Soldano hot rod

[straycat]

Opinions on these please.50 or 100 watt.

[jgcable]

Hot Rod 50+ is awesome. Great for metal. Great for anything. Beautifully manufactured.

[straycat]

Thanks jg that's good to know.
My GF found one for sale and I think I'm going to jump on it.

[Soap]

Its a work horse built like a tank and sounds simply great.
Its the working musician's prize and the 50watter will do fine.
You should like it.
Subtle small changes as you tweak/dial it in otherwise tweaking will be frustrating.

[Grim]

They are really awesome. The SLO is way better but they are great. Is it a + model? Those add an extra "clean" channel, which is really more like a crunch channel.

[straycat]

Yeah its a 50 +

[jk2171]

SLOs are better, but the Hot Rod's ain't bad. Different transformers than the SLO from what I know in doing my research. I ended up going SLO but you can't go wrong with the HR.

[zeegler]

Yeah the HR100+ is essentially a SLO with different trannies, and without the bright switch. Not quite as good as a SLO, but I certainly wouldn't say the SLO is "way better". It is however, better than almost anything else .

Seriously though, it's a great amp that will cover a lot of ground.

[Grandturk]

The hr50 is a single channel amp right?

[zeegler]

The hr50 is a single channel amp right?

Yes. The plus sign denotes a 2 channel amp, so unless it's a HR50+ then it's a single channel.

[Nightbat]

I would certainly hope a SLO is better seeing the pricedifference

[tgreensl1]

I have a snakeskin 1995 hot rod 50+. It's incredible.

[Firebird V]

SLO is a completely different amp all together. Completely different build. Not Better, Just a different Amp. Have owned several of each. The HR50 single with the deep bass knob (warren haynes mod?) on the back is my fav of the HR series.

[zeegler]

SLO is a completely different amp all together. Completely different build. Not Better, Just a different Amp. Have owned several of each. The HR50 single with the deep bass knob (warren haynes mod?) on the back is my fav of the HR series.

Check the Soldano site. The Hot Rod lead channel is the exact same circuit. I don't know why this confusion happens so often. It's common knowledge to most people that they have the same circuit. Mike Soldano himself has stated this on numerous occasions. As I mentioned, the trannies are different, and of course the manufacturing process used for the Hot Rods is a little different (less labor intensive). For example, SLO pots are chassis mounted, and wired to the PCB with flying leads. HR pots are mounted directly to the PCBs.

[rstites]

Check the Soldano site. The Hot Rod lead channel is the exact same circuit. I don't know why this confusion happens so often. It's common knowledge to most people that they have the same circuit.

They're the same circuit. They are not built from the same parts (quality of resistors, capacitors, etc.). Some of those do affect sound quite noticeably, while others have only a negligible affect. The transformers are different, though note that the Hot Rods used MM transformers so they are top quality production units. Many other high end manufacturers use similar transformers in their top end models, so those are no slouchs in the HRs. That's true of the other parts also: high quality, but just not to the astronomical level of the SLO, nor including the transferable lifetime warranty of the SLO.

Btw, the clean channels are not identical between to the two amps, though fairly similar. In either case, both sound close enough to each other to be distinctly Soldano, while they sound different enough to never confuse one with the other. The HR50+ and HR100+ are very nice amps.