NAD: JJ Jr. Combo Modded - Friedman family Photo

Took a while (5 months) but my JJ Jr combo arrived. This one is modded to make the JBE mode footswitchable and adds a separate volume for the JBE mode to balance it out with BE mode. Hooked it up along with the 1x12 closed back extension and ran side by side with my JJ100, then in trio with my Betty. When I get a bit more time Ill run all four (butterslax) at once. Had a little trouble trying to run my H9 through the loops of the JR and the 100 together in stereo so I've got some troubleshooting to do and need to rewire my board to enable running all 4 amps together, in any case, last night was fun...

Nice man. Look forward to your comparisons.

Geezus. I would love to have that room!

Really looking forward to the comparison. Finger is on the trigger to pick up the JJ Jr head.

So since you're familiar with the sound and feel of the 100 watt and have both next to each other, actually how close is the Jr to the 100 watt?

Amazing setup! Congrats and well done! When Dave did mine back in June, he put a concentric knob on the volume. I would have preferred how he did yours.

I bet it sounds amazing with the extension cab hooked up!

Now that I've had it for a minute the differences between the jr and big brother are a bit better understood. So I'll start with the architecture as it explains what I had going o. With the loop. The big brother has a global master, which also serves as a return level for the loop. The little guy doesnt have this, so if you are running a stereo pedal on one side through the loop of the little guy and the other side to or thru another amp, you get crazy output back to the power amp. Dave clued me into this difference after I emailed him, he can add a "return level" to the jr but as I just got it, I didnt want to ship it off again. But it got me thinking and so I got a jhs black amp from amazon prime, putting in the return line to the jr which does the same thing as a return level would do. So stereo rig loop issue is now gone

Heres the bonus, putting a volume box in the loop, whether you have an effect in it or not gives you essentially a global master so you can crank the channel volumes and use the volume box in the loop to set the overall output. This is important because it then mimics the jj100, I can set my tone stack on both amps and channel masters on both amps the same and use the global masters to control output which gets the two versions to sound incredibly similar. And by incredibly similar, I mean nearly identical. Now I imagine if I opened the global masters the 20 watt power section could not keep up with the 100 but itll be a minute before.im able to turn them up enough to find out where that point of inflection is.

GOHOINC":2hfafn81 said:

Took a while (5 months) but my JJ Jr combo arrived. This one is modded to make the JBE mode footswitchable and adds a separate volume for the JBE mode to balance it out with BE mode.

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Can you shoot me a PM and let me know what the up-charge was? Thanks.

On the fence with getting a JR. Is it any different than a pt20 besides the voicing? It's the same tube layout correct? The Jbe switch is kind of or is like having a pt20 with a sat switch? I think I understand it is a darker sounding amp. The feel is the same as the pt20? Someone mentioned a pt20 having enough balls to move away from the smallbox but not the be100. I liked the voice of the hbe channel way more than the SB. That's just me of course. I dont need 100 watts ever. There is something about how it moves air tho that I do like whether its loud or not.. maybe I buy one and send it back. I just hate doing that

No experience with the PT. that being said Ive had a number of el84 amps over the years. the Jr beats them all hands down, so far...

GOHOINC":2im7ekuf said:

No experience with the PT. that being said Ive had a number of el84 amps over the years. the Jr beats them all hands down, so far...

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Thanks for the reply, not sure if it is something I want based on just el84s. Anything Dave makes I feel confident its top notch. I just want to get the right amp!

Nice photos!!!

One thing about Friedman combos... How do you connect to the loop fx? In the pictures there is no jack for it....

Del Rei":3ohk1rum said:

Nice photos!!!

One thing about Friedman combos... How do you connect to the loop fx? In the pictures there is no jack for it....

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Bottom side of chassis, same side where speaker plugs in. I'd recommend right angle plugs on your cables.

Awesome rig!
Found this post from Google and just had to make an account just to ask you this question

How does the JJ Jr. combo sound with an extra cab? Is there much difference if I only play at low volumes?

I initially wanted to get the head and cab setup, but the cab wasn't available so I just went with the combo. I love the combo and it sounds killer, I'm wondering if there is much tonal difference and added benefit of adding an extra 1x12 cab, plus the flexibility of a separate cab if I want to run other amps through it. I actually emailed Friedman about this and Dave said an extra 1x12 is great tone, just wondering your take on this.

Imo it's an enhancement because you are adding a closed back source which adds a slightly different texture to the output sound. It's been a long time since I ran it as just a combo so I need to refresh my ears on the details of the difference in tone. Generally what I remember was more low end but tighter bass response, also I was able to turn the presence up a bit but maintain the low end thump.