Friedman IR-Load

[[Nathan]]

That depends entirely on the intended application.

Yes obviously. The scope of people wanting/needing all the bells and whistles that the Friedman is offering will be a lot less than people wanting a nifty poweramp solution for modellers or preamp pedals.

If this poweramp solution is “game changing” then that’s a whole chunk of digital people who’d be interested.

 

[laxu]

That's only because you are used to modern crap over rated, underpowered SS amps marketed to guitarists. Trust me, if you spent 30 seconds playing my McIntosh 2100 solid state power amp, you wouldn't think it was in anyway lacking power or headroom compared to a 100w tube amp.

One of the claims I read about the IR-Load was that it had enough SS power to act like a 100w tube amp, which means if rated like the standard low grade Class D we are used to it would probably be speced much higher. It's interesting that they claimed the 50w Wampler pedal was 50 watts no matter the nominal impedance of the load and I infer that the 100w rating of the IR-Load will be the same. That in itself is pretty promising compared to current solutions that deliver 1/4 the power into 16 ohms vs 4!

The big question is the power supply. If designed right and there is enough juice behind it, there is no reason a SS amp can't deliver as much headroom as a PS 100. Well, no reasons other than cost size and weight, so we will have to see what tradeoffs they have chosen. My hope is that they didn't compromise in sound quality and power, and the price is still reasonable. It ain't gunna be cheap to deliver that, but hopefully not too far from the PS-2 and PS-100 range which is around $800 - $1200.

Exactly. The BluGuitar Amp 1 series is rated as if it was a 100W tube amp at 8 ohms, and I think 150W peak output. I think Thomas Blug has said it's something like 600+ watts in reality but never given any concrete numbers. I assume the Friedman is going to be rated similarly.

I've measured the Amp 1 to deliver 120 dB @ 1m when cranked through a 1x12 Eminence Maverick (100 dB sensitivity). If that's not enough, you probably play in Motörhead or AC/DC.

 

[laxu]

What I do wonder is what problems these new products solve.

The current situation is this:

A modeler or preamp does not know what it's connected to. There may be speaker impedance modeling, but so far only Fractal offers the ability to change the speaker impedance curve to match your connected system.

So with any neutral poweramp, you rely on the modeler to be able to react as if the right speaker is connected.

With the Friedman IR-Load, the poweramp knows how to react correctly. But the modeler connected still does not. So you'd need to disable poweramp sim completely, or set the SIC to a resistive load.

Then you can bring in the "guitar-ampness" with the Reactance control. But with the Reactance all the way up, it will always behave like a Friedman poweramp - assuming this means something like a 50-100W poweramp found in say a Friedman BE. Marshallish, good all around sweet spot territory.

But that's not quite right for a Tweed or Vox AC30. Those tend to have a particular poweramp response.

With a tube amp you are supposed to leave the Reactance knob all the way down or low, which just means that the reactive load determines how the amp behaves - which again may not be exactly like your tube amp -> cab, just like any reactive load.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Yeah, most rack power amps are stereo, so having a dual load would have been cool and filled a void. (Though I’m sure they probably figured they won’t recoup enough sales for a stereo load to outweigh the size/weight to include it)

I’m curious to see a deep dive on it, but I’m guessing it’s going to priced out of being practical as a straight load box and not particularly exciting as a reamper (let me take this 100w amp, run it down into a SS class D power amp, and then convince myself I’m having fun doing it lol)

As a power amp, maybe you can flatten it to be transparent for a modeler or amp pedal, or then bake in the Friedman power amp when you need PA mojo, and hope that mojo works with everything since that’s its voicing.

Probably cool as a kitchen sink device in a single enclosure tho. Need to see Dave or Pete give a rundown on it.

If it dies from what I gather it’ll make em mad money.
The emulation of the actually used amp/cab interaction with machine learning. For the IR.

As for the stereo thing. Why would it need stereo ins?

Take your mono amp signal via the speaker tab into the load/power amp.
And then run the line level loop of it to the in if stereo fx and come back to stereo returns if the power amp.

It’s not likely they’d over look the obvious use cases.

Plus they’ve done exactly this with the loop on the Soldano X88ir and the Tone King preamp pedal.

