The best Friedman amp...

GuitarJon said:
In the raw playthrough/dialing in section you can hear how much brightness there is on tap and it's way more than anybody would ever need! At least these controls have a lot of range, that's not something that can be said about a lot of Marshalls.
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Agreed I've played this exact model and you can go as dark or bright tonally as you want.

You can keep the tone more in the Friedman style or get into the truer "less polished" Marshall sound easily.

And the master volume is ridiculously good - although, I wanted to turn it up a little more to shake the walls for a bit.
 
deadpool_25 said:
The best Friedman is actually the original Fractal HBE model! 😂
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WELL IF THAT AIN'T THE HONEST TO GOD TRUTH.

GTR37 said:
You just had to get that poor guy going again didn’t you 😂
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Yes, well, here I am... well, tbh I was lurking on this thread ever since @GuitarJon posted, but yes, I will always take every opportunity I can get to mention just how amazing the Ares-era Friedmans were. Now if only @FractalAudio were to re-release the "idealised" Ares-era HBE C45 as a FAS model, I will shut up about this forever.
 
Eagle said:
I prefer the 50.
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For heavy/metal I prefer 100 watters, but for everything else I think 50 generally sounds better.

MirrorProfiles said:
it’s a forum myth/exaggeration for the most part. Plexi is a one trick pony, the BE is way more versatile.
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Finding myself lost in the middle here. I understand why some find the BE kind of bloated - it can come off that way COMPARATIVELY if a 2203 is your reference…but I really like the BE for certain sounds. The smoothness can be a feature.

I definitely disagree and borderline take offense to calling the Plexi a one trick pony though. :rofl

Stretching the definition to Superlead, you can do everything from Hendrix to Tool with a 1959. Those are definitely different tricks.
 
EOengineer said:
Finding myself lost in the middle here. I understand why some find the BE kind of bloated - it can come off that way COMPARATIVELY if a 2203 is your reference…but I really like the BE for certain sounds. The smoothness can be a feature.
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I don’t really think of a 2203 as being brighter than a BE100. Less bass, largely down to the depth circuit and I guess that can make it sound thinner. 2203 gets pretty bloated in the mids when the master hits a certain point. I can’t really think of a situation where a tone that works for a Marshall wouldn’t work on a Friedman, it’s sort of hairsplitting IMO. I find Bogner XTC or Soldano’s way more thick/less bite, for example. I don’t even think of the BE as particularly smooth, it’s just not obliterating a phase inverter with level like a 100W SL is.






EOengineer said:
I definitely disagree and borderline take offense to calling the Plexi a one trick pony though
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I mean, talk me through how effective the EQ is. On some versions of the circuit, even the gain control doesn’t do a great deal.


EOengineer said:
Stretching the definition to Superlead, you can do everything from Hendrix to Tool with a 1959. Those are definitely different tricks.
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It is, but not really from the amp doing much different. Hendrix Plexi circuit is a bit different to the AJ config, but assuming they were both plugged into the same amp, the difference in tone would be WAY more down to:

- Style of playing
- guitar+pickups
- cab
- pedals

I love a Plexi and part of the reason is because they’re so unapologetic in how they sound. So much of AJ’s tone is other amps, you can REALLY hear on which riffs it’s the Marshall because it’s such a distinctive sound (very different to VH4 or Recto).
 
Absolute 10/10 Art Deco font's. Not sure how I feel about pointer knobs on mid 70's 1959's but I'm all for the weird transitional quirks that Plexi's are among the very best for.

Screenshot 2025-02-10 at 14.04.16.png
 
The BE bloat is more of a low-mids issue that gets exacerbated with anything below Drop D. It’s virtually non-existent if you’re playing in E standard. I feel like the whole “smoothness” argument isn’t as much of an issue; the presence knob and treble knob can do more than enough to make up for the “lack of kerrang”. But a BE still sounds more compressed than a non-mod’ed Marshall. I am guessing the BE 100 Deluxe does not suffer from those problems as much as a regular BE 100 because of all the switching options. The C45 especially goes a looooong way in bringing in the kerrang.
 
some context for the kind of differences. My 1977 JMP 2203 and Friedman BE100. Not trying to match them exactly, BE100 isn't a 2203 based circuit and there are supposed to be differences between them. I did it in Drop C just to rule out that "standard tuning" thing.

 
MirrorProfiles said:
some context for the kind of differences. My 1977 JMP 2203 and Friedman BE100. Not trying to match them exactly, BE100 isn't a 2203 based circuit and there are supposed to be differences between them. I did it in Drop C just to rule out that "standard tuning" thing.

Click to expand...

So A is the JMP and B is the BE100 ??
 
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