Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

[Red_Label]

I had mixed feelings about posting my impressions here. Kind of selfishly wanted to guard my "secret" so as not to make Dave any busier (so he'll be free to mod my BE100 sooner).

This amp is frigging amazing. The cleans are the best I've ever heard on a channel switcher. So spanky, jangly, punchy. Breaking glass like a great Deluxe Reverb, but bigger and with more punch and headroom. This amp would KILL for a country rock band (which is how I used to butter my bread).

The rock tones are awesome and varied. I especially love the response and thump controls. Amazing variety in there. I also love the separate volume control for the lead channel. I have to use my Cussack More Louder pedal in the loop of my BE100 for lead volume boosts.

I thought my late-model BE100 was the be-all-end-all of Swiss Army Knife channel switchers. But the BE50 tops it. I would say that my 100 might have a slightly tighter punch for stuff like Alter Bridge, because of the increased headroom. But I haven't spent the time at high volume with the 50 to be sure of that.

At any rate, I would LOVE to have the new BE50. I don't think it would be possible to find a better amp for playing in a rock or country rock cover band. If I had all of these features on my 100, there'd be nothing else to want (for me at least). I predict that you will see a lot of these amps on stages.

 

[Jeff_H]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

Me want. Either that or a Quick Rod 50W.

 

[BloodRose]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

So, this is the 50 watt version of the BE100 and has better cleans?? is it lacking anything in the dirty dept??

 

[Joey Voltage]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

Input stage biasing was changed to 100k RP, 1.5k RK 22uf ck, instead of the 220k+100k split that’s common on his stuff. Thump is just a peavey style resonance control, Response is just an adjustable -fb resistor. Fat switch is move later in the preamp. It’s actully pretty similar to the Randall “the nuts” module he did for the rm100si, which was my least favorite.

 

[Red_Label]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

So, this is the 50 watt version of the BE100 and has better cleans?? is it lacking anything in the dirty dept??

Not lacking anything in the dirt. But more Fender Deluxe Reverb in the clean than the BE100. I spent about two hours today playing country loudly on the clean channel of my 100 just to remind myself that I do in fact really like the 100s cleans. But the new 50 just has more breaking glass. It's awesome. My favorite cleans on channel switchers were previously the H&K Triamp Mk I and Bogner Shiva that I had years ago. But I think the BE50's cleans are better. They've got the breaking glass of the Triamp, with the headroom, thickness and punch of the Shiva. Whereas my BE100's cleans seem more like those on the Bogner XTC Classic that I had. Still very good, but not as good as the BE50.

 

[Red_Label]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

Me want. Either that or a Quick Rod 50W.

I haven't heard a QR50. I have a QR100 for sale on consignment at my local shop. I love that amp, but prefer three BE100.

So proceeds from the sale of the QR will be paying for a Wildwood Pink Taco. My first Friedman was the original Taco and I didn't care for it. But my buddy with the new BE50 says that the Wildwood kills and is like a 20-watt BE. I sold the original Taco to him, so he's had both Tacos and says that the Wildwood has the girth of the Mini Shirley... which is the biggest sounding 20-watter I've ever played. The anemic sound of the original Taco was what I didn't like about it. So this new Taco should make me very happy.

 

[Ayrton]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

I let Dave talk me out of the JJ, but I don’t know if I can resist

 

[B2D]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

Friedmans are magical beasts. I want one so very badly.

If he ever makes an amp that's basically a dual-channel Dirty Shirley with a Buxom Betty as the clean channel I WILL buy it.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

That looks like an incredible amp.

I want to save some money and hit up Sweetwater with the intention of coming home with either a Small Box or BE50.

 

[Red_Label]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

Friedmans are magical beasts. I want one so very badly.

If he ever makes an amp that's basically a dual-channel Dirty Shirley with a Buxom Betty as the clean channel I WILL buy it.

Yup... I've been fantasizing about that very mythical beast ever since I had my Shirley.

Btw... such a unicorn already exists. The local player who I bought my Suhr Classic, VHT UL, ESP Eclipse, TC G System, and other toys from ordered exactly that beast from Dave last year. He's been gigging it around town. Though he usually just gigs his Runt 20.

I really liked my Shirley, but I like my BE a lot more. It can be loose and old school like the Shirley (with the C45 switch down), but it can do tight metal ala Alter Bridge with the switch up. Shirley can't do that well. Too flubby, spongey, and loose. But it's still an awesome amp for ACDC, Def Leppard, etc.

 

[B2D]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

Yup... I've been fantasizing about that very mythical beast ever since I had my Shirley.

Btw... such a unicorn already exists. The local player who I bought my Suhr Classic, VHT UL, ESP Eclipse, TC G System, and other toys from ordered exactly that beast from Dave last year. He's been gigging it around town. Though he usually just gigs his Runt 20.

So did he order it as a custom job?

If you can privately send me any pictures and/or what he paid for it I'd be curious.

 

[Ayrton]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

Friedmans are magical beasts. I want one so very badly.

If he ever makes an amp that's basically a dual-channel Dirty Shirley with a Buxom Betty as the clean channel I WILL buy it.

I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Dave will build you pretty much whatever you want.

 

[Red_Label]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

So did he order it as a custom job?

If you can privately send me any pictures and/or what he paid for it I'd be curious.

Yes, he special ordered it from Dave (through our dealer). I don't have any pics. I've never even seen it yet. Our mutual buddy is the guy who runs the local dealer. He's the one who told me about it. I know Chris (the guy who owns the amp) and count him as a friend... but we always end up talking about other things when we chat.

 

[B2D]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

I probably shouldn't tell you this, but Dave will build you pretty much whatever you want.

I know he did that back when he was modding Marshalls, but i figured he'd be too busy to do that now. Maybe I should call him up. Hmm....

 

[B2D]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

...or I could just stop by his booth at NAMM and see what's up.

Honestly I just want one of everything Dave makes.

 

[BloodRose]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

whats the diff tween a Wildwood Pink Taco vs the regular Friedman one??

 

[Joey Voltage]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

a couple of things that people tend to overlook is that Friedman as a company isn’t owned by Dave, apparently dave is just an employee these days. He also doesn’t have free reign over design changes. Word around the camp fire is that Bruce Egnator was brought onboard, and is the one behind a lot of the design revisions, and indeed from what I have seen regarding the new design, this looks suspiciously true. The new design follows the typical egnator input stage design, and as a whole, the preamp resembles the one that was in the Randall rm100si “the nuts” module.

 

[BloodRose]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

This BE 50 is sick!! Wow! Listened to the vid posted and also this one on Sweetwater. This shows how responsive it is to playing and different guitars..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk39pR2NXQI

 

[B2D]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

a couple of things that people tend to overlook is that Friedman as a company isn’t owned by Dave, apparently dave is just an employee these days. He also doesn’t have free reign over design changes. Word around the camp fire is that Bruce Egnator was brought onboard, and is the one behind a lot of the design revisions, and indeed from what I have seen regarding the new design, this looks suspiciously true. The new design follows the typical egnator input stage design, and as a whole, the preamp resembles the one that was in the Randall rm100si “the nuts” module.

Huh. So who does own the company? Bruce or someone that owns Rack Systems or Tone Merchants or....

 

[Joey Voltage]

Re: Played a friend's new Friedman BE50 yesterday... WHOAH!!!!

Huh. So who does own the company? Bruce or someone that owns Rack Systems or Tone Merchants or....

No, Bruce was contracted as part of the design team. Word around is Avi owns the Friedman branding now, and Boutique Amp dist is the company that is contracted to build them. Dave is still involved but not solely.