Friedman Jose First Impressions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Yehuda
  • Start date Start date
I think this amp sounds really good from the vids and clips I have seen thus far. That said, it sounds a bit like your trying to dial it in to sound like a modern metal amp...and that's not where this amp shines in my opinion.
 
Thanks for posting regardless. Post the other video as well if you don’t mind.
 
Yehuda, your amp sounds better than my BE50. The chug tone sounds tighter and more sizzly to my ears. You're doing all this without a boost? Based on what I've heard, it sounds like I would live on the Vintage Presence mode. I did put my BE50 up for sale a while ago, because I was considering putting that towards a Jose. I don't love that it's a single channel amp, but it's not like it's a simple one trick amp.
 
Is there an “ideal” speaker these amps were designed with or around or whatever
 
mentoneman said:
after playing one, i get the impression that it wants to be played really LOUD to extract the magic.
Click to expand...

Yeah, like I mentioned in some other thread, I have a similar vintage-style José from 3 Monkeys that also needs a bit of phase inverter crunch to really shine. You sort of need to juggle the pre-PI master, the extra preamp stage and the clipping to end up somewhere in the realm of a furiously dimed plexi at your desired volume - which in this case more or less is from stock 1959 to slightly less than stock 2203 levels 😅 It really dials like a cousin to the 2203/2204, which is a design I never got anything good from at high gain and low master levels, in that you want to balance the preamp and master volumes to tune the gain.
 
Meanjoegreene said:
Is there an “ideal” speaker these amps were designed with or around or whatever
Click to expand...

I don't know if there is an ideal speaker that it was designed around, but I can tell you from experience that I didn't like it the Creamback 65/Vintage 30 slant cab I tried with mine. It sounded a lot better with a straight cab w/Greenbacks. I didn't try it with the Cornford, all V30 cab that I have. I believe that Dave has mentioned in a video with Perfecto De Castro I saw that it would work well with a greenback/V30 mix, all V30 or all greenback.

It's around the 13.45 mark in the vid below:

 
Least Marshall sounding clip I've heard so far, but maybe it's the JBLs? I'm not familiar with that speaker. Either way it sounds like you got some groovy tones out of it.
 
mentoneman said:
after playing one, i get the impression that it wants to be played really LOUD to extract the magic.
Click to expand...
I have to agree with Pat but it also sounds like the top end is pushed a bit more than it needs at the volume it’s set at. Might be me listening to it on the wrong thing. 😂 Just my 2 cents.
 
JTyson said:
I have to agree with Pat but it also sounds like the top end is pushed a bit more than it needs at the volume it’s set at. Might be me listening to it on the wrong thing. 😂 Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...
maybe a bit of outboard attenuation to get the power tubes cooking?

it’s interesting how many folks have jumped on the power station bandwagon. i get it as it is one of the better feature laden devices for non master amps and extremely useful and handy. but it does still alter tone as do all attenuators, just maybe not as much as other devices do.
 
It's a cool amp. Like a previous poster mentioned, it really shines when doing hard-rock tones, modern tones... not so much.

I had one for a weekend, but ended up parting ways with it. For the money ~$4k, I feel there are better options out there.

Not a knock against Dave. He makes great amps and the Jose does not disappoint. Just looking for something more versatile.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top