Friedman Amps - What's Up?!

[RuffRider]

In July I ordered a BE-100 Deluxe from Musician's Friend. The amp had a very noisy "presence pot".
So I called Musician's Friend and they had no ideal about a solution for the problem - I returned the amp,,,

Two days ago I ordered another BE-100 Deluxe from Sweetwater and this one showed up with a even more noisy presence pot than the one from Musician's Friend - and the "Thump pot" is noisy also.
So I am wondering if this noisy pot problem is normal for Friedman amps. Or should I return this amp also?













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[Monomyth]

Totally normal, the setup he’s using is a classic one, once set there’s no issue.

 

[LP Freak]

This must be your first “Marshall”

 

[4406cuda]

Normal

 

[Junk Yard Dog]

Normal. But I've had 4 Friedmans--Slax, JJ100 (still), BE100, BE50. I never once noticed the noisey Presence knob. But Friedman has always mentioned this and that it is normal. I think it's also in the manuals.

 

[glpg80]

Normal. Classic marshall circuits have DC on the presence pot. Fender presence pots don't have DC on them.

 

[NewWorldMan]

I mean, it literally addresses this specific thing in the manual...which is only 8 pages long...of which maybe 2 you have to read about the actual operation of it. To be more specific, the note...in bold...in the part marked “Presence Control”...

https://friedmanamplification.com/image ... _FINAL.pdf

 

[RuffRider]

Thanks for the answers guys. I'll be keeping this one.

 

[Metlupass2]

Read the manual it explains this.

 

[romanianreaper]

Thanks for the answers guys. I'll be keeping this one.

Good to ask though man because a lot of people have never experienced this. I thought the same thing years ago, like WTF?

 

[311boogieman]

I didn't know

Doesn't appear that MF knew either.

My Mesa doesn't do that.

My Splawn doesn't do that either.

Seems like a fair question. Glad to hear that Friedman bolded that part though

 

[SpiderWars]

DF must really feel it sounds better than the later Marshall Presence control. He knew it made noise and he knew people would wonder "What's up?" and all the issues with that...yet he still chose it.

I've always used the newer way just to get rid of the noise but I'm going revisit this. There is a slight change in NFB since the NFB resistor and the resistance of the Presence circuit form a voltage divider but that is easily accounted for when doing A/B tone tests.

 

[fusedbrain]

Dave has been asked specifically about this many times, and his reply has always been: " I do the presence like that because it sounds better"
Using the pot as the PI tail 5k, there will be DC there, and the pot will be scratchy.
Deal with it.
It's not like you will be adjusting the presence in the middle of a song or something...

Oh.... and yeah I've tested this back and forth with the other style presence with the 25k pot, and Dave is right...
It sounds better
YMMV

 

[SpiderWars]

When you tested it, did you account for the difference between 5k and 4k tail? In the newer type it looks like the 4k7 and 25k are in parallel wrt AC (what really counts here it would seem). That makes the tail 3.96k (~4k).

I bought a '76 50W early this year and I thought it had the newer type because it had the 4k7 hanging off the pot to ground. Turned out it was a 5k pot.

 

[RuffRider]

Thanks for the answers guys. I'll be keeping this one.

Yeah -"read the manual"
The thing is - I've been watching youtube videos on this amp since February and none of the reviews mention this pot situation. I am very experienced with amps and the first thing I'm going to do with a new amp is not "RTFM". I am going to play the thing and read the manual later. Friedman could put a tag on the amp handle or something - alerting customers of the situation with the pot. I bet I am not the first person to return one of these things... Who wants a $4,000 amp with a bad pot! Friedman should make it very apparent that the amp design results in a noisy pot.

 

[romanianreaper]

Thanks for the answers guys. I'll be keeping this one.

Yeah -"read the manual"
The thing is - I've been watching youtube videos on this amp since February and none of the reviews mention this pot situation. I am very experienced with amps and the first thing I'm going to do with a new amp is not "RTFM". I am going to play the thing and read the manual later. Friedman could put a tag on the amp handle or something - alerting customers of the situation with the pot. I bet I am not the first person to return one of these things... Who wants a $4,000 amp with a bad pot! Friedman should make it very apparent that the amp design results in a noisy pot.

Yeah, a tag on the handle, etc. would be a great idea. I've seen companies do that with amps to remind people of things like "Ensure amp is connected to a speaker cab!" and stuff like that.

A lot of us that have been playing for years assume that these newer players are going to know things like this.

 

[RuffRider]

This must be your first “Marshall”

I had a Marshall head back around 1974 but I don't remember anything about it . Not even which model it was. I didn't really use it. I may have given it away. That was a life time ago.

 

[LP Freak]

This must be your first “Marshall”

I had a Marshall head back around 1974 but I don't remember anything about it . Not even which model it was. I didn't really use it. I may have given it away. That was a life time ago.

You’re all good now, rock on.

 

[MetalHeadMike]

Never noticed this on the JJ Jr. I had.

 

[romanianreaper]

Never noticed this on the JJ Jr. I had.

I can't remember if mine does that or not? I have presence at a "set and forget" pretty much but I'll have to check next time I'm playing.