Fryette Power Station or Fryette Reactive Load IR

S

Stratdude68

New member
Please help me pick which product to get. I'm thinking the priority is for recording although perhaps I'd love how great my "cranked" amps would sound at lower levels for playing around the house or even recording. I would think the pros and cons of each would be:

Power Station Pros: Ability to enjoy your cranked amp tone at lower volumes and even record with a microphone at low "sweet spot" volumes, Silent Recording with ability to add IR's from DAW
Power Station Cons: No Headphones ability, no instant IR's or Cab Sim

PLIR Pros: Easier for silent recording with headphones, easy to have stored IR's without using DAW, Cab Sim
PLIR Cons: Inability to use as an "Attenuator"

Are both products safe with vintage combo amps? Are the Reactive Loads equal quality? Thanks!
 
If recording is your main objective, I would go with the IR loader. Saves time placing mics.

Or look in to something like a Captor X that is an IR loader and also a capable attenuator for when you want to mic up at reasonable volumes
 
You can always take the line out from the power station into a DAW with a VST IR loader for recording.

Having a poweramp for random shit is a huge + in my opinion. I use it for a W/D setup sometimes and it works great.
 
I have both and if you truly do want a solution for recording only, the PLIR is the way to go and save a little money while you're at it. The cab and mic simulator controls are very cool and you can get some great custom tones out of it. Otherwise, the PS is a fine unit and you can accomplish the same thing but using 3rd party IR's only, which nothing wrong with that avenue as there are plenty of those available too.

Gun to head...I would pick the PS.
 
Excellent feedback so far thanks....
So when using my combo amps (IE Fender Princeton Silverface & Park "Marshall" Bass 50) I think I would:
1) PLIR- simply unplug the speaker cable & plug it into the PLIR
2) Power Station- Not exactly sure?
3) Could Power Station be used to add some "mojo" to amp sims or be used as a reamp device?
 
You could plug the speaker out directly into the PS as well. Don't even have to turn on the poweramp. Run the PS line out into your DAW or whatever and just add a free VST IR loader to your signal chain.

There are so many great free IRs out there it's a non issue.

From there the PS let's you really have fun. You can record the line out, but then turn the poweramp on and run the PS speaker out back to your cab for monitoring in the room. And you can crank the master for poweramp distortion. And you can add effects to an amp that doesn't have an effects loop (the PS does). And..... And.....

Just buy the damn thing.
 
Stratdude68 said:
Excellent feedback so far thanks....
So when using my combo amps (IE Fender Princeton Silverface & Park "Marshall" Bass 50) I think I would:
1) PLIR- simply unplug the speaker cable & plug it into the PLIR
2) Power Station- Not exactly sure?
3) Could Power Station be used to add some "mojo" to amp sims or be used as a reamp device?
Click to expand...
3) Yes. You can run the power section of the power station into itself, then crank it for power tube goodness. See Fryette's video here:


Plus this chap sticking it on a pre-amp.


I'd assume you'd run the modeler into the power amp as if it was a pre-amp, set the tubes to "well done", then take line-level output into whatever you wanted next, such as an interface with an IR loader or your modeler to IR loading, or whatever. Or you can use it as the power amp for your modeler, like shown below at the timestamp I linked to (38:24) :


Created an account just for this post. Not a shill, I've just had my eye on the Power Station for a while.
 
If you want to use the tube power amp side of the PowerStation, i suggest to use the Effects Loop Return rather than Line In. Fryette actually suggested this to me after some trial and error. I felt like the full 100 watts of the power amp should be louder with more thump. Turns out the Line In jack in the circuit doesn’t open the power amp up to utilize its full power and punch. Try it for yourself.
 
Chronic Narnia said:
If you want to use the tube power amp side of the PowerStation, i suggest to use the Effects Loop Return rather than Line In. Fryette actually suggested this to me after some trial and error. I felt like the full 100 watts of the power amp should be louder with more thump. Turns out the Line In jack in the circuit doesn’t open the power amp up to utilize its full power and punch. Try it for yourself.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I use a PS2 with several amp heads, but also with a Synergy SYN-1. Are you suggesting that running the SYN-1 into the effects return instead of the Line In could give me more?

