Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankHudson
Congrats on the HRDlx! It's a popular and great sounding amp that gets less respect I think because:
- It's not a vintage design/nameplate or look with a bloodline that goes back to the classic LP record era. I like some of those vintage designs too, but they aren't everything either.
- The originals had the touchy volume and gain knob tapers that bugged some. I hear the later generations are better in this regard. JHS and others sell a little inexpensive volume box that one can put in the effects loop to add more easily adjusted gain/volume, I just adjust mine carefully. Speaking of effect loops, mine has a tremelo pedal in the loop. Ooo, I love a little tremelo, and the pedal allows me to use it in place of my Princeton.
- The drive and especially the more drive circuits displease many. Some of that is due to not having their own EQ like a true 2 or 3 channel amp likely would have. I've actually used those circuits on mine sometimes, but there's no reason to use them if you don't like them.
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I've always liked the both the clean and OD sound on these amps... but on the examples I've played the OD was voiced so much brighter than the clean that trying to use the footswitch generally results in me seting the amp so that neither channel sounds the way I want. I can get both channels to sound great, but I can never even get to sound good at the same time, which always seemed like a real shame... possibly just my tastes.
I do love how they sound though, and I've tried multiple times to figure out ways to get them to work for me without having to use an OD pedal for my main gain stage... If they ever put seperate EQ's on these amps I'd own one in a heartbeat.