Fender Hot Rod Deluxe IV Review

As I mentioned in my best guitar amplifiers guide, if you are a beginner or an intermediate player, or lack the budget and time, buying a combo app is the best bet, as it is a complete package consisting of your preamp, power amp, and the speaker. There are tons of choices regarding combo amps, Fender is one of the leaders in this industry.

Its Hot Rod series has been running since the 1996 and has received four updates since. I have to mention that you can even get the first model and it will still perform excellently, but the latest generation Fender Hot Rod Deluxe IV all-tube amp with its modern upgrades is one of the best gig-worthy amps on the market, that you can also use for practice as well. Let’s dive deeper into this excellent product!

The Fender Hot Rod Deluxe IV has a sturdy and robust construction built with pine wood, at the same time looking beautiful and versatile for multiple genres. The chassis of this monster measures 18.75×23.5×10.5-inches and weighs 45-pounds, large and a little heavy but you can carry it around the stage and the house comfortably.

Essentially, the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe IV is a 40-watt all-tube amplifier with just one 12-inch Celestion A-Type speaker, which is known for its sleek highs, relaxed mids, and fat/thick lows. 40 watts may not look much, but if you read my guide you know that this amp has more power than a 100-watt solid-state amp. I found this amp to fill even larger venues comfortably with excellent quality, clarity, and warmness.

The Fender Hot Rod Deluxe IV is equipped with three channels, that allows you to explore an amazing range of tones, and the addition of the refined spring reverb provides a smoother and richer tone even at max, which was surprising.

Perfect for a guitarist that enjoy a nice reverb, like myself. There are no other effects included, but you get an effect loop that is a nice touch of detail. Speaking about details and attention touches, in the package of the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe IV, you will also find a footswitch for switching between channels quickly.

The three channels of this Hot Rod are Normal, Drive, and More Drive, cheesy right! However, you don’t have the same controls on the More Drive channel, meaning that you have to adjust the distortion levels from the original Drive channel. You have three-band EQ settings and you can shape the tone in a pretty nice manner with them.

The Fender Hot Rod Deluxe IV is no exception for the excellent cleans that Fender is known for, the sounds came out very rich and even without effects the tone was fantastic. I found that this amp has great versatility with pedals, meaning that you can plug in any pedal you like and it can handle it to excellence.

I didn’t expect anything else from a tube amp from the Hot Rod series, everything is top-notch, simply no significant weak-points