New Friedman Jose Vid

  • Thread starter Thread starter romanianreaper
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romanianreaper

romanianreaper

Well-known member
Not sure if anyone posted this already but just in case. I thought he did a good job of comparing the Jose and BE100 Deluxe. There is that certain thing you hear with the Jose that we all crave and talk about but cant put a finger on. You can hear it in this video.
 
I'm not sure if it's just compression I'm hearing. There is something going on in the mids/highs, and the BE sounds a little rolled off and less defined in comparison. The difference is along the lines of what I hear in @LPMojoGL's video between the Timmy and the TS, with the Timmy being analogous to the Jose.
 
It does sound close.
Realistically, is it just some cap and resistor value change?

To be honest, I didn't do my homework first to see if tubes were the same...
 
To my ear, the Jose sounds just the tiniest bit 'brighter' across the board - and I wonder if that is something that one could match with the presence and treble on the BE (?) Also, it seemed like the Jose did provide a bit cleaner clean with the volume rolled off. If I owned a BE Deluxe, this video would convince me to keep my hand away from my wallet for the Jose.

I get the 'too polished / too smooth / sounds like a recording of an amp' thang that people say about Friedman. But I also understand why they sell so well. I get the sense that Friedman's make you sound as good as you can without much fight.
 
psychodave said:
In this video both amps sound like 99% the same. The last 1% is the Jose sounds a little more compressed at times.
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I tend to agree and it certainly doesn't make me want to rush out and add my name to the list to get it.

Its good yes, but it's really not much different than the BE Deluxe from what I have heard so far.
 
7704A said:
I'm not sure if it's just compression I'm hearing. There is something going on in the mids/highs, and the BE sounds a little rolled off and less defined in comparison. The difference is along the lines of what I hear in @LPMojoGL's video between the Timmy and the TS, with the Timmy being analogous to the Jose.
Click to expand...

That could simply be the snubber caps used on V1 of the BE. I'm willing to bet they are different on the Jose.
 
I saw this video yesterday and in all fairness, I didn't grab my headphones. Just listened through my iphone. Agree with most above statements. They can sound really close. I'd still choose the BE for versatility and channel switching. You could probably just throw a Mercury Magnetics power cable on a BE and get closer to the Jose. Those cables make things bigger/brighter.

I'd almost describe the jose like the Snorkler in that it is a bit more raw sounding over other amps in the brand.
 
Both sound killer to me - I hear the difference, hard to tell how the feel is on each, but I dig em both. I’ve enjoyed all the friedmans I’ve played. The 1st version steve stevens was always my fave
 
In this video, overall I like the Jose a hair more but it's like low-single-digit-percentage close. If you like one of them, you'd probably like both of them.

Jose sounds more balanced across the spectrum, BE Deluxe sounds a bit more mid-forward. The Jose sounds just a bit bigger in the lows. Not sure if settings could even out those differences. Gain structures seem very similar. Either could be preferable depending on the sound you're going for.
 
7704A said:
Uhhh?
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Never tried one? They are killer in my studio monitors. I actually bought them initially for my amps, as they make everything more clear, tighter/brighter, but ended up using them for my Studio Monitors.
 
crwnedblasphemy said:
Never tried one? They are killer in my studio monitors. I actually bought them initially for my amps, as they make everything more clear, tighter/brighter, but ended up using them for my Studio Monitors.
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I actually thought you had meant power transformer since that's what I know Mercury Magnetics for.

Never tried one of their power cables. Honestly, sounds like snake oil to me. My 4104 is fused for 3A. My power cord (nothing special, came with the amp when I bought it from the previous owner, some BizLink thing) is 18AWG, and measures around 0.12 Ohms from one contact to another (most of which is likely 'cause I'm probing it and not making great contact). If my amp is sucking down 3A, the power cord will drop 0.72V (accounting for twice through the cord for there and back), which assuming the transformer gives a plate voltage of 450VDC for 120Vrms line, is just under a 2V difference in the plate voltage between loaded and unloaded if I did the math right. The cheapest cord Mercury sells is 14AWG, which is about half the resistance of 18AWG, so at 3A load will only reduce plate voltage by a little over a volt. So the difference between my regular power cord and theirs is at max around 1V on the plates, less elsewhere in the amp. And accounting for the fact that 3A is the fuse current, and the amp is actually rated to operate on about 1.46Arms from the wall (175W per the sticker divided by 120Vrms), the difference between the cords should be about 1/2 V on the plates.

Always possible I missed something or goofed, and resistance isn't everything to know about a cable, but right now I'm not really seeing how their cable would make a difference. Not saying you're not perceiving the things you say, just that I'm suspicious of how well that perception maps to a difference in the actual sound. Got any clips?
 
Not saying it’s better. Just different. Less mud, more presence. I’m not trying to sell ya on one, as I said, I like em for my KRK
V8 monitors more than for my amps. I’d argue though that it’s not a placebo. My buddy bought one after trying mine on his rig for a day. I should make a clip of my amp with it and a normal power cable.
 
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