i gotta play it more, is first impression!
you know, its funny because im generally able to use words to describe amps and guitars (i guess whether anyone can tell wth im trying to say is a different question...) but its tough for some reason on this one.
Just for some context, im going back and forth across a JJ, BE, SS, Phil X, and sometimes a PT Sig also.
I know people describe the Phil X as being more 'open', 'raw' etc compared to other friedmans...and i can see that but its also a little different to me than i thought. i think i associate a lot of those terms with very bright and a lot of top end, etc...the phil definitely has a more vintage (not plexis but like jcm) thing going on to me than the other Friedmans...but its not excessively bright or harsh in any way. it actually has a lot of spank and chime to me...its got more sparkle than the others. I dont find it quite as tight as the BE (but its tighter than the SS). in fact, in general i kind of see it as in between the SS and the BE, though clearly more similar to the BE. The surprise to me in all of this testing has been the JJ.
the Phil feature set is a bit more limited, in a way, since it has no clean channel, no real boost, no return level - but it does have the variac and the cut switches (and of course still has a loop). its a much 'simpler' amp to me and you use your volume, tone knobs.
ive had a lot of experienced friedman people tell me 'they're all different but they're all Friedmans' - having all these amps at the same time, i TOTALLY get that now! they CLEARLY are all related but they all have somehting different (to varying degree in tone and feel and then the feature set). My problem is, i seem to really like the inherent Friedman thing - which means i generally like and appreciate every one of their variants!
