Fryette Ultra Lead II

[Whizzinby]

I've had multiple instances of sending questions and getting no response whatsoever. I've also received detailed and helpful responses from Fryette support in other instances. I've connected the dots and concluded that they ignore me if I mention having bought the product used. While understandable, that still sucks.

I'm am member of a Fryette users Facebook group and the mixed / negative experiences with their support are far from isolated incidents. People often post in that group looking for help on an issue after getting no response from Fryette.

Interesting.

Weird how that works, because they’ve always seemed more than generous with their time and knowledge. I got like 20 emails deep with Steve on the LXII and remembered thinking, “I can’t believe you’re indulging a mouth breather like me” Maybe he’s been too busy talking shit with people like me to reply to Laxu and others.

 

[Stratzrus]

Weird how that works, because they’ve always seemed more than generous with their time and knowledge.

Same here.

I've always had direct and prompt communications with Support at Fryette, they helped my local tech diagnose a problem and recommended a part replacement.

I've also had quick turnaround, about a week, when sending them my Deliverance 120 (effects loop and More/Less relay added) and Sig X (Fat mod) for modification.

I've gathered that some had had issues but support has always been excellent when I needed it.

 

[laxu]

Barring Laxu has anyone actually had issues with Fryette support? I’ve annoyed them on every device I’ve bought from them (repeatedly) and support and Steve himself have always been awesome and willing to indulge and even shoot the shit. Granted it wasn’t repair related and more how-to and use-case related, but I never got the vibe that these dudes would be difficult to work with. Laxu’s experience seems to be spinning into a tall tale, unless everyone else is having a bad experience with them I haven’t to this point.

I can only tell my own tales:

1. May 2021. Asking about low frequency hum on the PS-100. No answer to email.
2. June 2021. Asked about the same issue. This time they answered and claimed it was mains hum. I measured and showed the hum was much higher up in frequency. They stopped answering.
3. August 2021. I email them again with more details after testing the unit in multiple places, multiple outlets. Fryette never answers.
4. July 2022.
   • PS-100 has stopped working. I take it to a local tech. Tech then tells me Fryette has not got back to them with schematics.
   • I try to contact Fryette as well, but receive no answers.
   • After complaining on TGP much later, Fryette says they were in COVID lockdown (which they never mentioned on their website), but then they forgot to get back to me and claimed they never got any messages from my tech.
   • I had just moved cities and local techs in my current city were on holiday so I couldn't get anyone else to look at the PS-100.
   • I pack up the PS-100, then pretty much forget about it.
5. January 2025. I open up the PS-100, see if I can notice any component is broken. Nope, put it back together. Surprisingly, it starts working. So I just use it.
6. May 2025. PS-100 stops working again.
   1. I ask about the issue on Fryette's forums.
   2. It takes 11 days for Fryette to answer asking for details. Their solution is just take it to a tech, which is fair.
   3. My local tech is backed to kingdom come so again just leave the unit for later.
7. December 2025. I figure out the control board is somehow wonky and manage to fix it by adjusting the load switch nuts so that the board is bent slightly which fixes the issue. It's been good so far.
   1. This time Fryette has given some helpful advice on how to reduce potential noise and what resistors to change for a few other parts.

I'd still consider that poor service rather than an isolated incident. This is also in line with other people's experiences on TGP, finding it hard to get them to answer support requests.

They make cool gear but god damn, it's not so hard to answer some emails!

 

[maddnotez]

I miss the Fryette forums and definitely miss my 100CL, I know one of you turds got it from me for a hell of a deal.

This UL2 is definitely on my radar.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I can only tell my own tales:

1. May 2021. Asking about low frequency hum on the PS-100. No answer to email.
2. June 2021. Asked about the same issue. This time they answered and claimed it was mains hum. I measured and showed the hum was much higher up in frequency. They stopped answering.
3. August 2021. I email them again with more details after testing the unit in multiple places, multiple outlets. Fryette never answers.
4. July 2022.
   • PS-100 has stopped working. I take it to a local tech. Tech then tells me Fryette has not got back to them with schematics.
   • I try to contact Fryette as well, but receive no answers.
   • After complaining on TGP much later, Fryette says they were in COVID lockdown, but then they forgot to get back to me and claimed they never got any messages from my tech.
   • I had just moved cities and local techs in my current city were on holiday so I couldn't get anyone else to look at the PS-100.
   • I pack up the PS-100, then pretty much forget about it.
5. January 2025. I open up the PS-100, see if I can notice any component is broken. Nope, put it back together. Surprisingly, it starts working. So I just use it.
6. May 2025. PS-100 stops working again.
   1. I ask about the issue on Fryette's forums.
   2. It takes 11 days for Fryette to answer asking for details. Their solution is just take it to a tech, which is fair.
   3. My local tech is backed to kingdom come so again just leave the unit for later.
7. December 2025. I figure out the control board is somehow wonky and manage to fix it by adjusting the load switch nuts so that the board is bent slightly which fixes the issue. It's been good so far.
   1. This time Fryette has given some helpful advice on how to reduce potential noise and what resistors to change for a few other parts.