 

[Frodebro]

If it dies from what I gather it’ll make em mad money.
The emulation of the actually used amp/cab interaction with machine learning. For the IR.

As for the stereo thing. Why would it need stereo ins?

Take your mono amp signal via the speaker tab into the load/power amp.
And then run the line level loop of it to the in if stereo fx and come back to stereo returns if the power amp.

It’s not likely they’d over look the obvious use cases.

Plus they’ve done exactly this with the loop on the Soldano X88ir and the Tone King preamp pedal.

Absolutely agree. This isn't a dedicated power amp for modelers, though it has that capability. It's designed to be a load box/reamper for tube amps.

 

[CorrosiveMatter]

 

[GTR37]

First off great marketing funny
Thing sounds great

 

[Whizzinby]

As for the stereo thing. Why would it need stereo ins?

Take your mono amp signal via the speaker tab into the load/power amp.

I don’t think it “needs” it, but stereo power amps are common in rack rigs.

 

[Blix]

I don’t think it “needs” it, but stereo power amps are common in rack rigs.

Using the loop returns you can use it as a stereo power amp though

 

[Chocol8]

I don’t think it “needs” it, but stereo power amps are common in rack rigs.

It is meant to be/replace the stereo power amp. If you have a stereo pre-amp, stereo effects, or stereo modeler, you go into the stereo loop returns. The only issue would be if you want to run two full tube amps into two loads. Then you need an extra load box and run one into one of the returns, or a second unit to do full WDW.

 

[Whizzinby]

Using the loop returns you can use it as a stereo power amp though

Stereo power amp = Two loads, not returns.

Yes, you could bypass using your stereo power amp altogether and just use this. Assuming you want to do that. In which case you arent using a load to begin with!

TBF, there is no stereo load box that I’m aware of, you have to use multiple boxes for that setup, so I don’t hold it against this device at all. But, the entire line of chat started back when we just had the initial picture showing two stereo controls and I was thinking for a brief second this device might have a stereo load capability.

 

[paisleywookiee]

This thing is making me go against what I said yesterday about small amps, and want to do a Badlander 25 head into this Friedman thingy, into a cab. That'd be a killer modular rig.

 

[Ross Davies]

How is this different from the Two Notes Torpedo RELOAD II?

Ross from Two notes here! Seems like everyone has clarified the differences, however if anyone has any questions about Reload II, let me know! Always happy to dive in and assist.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Ok. And does the Friedman also serve as an attenuator?

Neither are attenuators. They're both loaded down, and then reamped.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

I don’t think it “needs” it, but stereo power amps are common in rack rigs.

That’s because customarily the chain is mono signal to sauce stereo to power amp.
In this case it’s still a stereo power amp
Amp to load
Load line level to sauce from fx send
Stereo returns back to power amp

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Stereo power amp = Two loads, not returns.

Yes, you could bypass using your stereo power amp altogether and just use this. Assuming you want to do that. In which case you arent using a load to begin with!

TBF, there is no stereo load box that I’m aware of, you have to use multiple boxes for that setup, so I don’t hold it against this device at all. But, the entire line of chat started back when we just had the initial picture showing two stereo controls and I was thinking for a brief second this device might have a stereo load capability.

How many stereo amps do you know of? I can think of the rivers TBR and that was mono pre into stereo pwr outs.
The split was the loop

If you think use case having two heads loaded down then any company be insane to release that for the maybe 3 guys that would want it.

 

[Ed DeGenaro]

Neither are attenuators. They're both loaded down, and then reamped.

Could we please use the proper term? It’s slaved not re-amped.
That triggers me nearly as hard as Germans calling a bend or Bend…bendings.

 

[Blix]

That triggers me nearly as hard as Germans calling a bend or Bend…bendings.

Germans using poti and foto when speaking English triggers me

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Germans using poti and foto when speaking English triggers me

German's take photos of the potty? Dirty bastards!

 

[paisleywookiee]

Could we please use the proper term? It’s slaved not re-amped.
That triggers me nearly as hard as Germans calling a bend or Bend…bendings.

No, we can't. Because it's loaded down, and re-amplified louder again. You can use whatever term you'd like though.