Fender FR-10/FR-12 noise reduction mod

I ordered 2 FR10s from SW at the same time a couple months ago, but I do notice one has more "noise" than the other. I tested this with both amps at full volume and one had a noticeable difference. It wasn't terrible or anything and to be fair I didn't test them separately and isolated so could be a ground loop maybe. Signal was coming from my Stomp XL. Can't test at the moment though.
 
Sent fender an inquiry about my FR12. CHNE24 serial number bought July of 24 through sweetwater. My place is pretty quiet and I don't really ever go over the 3rd notch on volume. But yet when turning on the FR12 I get the all too known hiss that can be heard over light playing. After months of owning this, I finally got annoyed enough to reach out.

Just received this response and signed up for TGF to post it.

Link to second video:
At 2:39 in the same video, OP mentions those over on the Fractal forum bypassing the EQ to solve the issue. Now, I can say this feels absolutely wonderful to be sent by a Fender employee. You'd think at that point you'd swallow your pride and push for the product to actually be fixed instead of paying the CS team to give a non-response. Hell maybe my time is better off spent sending this to one of the guitar youtubers who report on things like this for this issue to actually be "seen" if they'd be willing to make a video.

I got annoyed of this response and just started taking apart my FR12. Come to find out mine already has the "factory mod." Looks like I'll only need to replace half the amount I thought it would need!
Screenshot 2025-01-17 135513.png
IMG_0664.jpg
 
eb.six said:
Sent fender an inquiry about my FR12. CHNE24 serial number bought July of 24 through sweetwater. My place is pretty quiet and I don't really ever go over the 3rd notch on volume. But yet when turning on the FR12 I get the all too known hiss that can be heard over light playing. After months of owning this, I finally got annoyed enough to reach out.

Just received this response and signed up for TGF to post it.

Link to second video:
At 2:39 in the same video, OP mentions those over on the Fractal forum bypassing the EQ to solve the issue. Now, I can say this feels absolutely wonderful to be sent by a Fender employee. You'd think at that point you'd swallow your pride and push for the product to actually be fixed instead of paying the CS team to give a non-response. Hell maybe my time is better off spent sending this to one of the guitar youtubers who report on things like this for this issue to actually be "seen" if they'd be willing to make a video.

I got annoyed of this response and just started taking apart my FR12. Come to find out mine already has the "factory mod." Looks like I'll only need to replace half the amount I thought it would need! View attachment 36607View attachment 36611
Click to expand...

Welcome @eb.six to the community! Thank you for posting this.

Please stick around!
 
eb.six said:
Since mine already has the "factory mod," All I need to do is replace IC4 and IC10 correct?

If so, can someone confirm this parts list is all I'll need? (Edit: 1 spare for each)
View attachment 36623
Click to expand...

Part types look OK, but you have an extra OPA4227 there? There's three 14-pin ICs and two 8-pin ICs in total used on these amps.

Having said that, don't expect a day-and-night improvement by swapping all out if your amp is "factory modded" already 😥 I honestly don't know if it's worth the effort; noise in these designs is cascaded, so that last 33% will not have nearly the same impact as the first 66%.
 
Lysander said:
Part types look OK, but you have an extra OPA4227 there? There's three 14-pin ICs and two 8-pin ICs in total used on these amps.

Having said that, don't expect a day-and-night improvement by swapping all out if your amp is "factory modded" already 😥 I honestly don't know if it's worth the effort; noise in these designs is cascaded, so that last 33% will not have nearly the same impact as the first 66%.
Click to expand...
I guess I should take a step back and ask more questions lol

This is the video I sent over to Fender:

Once I turn it on, I get the "classic tv on a static channel" noise. Cut knob at noon only removes maybe 5% of the volume of that static noise. at full cut, I just don't like the sound of the amp. With this having the factory mod, am I still to expect noise coming from the unit?

