Hi,
anyone familiar with Fender guitar amps knows they all have *names* rather than model numbers - common practice with such amps from the beginning.
Fender like to use a very small palette of words in their naming conventions - reusing names and adding words like "Amp" to indicate model changes.
Commonly use names include Princeton, Twin, Concert, Bassman and Vibro while additional words like Reverb, Super and Amp indicate variations or completely different models.
Often, the only difference between models with quite different names is the speaker arrangement - ie using 1, 2, 4 or 6 drivers. This can get very confusing.
Recently, a young woman phoned saying she had a "Fender Deluxe".
Since there are a couple of dozen Fender models with "Deluxe" in the name, I could not picture the amp in question. So I asked how old it was and what it looked like and it turned out to be a recent one with single 12 inch speaker and controls on the top.
But I was still puzzled, cos there appears to be no schematic by that name that matches her amp.
The mystery was solved when I found stickers inside, one (applied up side down) reading "HRDLX 240V" and another near the speaker showing the valve line up with "Hot Rod Deluxe" written at the top.
So the amp IS a *Hot Rod Deluxe* - something it owner was not aware of. How come?
On the front there is a metal badge saying "Fender - Deluxe" and on the back is a chrome plate, with most of the ink rubbed off, that normally carries the full name. That ink has been missing as long as she has owned the amp.
FYI: The customer told me that since that was a blue glow coming from the output valves, new ones were needed to cure the horrible distortion she was hearing.
The reality was the amp need a new speaker, as the voice coil had partially detached from the cone.
.... Phil