Friedman amps quality

  • Thread starter Thread starter BadCat
  • Start date Start date
Krull said:
Marshall and Mesa. The OG circuit rip off brands. Yeah baby.
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You could barely get Fender products in England back then. Hence the cloning of the Bassman.
What’s Fortins excuse? He’s Canadian like you, right?
Maybe you have some special insight.
 
Well, you have Marshall that copied an amp that was pretty hard to get if not impossible back in Britain in 1962. So they made there own version, then expanded on it. Mesa, came up with a pretty new concept with cascading gain stages. So when it comes to copying amps, the two you mentioned while yes they did they also had legitimate reasons (Marshall, because Fender was unavailable to the British) and Mesa had an original design. Probably the two least guilty ‘clone’ builders out of every amp builder out there. Now, the recto is a copy of the SLO up to a point but the power sections are WAY different.
 
Dave modded an SLP for me that ended up catching fire on the back panel....something shifted in shipping and touched, then arced like a mofo, tubes red plated and the wood ignited..... Dave immediately took care of it, handled the shipping cost and had my amp back to me in under two weeks including shipping. I would give an A grade on customer service.
 
* velcro-fly * said:
Dave modded an SLP for me that ended up catching fire on the back panel....something shifted in shipping and touched, then arced like a mofo, tubes red plated and the wood ignited..... Dave immediately took care of it, handled the shipping cost and had my amp back to me in under two weeks including shipping. I would give an A grade on customer service.
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Holy shit! Smoke on the Water! Man, in all my years playing out the only thing I’ve had happen was the dreaded ‘hot mic’ that zapped me on the first song!
 
Krull said:
So you are saying copying an amp because it was impossible to get are legitimate reasons.

I think you answered your own question.

The Mesa Rectifier added Rectifier tubes, that's it, it's the same circuit as the SLO.
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Power section is very different. Look again.
I love SLOs btw. They both sound pretty different but I can hear some similarities. SLOs keep getting better louder while the Rectos hit a wall fairly quick on the volume.
 
And yes, I think you can cut Marshall some slack if the product they copy isn’t available in their country.
 
BadCat said:
I am in the market for buying a new amp. Could be a Friedman. Wondered how these amps are considered quality wise, quality of transformers, build, etc.
I understand Friedman gets the amps build at boutique amp distribution factory.
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Absolutely top notch amps and customer service. Can't go wrong with a Friedman.
 
Racerxrated said:
And yes, I think you can cut Marshall some slack if the product they copy isn’t available in their country.
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Wasn't it more about cost? A Fender plus shipping in those days was too expensive.
And why not copy the amp everyone wanted to buy in the first place?
And then once they changed the tubes and transformers it wasn't a Bassman anymore.
 
[ Donnie B. ] said:
Wasn't it more about cost? A Fender plus shipping in those days was too expensive.
And why not copy the amp everyone wanted to buy in the first place?
And then once they changed the tubes and transformers it wasn't a Bassman anymore.
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I thought I read where back in 61/62 Fender wasn’t able to get distributed there; but the famous musicians of the day wanted one badly so Jim Marshall decided to make his own version of the Bassman. And yes, very quickly he switched to 34s and other circuit tweaks and you had a very different amp.
 
Racerxrated said:
Holy shit! Smoke on the Water! Man, in all my years playing out the only thing I’ve had happen was the dreaded ‘hot mic’ that zapped me on the first song!
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Haha luckily it wasn't at a gig....it was in the first 20 minutes of firing it up after I got it back. Played it for a few minutes, sounded good, then I set the guitar down and walked away to get a beer from the kitchen. I smelled the smoke first, then saw it starting to come out of the back of the amp, unplugged it from the wall. The wood on the back panel had ignited and charred from the heat on the red plating tubes, melted the wrapped over tolex edge too. Like I said, Dave handled it no question and immediately, covered all the shipping. I got it on a Monday, sent it back the following day and had the amp back in my possession by the next week Friday.
 
Another vote for Dave’s customer service here. He’s done work for me over the years dating back to the days when there wasn’t even a BE mod, let alone a Marsha or Friedman line.

Always great to deal with, stands by his products, etc. Even if you hate his amps, I doubt you’ll find many (any?) that have a bad word to say about their experiences with him.
 
I have only had A+ experience with dave and his amps. Have had most of his models and they are killer, made incredibly well and the support is second to none
 
BadCat said:
I am in the market for buying a new amp. Could be a Friedman. Wondered how these amps are considered quality wise, quality of transformers, build, etc.
I understand Friedman gets the amps build at boutique amp distribution factory.
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Didnt read the thread but Dave has an office at BAD, and he personallly tests all the handwired amps coming through there. (not sure in the Runts or JJ Jrs, are tested by him)

im a BIG fan of the friedman line and cannot wait for Dave to give me an ETA for a mod to my runt 20 to make it like a smallbox 20.

only complaints i really ever hear are “bouht new and preamp tube went out in first month.” and thats just the nature of tubes being less reliable any ore, and even less so in high gain circuits like Dave runs em

buy with confidence in my opinion
 
I would like to see Friedman put tube reverb in some of his amps.
 
I respect that Dave doesn't need gear forums for validation from dude's with Poison mulllets rubbing each other's backs and spooning each others delicate experiences with their amps.
Do you really believe he can't make a CCV?
 
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