One of those GAS moments, much researched and mulled over, that produces stunning results.
Enter the Fryette Power Station 2. An attenuator, super FX loop and much more.
I can say that even after one week of use, this is possibly my best ever purchase. Extra faff ? Yep. Extra cost ? Yep.
But, man extra sound !
My Carr Rambler has literally sprang into life with this amp. It opens up a whole new world....
The Rambler is now able to offer clipped tones at
realistic volumes. I mount the PS2 on top of the Redplate RP50R, as seen below.
I've played a Matchless 30 a few times, and still miss my Lightning, and these are both too loud for home use. Not any more. Plug one of these in between the speaker and the amp and there you go. Simple.
Totally silent in my rig, which is vital.
But its the FX loop which has surprised me most. The Big Sky in the loop is incredible, as is the CE-2w. Looking forward to try a pre-amp pedals before and in as well. Pedals come alive, reminding of the G2 and how that somehow 'brings out the best' in them. The El Cap has been a revelation.
And I've yet to even try the Redplate with it !
And I'm thinking Dr Z Maz ? Matchless ? etc etc
Unreservedly recommended.
Comments
only joking. I have my eye on one too, hoping that Fryette identified and fixed most of the bugs from the v1.
I just need to get my head around the best way to combine it with the Gigrig G2...
I'd love your old Matchless head now !!
The V2 has the 'operational' things fixed and there doesn't seem to be many complaints about the V2.
I traded in a guitar for it, and got a rather good trade in value - only bought the guitar 18 months ago, but, with the fall in the pound against the dollar etc, the current new price for this particular guitar is 50% more than what I paid originally.
The inclusion of the loop for time based fx is a big plus over a power scaled amp such as I’m used to. There are huge sounds to be had from using modellers like Helix with ‘verbs behind the IR block, but there’s always this slight feeling of unreality to it, like the sounds have been made in a factory somewhere. I don’t get that feeling with verbs in the front of my real amp - it’s all very direct and present in the room.
However I now think it's worth the pennies and ready to dive in now that Ive accumulated a lot of gear over the past 12 months that would benefit greatly from a PS V2
Looking forward to trying it out with my Cornford MK50 that arrived today
Plus many other uses for it too
The v2 adds a couple of switches (a high pass on/off - tho original was always on - and a line level toggle) that some v1 users asked for. Apart from that its identical.
Ive had the v1 for 2 years now, and its been flawless.
It is far east made, so QC is critical - and there have been a number of failures from new (or early on), which are generally (from what I believe) sorted/replaced. These wernt design flaws, but bad components not picked up in the QC. Mine was a "checked by Steve" unit (signed as inspected by him) - and as I said, has been flawless from day 1.
I believe the QC has been improved now (late on in the v1 run and for the v2 run) - which is the critical part of any FE build.
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The "re-amp" part can be used as a plain mono valve power section - so can be used to amp an AFX, Kemper, Helix etc for use with a guitar cab.
The Bad Cat unleash v2 is a similar design though (ie it has the re-amplifier as well), so would be very similar. Not sure it has the loop though.
With my amplifier (RedPlate Blackverb - sort of Dumble derived) I found the power station rather redundant since the BlackVerb is designed to work with a fairly clean power section. The Master Volume works well enough.
I suppose with Marshall type amplifier (or indeed any non-master volume amplifier or amp designed to work best with output valve saturation) the Power Station would be an absolute revelation.
I’ve tried both of these attenuators with my Eminence Reignmaker FDM speaker which is set to almost the lowest point of its sensitivity. At around 91.5dB sensitivity, I’m down about 8dB even before we start...
1. The Fryette does have an element of fan noise which though not a deal breaker, is a bit of a nuisance at low levels. The Sequis is of course silent - so if you want to play at really low levels, a passive attenuator has that advantage.
2. No modelling device can mimic the three-dimensional sound of an open back cabinet - which is to my mind, essential to the clean ‘blackface’ tone. (I love Scuffham S-Gear for recording, but for noodling at home nothing beats plugging into an amplifier)
3. The Sequis has a ‘non-stepped’ type speaker volume control pot which is every bit as finely adjustable as the one on the Power Station.
4. The Master Volume on the RedPlate does a great job, though on balance I do feel that increasing the master volume and using the attenuator gives a very slightly 'better' tone. But in a double blinded listening test, I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the difference.
5. The ‘tone control complex’ on the power station is useful. However, a good quality graphic (or even parametric) equaliser in the series effects loop of my amplifier does an equally good job of adding a little ‘loudness’ at higher levels of attenuation with the Sequis (loudness as in the little switch on hi-fi amplifiers in the old days)
6. The impedance adjustability and also the ability to amplify a low wattage amplifier are certainly advantages to the Power Station (none of which are however relevant to me).
Hope this is useful...
The one I worked on had two serious faults - one design flaw, and one bit of assembly carelessness which could have been dangerous.
The first is that there is a filter cap which is rated for 450V but which sees much more - when the amp is on standby the voltage on it rises to about 525V. This is just asking for trouble. This particular one had a hum problem which was reduced when I replaced the cap with a 500V one - still not ideal, but better. There isn't room on the board to fit a proper stacked cap arrangement.
The second is that there is an unused mains voltage tap on the PT, and instead of being terminated properly or sealed up, it's just shoved down between the side of the PT and the chassis. Worse, on this one the heatshrink sleeve hadn't been done properly so the unprotected crimp connector was *almost* touching one of the screws in the chassis.
OK, as long as the unit is earthed properly then the worst a contact between the two would have done is blown the fuse, but this isn't good enough. If the earth is missing for any reason - including at the wall socket or further back - then the chassis would become live at mains voltage.
Absolutely not good enough on a commercial product. I wouldn't be happy buying a V2 unless I was sure both these things had been fixed.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein