Friedman Runt 20/JEL20/JJ Jr vs Marshall DSL40CR Combo

[Charvel1975]

Hello all , does anybody here have first hand experience with any of the listed amps from Friedman?

I've been borrowing my other guitarist's Marshall DSL40CR for a while now and used it in the past for live gigs and while it sounds good, there is just something that doesn't quite sit well with me on the overall sound. The last cover band we were both in played older classic rock/heavier rock/80's metal to 90's/00's rock.

How do those Friedman's actually compare? Is it something that I'd dig and keep playing for a lifetime? Does it seem to have a more musical tonality? How do the notes sustain on these amps?

These are all things that have been weighing on my mind and unfortunately I don't have the ability to demo Friedman amps for myself.

Any and all experiences with these amps are genuinely appreciated!

 

[bubucci]

DSL40CR is better stage amp than those little Friedmans. 40W from EL34 has enough volume and boldness for average 100-300 people stage where most 20W EL84 amps are usually out of headroom. Friedmans has better 'bedroom' sound and are much more gainy and saturated but it turn in to disadvantages when playing in band. One thing for better 'feel' amp is slightly push DSL front end with clean boost to get more liquidy feeling like friedmans and second is changing of the speaker. V-type sound good but it missing some of the body of bigger magnet speaker like V30, Redback, H75 etc.
I still doesn't get why Marshall doesn't make DSL40 head, smaller and lighter than 100 and reversed tubes orintation cures some of the reliability issues with combos.