Fryette Pittbull Ultralead II

[Steinmetzify]

I can't help but wonder how people would feel if Fryette released the new Ultra Lead and it was a head with EQ sliders and cost $7K? Would everybody be happy or would price all of a sudden become the problem?

Ain’t nobody fuckin buying that. Show me another amp manu that’s got a $7k MAP.

NOBODY.

There’s a very fine line between what amp manus can/will produce vs what they know people will pay for. They ride that line pretty hard.

For the 6 guys that’ll pay that for a Larry or a Dumble or whatever there are 60,000 guys buying amps on the reg that wouldn’t even look at it. Steve knows that and that’s why he’s not producing them.

I like Fryette’s work. I’ve had a few of their amps and I’m a fan. I know what they sound/feel like and I dig it and even then? $4k for this thing? I’m on the fence.

 

[DanTravis62]

I can understand that. For my part I'm not convinced that the digital filters can't be done well, especially by Steve, but I am worried about the longevity, like you've mentioned. Is the communication protocol open, can I write my own software to interface with the ULII? What happens when stuff gets fried in a decade or so after your buddy spills beer inside? Fryette is notoriously stingy about schematics for non-authorized repair shops. Something tells me he's not going to be giving out firmware copies to Joe Public either. I.e., the amp's lifespan is at most the company's lifespan unless someone reverse-engineers it or Steve has a change of heart about service documentation.

That's my biggest concern too, for the people that actually shell out 4k for this thing - at least IMO there's a big difference between a 1k kemper or axefx and a 4k for this as far as designed obsolescence

 

[Eazy-ESP]

Ain’t nobody fuckin buying that. Show me another amp manu that’s got a $7k MAP.

NOBODY.

There’s a very fine line between what amp manus can/will produce vs what they know people will pay for. They ride that line pretty hard.

For the 6 guys that’ll pay that for a Larry or a Dumble or whatever there are 60,000 guys buying amps on the reg that wouldn’t even look at it. Steve knows that and that’s why he’s not producing them.

I like Fryette’s work. I’ve had a few of their amps and I’m a fan. I know what they sound/feel like and I dig it and even then? $4k for this thing? I’m on the fence.

Yeah but the 7k thing is crap. I didn’t pick up on it because my mind went straight to Australian dollars. 7k is probably what it would cost down here. And I’d buy it too.

 

[Steinmetzify]

Yeah but the 7k thing is crap. I didn’t pick up on it because my mind went straight to Australian dollars. 7k is probably what it would cost down here. And I’d buy it too.

Why would you think it’s crap? The economy in the US went to shit after COVID. I dunno if I believe $7k, but I’ll give him at least $5.5k. That’s Diezel money here dude.

Man if you’re serious get at me in PMs. If you find an Ultra Lead here I’ll grab it and ship it to you. Last one I saw was $2300 on here, you’re looking at like $3500 plus shipping. It needed a step down transformer cause homie was in Japan.

You guys got mad import tax?

 

[TheGreatGreen]

I’m with the people who say that in this format, it should have been a preamp only. Take out all the digital stuff, take out the poweramp, take out the built-in reactive load, take out the LCD screen and replace that with a real GEQ, sell it for somewhere around $1,000-$1,500. Add it to the pile of reasons to put racks even more into popularity again. Let people integrate it into the rack rigs they're already building now with Synergy stuff, PowerStations, Axe-Fx’s, you name it. People might go for that.

As it is, if I wanted a rack ready Fryette rig, I think I’d rather just get a Powerstation and a SYN2 with a Deliverance and Ultra Lead modules. And to get even closer to matching the feature sets of that Synergy rig and the new UL, if you want IR's, just plug one of the powerstations's speaker output jacks back into its Line In jack to get the reactive load cooking while the other speaker out goes out to a cab, then send the loaded down signal from the Line Out jack to a $100 IR loader pedal shoved in the back of the rack and give that signal to front of house. There, now you have four Fryette channels, 100 watts, real cabs, and IR's into front of house. Done.

The new UL feels like such a niche product built for an incredibly specific set of needs, like a grab bag of stuff where no matter which individual element you want that it has, who is going to want to pay for all of them? I guess the guy from Helmet is happy now but I'm not sure who else is going to be.

 

[Eazy-ESP]

Why would you think it’s crap? The economy in the US went to shit after COVID. I dunno if I believe $7k, but I’ll give him at least $5.5k. That’s Diezel money here dude.

Man if you’re serious get at me in PMs. If you find an Ultra Lead here I’ll grab it and ship it to you. Last one I saw was $2300 on here, you’re looking at like $3500 plus shipping. It needed a step down transformer cause homie was in Japan.

You guys got mad import tax?

I just think Steve was over embellishing and someone earlier pointed out he probably meant if he was to build the OG Pittbull WITH the new features in it. But who really knows.