I'd still consider that poor service rather than an isolated incident. This is also in line with other people's experiences on TGP, finding it hard to get them to answer support requests.

They make cool gear but god damn, it's not so hard to answer some emails!

Wasn't there a guy who spent half his time in the TOP D&M sub whining about hard it is to use Fractal gear and the other half sniffing Fryette's farts and name dropping? Maybe I am misremembering?I'd try bugging him to see if he can get some traction with his buddy.

 

[maddnotez]

Wasn't there a guy who spent half his time in the TOP D&M sub whining about hard it is to use Fractal gear and the other half sniffing Fryette's farts and name dropping? Maybe I am misremembering?

Fart sniffing can go a long way on the forumz

 

[JiveTurkey]

Fart sniffing can go a long way on the forumz

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Wasn't there a guy who spent half his time in the TOP D&M sub whining about hard it is to use Fractal gear and the other half sniffing Fryette's farts and name dropping? Maybe I am misremembering?I'd try bugging him to see if he can get some traction with his buddy.

Gimme a minute...

 

[Sascha Franck]

Plenty of room to velcro a VP4 and GM800 on top

You could as well mount it in the basement of a two story pedalboard and claim you were faster than Thomas Blug with your analog pedalboard flagship amp.

 

[eggpl@nt]

Barring Laxu has anyone actually had issues with Fryette support? I’ve annoyed them on every device I’ve bought from them (repeatedly) and support and Steve himself have always been awesome and willing to indulge and even shoot the shit. Granted it wasn’t repair related and more how-to and use-case related, but I never got the vibe that these dudes would be difficult to work with. Laxu’s experience seems to be spinning into a tall tale, unless everyone else is having a bad experience with them I haven’t to this point.

I’ve also had issues with their support. Couldn’t buy an email response from them re: and issue I was having with the Power Load IR.

 

[Whizzinby]

I can only tell my own tales:

1. May 2021. Asking about low frequency hum on the PS-100. No answer to email.
2. June 2021. Asked about the same issue. This time they answered and claimed it was mains hum. I measured and showed the hum was much higher up in frequency. They stopped answering.
3. August 2021. I email them again with more details after testing the unit in multiple places, multiple outlets. Fryette never answers.
4. July 2022.
   • PS-100 has stopped working. I take it to a local tech. Tech then tells me Fryette has not got back to them with schematics.
   • I try to contact Fryette as well, but receive no answers.
   • After complaining on TGP much later, Fryette says they were in COVID lockdown (which they never mentioned on their website), but then they forgot to get back to me and claimed they never got any messages from my tech.
   • I had just moved cities and local techs in my current city were on holiday so I couldn't get anyone else to look at the PS-100.
   • I pack up the PS-100, then pretty much forget about it.
5. January 2025. I open up the PS-100, see if I can notice any component is broken. Nope, put it back together. Surprisingly, it starts working. So I just use it.
6. May 2025. PS-100 stops working again.
   1. I ask about the issue on Fryette's forums.
   2. It takes 11 days for Fryette to answer asking for details. Their solution is just take it to a tech, which is fair.
   3. My local tech is backed to kingdom come so again just leave the unit for later.
7. December 2025. I figure out the control board is somehow wonky and manage to fix it by adjusting the load switch nuts so that the board is bent slightly which fixes the issue. It's been good so far.
   1. This time Fryette has given some helpful advice on how to reduce potential noise and what resistors to change for a few other parts.

I'd still consider that poor service rather than an isolated incident. This is also in line with other people's experiences on TGP, finding it hard to get them to answer support requests.

They make cool gear but god damn, it's not so hard to answer some emails!

Yeah your odyssey with them has been a total head scratcher. When your PS revived I was so pumped knowing the backstory

 

[MatrixClaw]

You can always leave an empty slot above/below it if you think it needs more ventilation.

Has nothing to do with ventilation and everything to do with: how the hell are they putting a big enough transformer in there, with 9 tubes and all the other stuff it has in it?