Completely happy with the tone going into the line in, but not afraid to mix it up. I do use the effects loop in the PS2 so I would need to work around that.
 
Chronic Narnia said:
If you want to use the tube power amp side of the PowerStation, i suggest to use the Effects Loop Return rather than Line In. Fryette actually suggested this to me after some trial and error. I felt like the full 100 watts of the power amp should be louder with more thump. Turns out the Line In jack in the circuit doesn’t open the power amp up to utilize its full power and punch. Try it for yourself.
Click to expand...
in this case , you cant use this effect loop for effects right ?
 
fek said:
Interesting. I use a PS2 with several amp heads, but also with a Synergy SYN-1. Are you suggesting that running the SYN-1 into the effects return instead of the Line In could give me more?

Completely happy with the tone going into the line in, but not afraid to mix it up. I do use the effects loop in the PS2 so I would need to work around that.
Click to expand...
Yea then you can’t use the loop. Try it…don’t touch anything on any other settings like volume, buttons, or the dials. Just switch the cable from line in to the effects return.
 
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Yea I think I'm just going to buy it! My biggest thing is just making sure I never damage the amp (speaker cable always needs to be plugged into either the combo speaker or reactive load) I'm assuming, I think it's time to buy!
 
7704A said:
3) Yes. You can run the power section of the power station into itself, then crank it for power tube goodness. See Fryette's video here:


Plus this chap sticking it on a pre-amp.


I'd assume you'd run the modeler into the power amp as if it was a pre-amp, set the tubes to "well done", then take line-level output into whatever you wanted next, such as an interface with an IR loader or your modeler to IR loading, or whatever. Or you can use it as the power amp for your modeler, like shown below at the timestamp I linked to (38:24) :


Created an account just for this post. Not a shill, I've just had my eye on the Power Station for a while.
Click to expand...

Very cool yea I was specifically wondering if I could run amp sims from a laptop into the powerstation back into DAW!?
 
As far as attenuation nothing beats the PS-100. I've had the OX and the BOSS TAE. But the PS-100 slays those as far as attenuation sound
 
Stratdude68 said:
Very cool yea I was specifically wondering if I could run amp sims from a laptop into the powerstation back into DAW!?
Click to expand...
I believe you can, because you can run stand-alone modelers like the Kemper or Quad Cortex into it, and the videos I linked show the PS being sent into a DAW. The exact details I'm not certain on. I think you'd need to get some sort of line out from your computer to plug into the PS' line-in or FX return like another commenter already mentioned.
 
Chronic Narnia said:
If you want to use the tube power amp side of the PowerStation, i suggest to use the Effects Loop Return rather than Line In. Fryette actually suggested this to me after some trial and error. I felt like the full 100 watts of the power amp should be louder with more thump. Turns out the Line In jack in the circuit doesn’t open the power amp up to utilize its full power and punch. Try it for yourself.
Click to expand...
Did they say why? I'd guess that the FX expects to have to boost the signal up to line-level after being cut down to pedal-compatible levels, whereas the Line-In expects the signal to already be at line-level. Haven't seen the schematic or anything, just taking some guesses based what I've seen in other amplifiers, so there is a good chance I'm wrong.
 
The PS-100 has saved me a ton of money and costed me a ton of money since I started to purchase more amps due to being able to get that sweet spot of a cranked amp through the PS-100.

I am not able to crank amps at my place so pretty much any amp I own started to sound like the tone was being choked at the lower bedroom volumes but once I plugged them into the PS-100 and adjusted the volume to that sweet spot then I found more and more amps were keepers 😂

It's the best purchase that I made last XMAS :)
 
Another thing I found I like about using the PS-100 is not having anything in the effects loop of the amps (and effects loop turned off).

I found the amp tone will usually sound a lot better and I just use the effects loop on the PS-100.
 
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