Friedman BE OD

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Friedman BE OD

I know Friedman is the newest cool kid on the block, coming up behind Bogner, especially on the LA amp scene.

However, I wouldn't trade any of my Bogner products for Friedman.

I'm basing my opinion on real play time on both companies. I even cranked a $5000 BE100 halfstack today. I still like the Dirty Shirley 40W enough to own one, but I still think Bogner amps and pedals are more worth the high dollars than Friedmans.

The difference is in Bogner's tonal range, where Friedmans just sound like improved Marshall 800's.

I can't knock Friedman at all though. All of them sound great, and I'm sure I'll own a Dirty Shirley when the opportunity arises.

[JeffB]

Re: Friedman BE OD

I can get better tube like warmth out of a radial plexitube.

My point- its not as reality bending as people make it out to be. Its a decent one trick pony distortion pedal. Its not going to replace any decent tube amps. My DSL red channel still sounds better for that kind of sound.

[always SD]

Re: Friedman BE OD

6 hours !
if It has a very tube like warmth
that's what we want
what did you expect said G Clooney ? !

[JeffB]

It's decent. I like it better than the DLS MKIII, but not as much as the Bogner Blue or the Plextortion, or Distortron.

I have spent six hours with the BE, through three amps, run into all manner of clean, barely crunchy, mildly crunchy or used as a moderate boost. LOUD to low bedroom volumes.

Not feeling the love or getting the hype.

Even with the internal trim pot backed all the way off, its got too much gain to do an old marshall crunchy sound. Its got an unatural haze/muddiness over the midrange no matter what settings you use, and especially kills something off in the high midrange. It doesn't clean up all that well with the volume pot, and kills off some natural sustain until you get the gain up beyond 9 oclock. At which point, my volume and tone controls are pretty much worthless except as on/off switches. It also flat out made a couple of my pedals (phase and chorus) sound like @$$.

Even through the very fenderish clean green on my dsl, it didn't "take".

It does have a very tube like warmth..the warm fizzies...kinda like my OR15 has. More warm/tubey than the catalinbread dls or bogner blue

Sounds decent if you are playing mostly single note high gain lead work and heavy distorted power chords. (Cowboy/complex chords kind of smear into a muddy mess).

The controls are very interactive and I was able to dial in my DSL, OR15 and even my little Blackstar to get the EQ where it needed to be for each amp.

Im just a tube snob I guess. Id rather have the amp do the work and hit it with a pedal if need be. Much more natural sounding and dynamic.