Thanks for the offer but yeah we have horrible import tax as well. I actually asked a store in NY the other week if they would ship a cab to me and they refused. Think I might just go a different direction now and get something proper high gain and the opposite of Fryette. Like an Uber or something. Because I have the immature, spiteful and rebellious personality of a teenager.

 

[Eazy-ESP]

I’m with the people who say that in this format, it should have been a preamp only. Take out all the digital stuff, take out the poweramp, take out the built-in reactive load, take out the LCD screen and replace that with a real GEQ, sell it for somewhere around $1,000-$1,500. Add it to the pile of reasons to put racks even more into popularity again. Let people integrate it into the rack rigs they're already building now with Synergy stuff, PowerStations, Axe-Fx’s, you name it. People might go for that.

As it is, if I wanted a rack ready Fryette rig, I think I’d rather just get a Powerstation and a SYN2 with a Deliverance and Ultra Lead modules. And to get even closer to matching the feature sets of that Synergy rig and the new UL, if you want IR's, just plug one of the powerstations's speaker output jacks back into its Line In jack to get the reactive load cooking while the other speaker out goes out to a cab, then send the loaded down signal from the Line Out jack to a $100 IR loader pedal shoved in the back of the rack and give that signal to front of house. There, now you have four Fryette channels, 100 watts, real cabs, and IR's into front of house. Done.

The new UL feels like such a niche product built for an incredibly specific set of needs, like a grab bag of stuff where no matter which individual element you want that it has, who is going to want to pay for all of them? I guess the guy from Helmet is happy now but I'm not sure who else is going to be.

All true and it’s weird because I keep hearing people trying to force this idea that rack is back, yet I don’t see many pre-amp options at all. Soldano recently. A Pittbull pre-amp would have been cool into a 2/90/2. He could have fulfilled his need to accomplish an engineering mission by fitting it all in a 1RU.

 

[ZEN Amps]

I can't help but wonder how people would feel if Fryette released the new Ultra Lead and it was a head with EQ sliders and cost $7K? Would everybody be happy or would price all of a sudden become the problem?

I think this "7k" thing is being misunderstood and/or misinterpreted.

I believe he said 6-7k, and then later qualified that this was if it was similar to the original, and with all the digital, and other features (plus presumably development costs) that the MkII sports. We're now talking about two separate things altogether.

If he just reissued the OG, one would assume it would well under 6k. Unlikely the $3800 of 10 years ago, but seeing as there would be little to no R&D involved I think it's pretty reasonable to assume it would be in the 4-5k range - call it Friedman / Bogner / Soldano + 10%.

Now the MkII has literally years of R&D costs to recoup - new chassis, PCBs, custom transformers, the display, DSP chip and hardware, software dev etc. Also worth noting he handed off the DSP work (like the GEQ) to someone else, which would obviously increase costs. He mentioned it in one of those videos, but it's pretty self evident - he couldn't drive the PC-editor in either video, said he was skeptical the digital EQ could cut until someone demonstrated it to him, and commented "I'm still learning this stuff"...

So all these R&D costs, and it's "only" $4k - something tells me this thing is way cheaper in parts and labour to make than a full-sized head, i.e. likely has a decently higher profit margin than a reissue would.

Anyway this is a long way of saying the evidence suggests there is no ~$4500, similar-to-the-OG MkII because Steve he didn't want to do it, regardless of what many punters seem to be asking for.

Or I could be completely wrong - hit me with a better take if you got one.

 

[rottingcorpse]

My take is Steve doesn't rest on his laurels. If he was gonna do a new UL, he was gonna design a NEW one. He definitely stretches his legs with his amps. He is obviously a brilliant amp guy who over thinks everything. He has put out a lot of great products that definitely have a literal fan base...myself being one of them. Honestly if I was still buying amps that had my attention, I'd wanna try this one. But I'm keeping my powder dry for now.

 

[mnemonic]

$7k sounds more like the “I don’t want to make it” price. I don’t really see why it would be more than twice the price of a new D120.

 

[stephen sawall]

I think s lot of people are missing the point. It's just a analog amp. The only thing digital is the switching system. GEQ and IR.

Seems for many the issue is it is rackmount instead of a head.

Personally I could careless about any of this stuff. I'm mostly interested in the sound. The voice.

The format is actually more practical for my use. I've been meaning to rebuild the Voodoo Lab and simpler Boss ES-8 rigs.

I haven't decided. But definitely interested.

 

[S̷͖͑m̵͎͂á̵̺s̸͚̈́h̴̬̑]

I think s lot of people are missing the point. It's just a analog amp. The only thing digital is the switching system. GEQ and IR.

Seems for many the issue is it is rackmount instead of a head.

Personally I could careless about any of this stuff. I'm mostly interested in the sound. The voice.

The format is actually more practical for my use. I've been meaning to rebuild the Voodoo Lab and simpler Boss ES-8 rigs.

I haven't decided. But definitely interested.

I think the rackmount instead of head isn't a deal breaker, but the digital portion of it took me from Semi-erect to full Limp Noodle

 

[SgtThump]

I just think Steve was over embellishing…

This