 

[laxu]

Yeah your odyssey with them has been a total head scratcher. When your PS revived I was so pumped knowing the backstory

Yeah I'm happy I figured out how to get it working properly by bending the control board a bit. I had it with the chassis open and stuffed a suitable thickness potentiometer between the board and chassis as a test, then adjusted those switch nuts to hold it in that place.

At this point if it keeps working like this, I'm good.

 

[laxu]

Has nothing to do with ventilation and everything to do with: how the hell are they putting a big enough transformer in there, with 9 tubes and all the other stuff it has in it?

The design is likely similar to the PS-100 or 1U Synergy SYN-5050 stereo poweramp:

PS-100 (mine):

Synergy SYN-5050:

By making it 2U and staggering the output tubes they can save some space. Transformers are likely to be more like the PS-100 where they are narrow but taller.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Has nothing to do with ventilation and everything to do with: how the hell are they putting a big enough transformer in there, with 9 tubes and all the other stuff it has in it?

I mean, I can't imagine they were like "transformer A or B....B, obviously; gotta be 2U regardless of how it sounds".

 

[Orvillain]

Barring Laxu has anyone actually had issues with Fryette support? I’ve annoyed them on every device I’ve bought from them (repeatedly) and support and Steve himself have always been awesome and willing to indulge and even shoot the shit. Granted it wasn’t repair related and more how-to and use-case related, but I never got the vibe that these dudes would be difficult to work with. Laxu’s experience seems to be spinning into a tall tale, unless everyone else is having a bad experience with them I haven’t to this point.

Yes. When I bought my first Sig X.

After some time the clean channel developed an issue where it just kept getting gainer and gainer. I didn't know what was wrong. I looked on the forum, and there were loads of people complaining about how distorted the clean channel sounded, and a bunch of people in a specific thread advising each other to try an AT7 tube in valve position 1 to bring down the gain. Their official tech support guy Dave was involved in the thread too, and at no point did he advise anyone of anything that was to follow...

So I tried it... for a few minutes.... it made absolutely fuck all difference. So I put the AX7 tube back in, and sent the UK distributor an email to see if they could take a look.

They replied back saying they would, but couldn't do it under warranty as Fryette knew I had tried the tube change. What happened after was a huge back and forth between myself, the distributor, and a separate email with Fryette too. My contention was - there was nothing in the manual saying that experimenting with preamp tubes would void the warranty, and that if it were an issue, why didn't Dave mention anything in the forum thread that I read the advice in, that he was involved in. I also pointed out it was the official users forum.

But they wouldn't budge. It was going to cost me hundreds of pounds to get them to take a look at it, and fix whatever was wrong... and I just felt really let down by them.

In the end I took it to my tech, and the issue turned out to be my rectifier tube was shorting out, and causing all kinds of voltage issues throughout the amp. I had never had an amp with a rectifier tube before, so I didn't really know what to expect. But it had sounded kind of like a rainstick for months at that time, and I just didn't put two and two together until I got my amp tech to look at it.

So by the time it all got cleared up, I was so pissed off with the company, I sold the amp after confirming nothing wrong with it, and bought my first Satriani JVM instead.

Looking back, I could've handled it better. But also.... so could they. They could've actually been professionals, instead of calling my tech into question, belittling me constantly, and treating me like I was a fucking idiot for trying something out that I read on their user forum.

It was not the only issue I had with the Sig X amp. The amp would often randomly switch channels by itself when the footswitch was connected; in random venues. Never happened at home. Also, the very first Sig X I owned, turned up completely dead on arrival. I had to ship it back and get a 2nd one from the distributor at the time.

.... anyway, I've owned 4 or 5 Sig X's since that time. They're great amps. Not particularly great build quality, but they sound good - and the company.... I have very little time for them to be honest. Put me off buying American brands for a long time too.

 

[Whizzinby]

Geezus. Maybe they are incorrigible pricks.

 

[Orvillain]

Geezus. Maybe they are incorrigible pricks.

Good at building amps. Bad at doing business. That's my guess.

 

[OrganicZed]

Geezus. Maybe they are incorrigible pricks.

Steve himself will tell you that he's an asshole. As best I can assess from my vantage, Steve and crew are really nice to those they like and they will ignore you / treat you badly if you happen to get on their bad list. Getting on the bad list is easy to do and might simply involve sending an email on the wrong day.

 

[laxu]

Good at building amps. Bad at doing business. That's my guess.

It all seems like typical small shop stuff. Fryette is just particularly bad at keeping up with their contacts. They need to get some proper ticketing system or something for this shit so "I forgot" is not a thing.