The Friedman of its day...?

StuartMac290

Someone made a comment here recently about how Victoria Amps were the Lazy J of their day, and it struck me as very true.

It got me thinking of other amps that were once holy grail amps and are now passed over in favour of the newest latest and greatest.

Budda spring to mind. Hugely impressive reviews, great user list, some excellent video demos (the Bonamassa one of the SD45, for instance) and basically tremendous amps.

One buyout by Peavey later, and despite the fact the amps are still just as good, and the fervour died.

And yes, they were the Friedman of their day. The Superdrive 45 head retailed at over two grand new, and to this day it's one of the best rock amps I've ever heard and played. A tremendous amp full of massive KT66 goodness.

There's one in Coda right now for £700. It's an absolute bargain, that! Imagine a Buxom Betty or Dirty Shirley selling for that kind of cash in a shop?! It would last five minutes!

Mind blowing.

Any other good examples of this?

stonevibe

The fickle world of amps and whats in. etc etc

timmysoft

Splawn

Deijavoo

Mesa Boogie go for cheap now used. Well, Dual Recs at least. Great amps IMO.

StuartMac290

Spawn! Good shout.

simonk

Fargen.

stonevibe

Splawn - Christian amp builders?

Aren't exactly easy to get hold of though in the UK, compared to the others already mentioned. 

stonevibe

Cornford.

Cornell

ESchap

Marshall

ThePrettyDamned

ESchap;1105868" said:

Marshall

Haha yeah, remember when people wanted them?

stickyfiddle

Divided by 13? Still around but it's been a long time since I saw anyone use one.

StuartMac290

That one occurred to me too.

Also 65 Amps, although I think they have had some "difficulties". I had Soho and a 2x12 cab. I still have the cab but in hindsight the amp must be one of the most overrated ever!

stickyfiddle

StuartMac290 said:

That one occurred to me too.

Also 65 Amps, although I think they have had some "difficulties". I had Soho and a 2x12 cab. I still have the cab but in hindsight the amp must be one of the most overrated ever!

That was the other one that sprung to mind. The chap from Sheryl Crow's band, wasn't it?  Always wanted to try them and they sounded great on demos.

ElectroDan

My amp of choice the Hughes and Kettner Duotone Combo RRP £2199. One sold in great condition on Ebay the other day for £300!

That is crazy value for money.

Imagine the tears if you bought that from new and lost the best part of £2000.

57Deluxe

Soldano... Guitarist mag had them in nearly every issue once upon a time!

darcym

is this partly because most of these brands are now sucking in one way or another.

The Buddha amp is an example, 2 years after the Peavey buyout didn't a load of parts change and the quality control go through the floor ? there was a period of time where every owner complained they broke all the time. (I'm not saying this is true now). The customer service on peavey products was rubbish, on products they didn't really know about as they bought it from another company was even worse. 

Soldano - what are they doing now thats new or interesting, or what are they doing now that solidifies their position (I don't know - I'm asking) all you hear about them is a.) how good the old models are b.) how hard they are to get

65 amps - these are great great amps, but they had problems delivering amps at one point and they are not really available other than peach's stock in the UK, as they are not available, they don't get shouted about.

Look at Two Rock - they made fantastic amps that no-one had a problem paying for, they want under the premier builders guild who made them unreliable with cheaper parts and quality control, I remember Toneworld actually dropped them as a brand as they where getting so many failures, then in an effort to cut the costs more they cut the range down to basically 3 amps, and are trying to rebuild what they did.

Companies get a good name, get a buzz, get a hype, then it seems they kill it themselves by either selling out to someone who kills it for them, or by failing to deliver on their product/customer service.

The ones that maintain the hype or grow seem to be the ones that just do business well, Friedman is an example, they have a small range, the quality of the range is excellent, they are available to customers should they want them, they seem to work well with dealers and their customer service is great. 

andy1839

I had a Budda Superdrive 18 and still have a SuperDrive 80 212. Love those amps, bargains nowadays.

shaunm

It seems the brands that do so well as a small manufacture struggle at a point of growth. At some point it seems that they have to choose to remain a small company that trades on quality or, become a bigger company and relinquish an amount of quality control.

Of all the companies mentioned other than H&K this seems to have been an issue.

In time it will be interesting to see if Friedman struggle in the same area, although it does seem that they are managing quality and quantity very well at the moment.

andyoz

I think Friedman were clever not to been away too much from the Marshall aesthetic (Budda....purple...hmmmm).

The risk with Friedman is he's not that young and the temptation is there to take a buyout offer. If Dave sailed away with a wad of cash the brand would suffer as he's clearly a good designer and marketeer (a rare combination IME).

Norwegian_Blue

stickyfiddle said:

Divided by 13? Still around but it's been a long time since I saw anyone use one.

Not sure they ever became particularly mainstream! Rarely see one for sale, always keeping an eye out..

Adamski

Bogner were the old Friedman too. Ironically I prefer my Bogner to my Friedman.