot rod deville 2×12
2 Eminence Legend V12
2 12AX7WC
1 12AX7LPS
1 1M potentiometer audio taper you can get this at http://www.darrenrilley.com this is a genuine fender snap in replacement pot. if your good with soldering,great or go with a well qualified tech near you!
Warren, VERY cool stuff! I’ve heard mixed feedback about swapping out the pots. But actually, this is the first time I’ve heard about swapping out just the gain pot. Now THAT makes tons of sense, so you can get the gain up much more gradually.
BTW, do you have instructions available for swapping out the gain knob, or should I just have a tech do it?
hey G-dawg!
its pretty easy to do,but removing the pcb out of the chassy is a little tricky. In fact you dont remove the pcb all the way out, just enough to work on unsoldering the gain pot out. the pot is easy just requires some patience,carefull attention so you dont lift the pads and a good quality weller solder tool,solder sucker,solder wick.
I’am an electronic technician for about 20+ yrs now by trade, so I’m use to doing these kinda stuff.
I’ve modified the hot rod deville,deluxe,blues jr for other people for the last 7yrs now and this is by far the best mod I can come up with without destroying the marvelous fender clean channel.
I’ve tried tons of other mods out there for this particular amp that internet has to offer and they ended destroying the clean channel and makes the drive channel too muddy especialy at band level.
its very easy to do its just one pot and thats the gain pot,thats it! and a choice of your speakers and its ton heaven,and preserves the rest of the circuitry.
with the hot rod series,a little goes a long way..
if your still unsure of doin it your self let a qualified tech in your area do it for you,and if a tech try’s to sell you other mods for this amp he’s full of BS. all you need is just that gain pot,and you will enter the marshal distortion territory!
Do you remember the part number from Daren Riley? There are a few 1 Meg pots there. 🙂 Thanks!
BTW G-Dawg I’ve had great complements on my hot rod deville on this simple mod during gigs. someone told me that its a mean bastard tone!lol
G-Dawg!
here’s the part number 0041507000 this is a 1Meg audio taper pot,it should also say control snapin 1M 10A. you could also use this for the master volume so you dont sound like your blasting the neighbourhood to the moon at vol 2.
Fender uses 100k linear pot on the master volume to match the clean channel.
for example if your clean volume is at (band leve)l 4 then your dirty channel will be the same,and both these volume are already crazy loud for any normal band! trust me I have to turn down sometimes cause the band mates complain.
now if you install a 1meg audio tapered pot on the master volume, you will be at around volume 5.5 or 6.5 at band level which is much more controled there’s definetly NO LOSS OF TONE, specialy when you live in an apartment, with this 1meg pot you could actualy play at volume 2 and nobody will ever complain!
on a 100k linear pot(which is stock) at volume 2,the cops will definetly be knocking at your door. been there done that!
BTW the master volume has nothing to do with the clean channel! its part of the dirty channel.
hey G-dawg!
if your gonna do the mod on yout HRD make sure you discharge the filter caps first! okay!
G-Dawg!
you should also try the stewart McDonald vintage humbuckers on this set up mod, you will be amaze at the overdrive channel,let some big open chords ring out at band volume level and your entering into marshal/boogie territorty!
I’ve switch all my warmoth guitars now that have humbuckers to stewart MacDonalds pick ups now.
http://www.stewmac.com
Seems like a nice mod, did you need to remove the chassis or just the tubes to swap the speakers? Thanks.
Just the tubes, to be safe, though technically you can remove the speaker without removing them.
Thanks for the reply.
I just want to be sure, because I read everywhere else on the net that you need to remove the chassis (and fir safety,to drain the capacitors) to take off the speaker. Here is an example ( see n0 1):
http://nickmondy-fender-hrd-mods.blogspot.ca/2013/01/fender-hot-rod-deluxe-and-deluxe-iii.html?m=1
Are you 100% positive, you did it in ten minutes without removing the chasis? If yes, do you know why poeple remove it? I don’t see the point…
Thanks.
Damn! Somehow I got it confused with another amp. I just did a physical check of my Hot Rod, and yes indeed, you have to remove the chassis. But you don’t have to drain the capacitor, though it’s never a bad idea when you have the chassis exposed.
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