On the original post mentioning "The result is STAGGERING: hiss has became basically inaudible. Tone and EQ behavior remains the same, but the amp is so silent now that i cannot measure hiss over ambient noise, even if i place the sound meter right next to the grill. Take just a couple steps back, and the amp is dead silent."

On mine, I can hear the static noise from 5+ feet away

Is ambient noise: the noise of the FR12 itself or ambient noise of the room you are in? I think from my understanding when it was mentioned the amp is dead silent with all the IC's replaced, it would be comparable to any normal speaker (headphones, studio monitors, car speakers). In that if nothing is playing there is 0% noise coming from the speakers being on/powered?
 
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eb.six said:
I think from my understanding when it was mentioned the amp is dead silent with all the IC's replaced, it would be comparable to any normal speaker (headphones, studio monitors, car speakers). In that if nothing is playing there is 0% noise coming from the speakers being on/powered?
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Yes. No signal = zero sound coming out of the amp. There is the tiniest amount of hiss present, but comparable to any other quality power amp in the category - meaning, you need to put your ear next to the grill to even pick it up. My meter cannot pick measure sounds below 30dBa (which is lower than a whisper), and completely fails to register any sound with the FR-12 on.

To be 100% clear though, this is all with the mod described at the begging of this thread. I have not tried Fender's "factory mod" revision myself, but it's essentially the same idea and, from all accounts, very very hiss-free. Now, given the way the FR-10/12 preamps are designed, changing the remaining op-amps will improve the noise floor some, but you won't get such a drastic difference as coming from the older TL084 version.

Still, i don't think you should be hearing any noise at 5ft. Maybe the amp is faulty in some other way?
 
Lysander said:
Yes. No signal = zero sound coming out of the amp. There is the tiniest amount of hiss present, but comparable to any other quality power amp in the category - meaning, you need to put your ear next to the grill to even pick it up. My meter cannot pick measure sounds below 30dBa (which is lower than a whisper), and completely fails to register any sound with the FR-12 on.

To be 100% clear though, this is all with the mod described at the begging of this thread. I have not tried Fender's "factory mod" revision myself, but it's essentially the same idea and, from all accounts, very very hiss-free. Now, given the way the FR-10/12 preamps are designed, changing the remaining op-amps will improve the noise floor some, but you won't get such a drastic difference as coming from the older TL084 version.

Still, i don't think you should be hearing any noise at 5ft. Maybe the amp is faulty in some other way?
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Appreciate the response, thank you. Going to fender directly seems like a dead end with them not willing to accept my unit is out of their affected serial code range. I feel my only chance at some kind of warranty is potentially talking to sweetwater about it for an exchange in hopes of getting a newly made one that doesn't have this noise.

If that part fails, then I'd go ahead and replace the last two IC's fender did not change with their factory mod attempt. Last chance is dealing with it until I could get one of WKSmith's replacement preamps
 
eb.six said:
On mine, I can hear the static noise from 5+ feet away
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Same for me and my new fr 10. It's factory modded but far from inaudible.
So I really don't think the units are "faulty", but that's the normal behavior for the factory mid.
Having that said, my Headrush FR108 has a very similar noise floor which is also very audible and one reason to get the FR20 was to have less noise when playing in my room.
 
From Fender EMEA:
The Tone Master FR speakers have a natural operating noise that is considered normal. In typical use cases, especially when playing guitar or listening to music, this should not be a problem as the noise floor does not change and is well below the audio output signal level. We are aware of some customer concerns about the level of "output noise" that is audible when FR speakers are turned on at rest, and have made a manufacturing change to address this issue.

Fender does not recall units by serial number. The serial number is only an indicator of the units built prior to the change and most of these units do not exhibit any problems. However, if the noise level of your unit affects playability or is significantly louder than normal, please contact the dealer from whom you purchased the product so that they can take the necessary steps to inspect the unit under warranty.
Click to expand...

So, nothing new here. I wonder how we will find out how much variance there is in the units...
 
Is the V3 still available? I had the fender mod done and I don't have the hiss but not happy with some of the tone qualities
 
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