Who has swapped tubes in their Friedman amp?

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Adambomb

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Just checkin to see if anyone has swapped the stock tubes in any of the Friedman amps. I only changed the two JJ pres that were HG's to two Tung-Sol hi-gain 12ax7's I had laying around, cause most amps came stock with the Tung-Sol's. Was thinking about trying some of my NOS preamp tube collection but the amp sound great as is.

So anybody change or keep it stock?
 
I've swapped preamp tubes to get rid of hiss at higher gain levels. Not very successful, but getting a bit better with
Tubestore "prefered series" 7025 tubes.
I have an older version BE-100 that was upgraded to a two button footswitch and full clean. Power transformer hums louder than other amps I own.
Amp hisses loudly when gain is set from 1:00 on. All switches in back are off.
I've been hearing that new transformers are being used, as well as "different" heaters being utilized for tubes.
Dave emailed me to say he could upgrade the PT.
 
Mike D.":1oiqbrxk said:
I've swapped preamp tubes to get rid of hiss at higher gain levels. Not very successful, but getting a bit better with
Tubestore "prefered series" 7025 tubes.
I have an older version BE-100 that was upgraded to a two button footswitch and full clean. Power transformer hums louder than other amps I own.
Amp hisses loudly when gain is set from 1:00 on. All switches in back are off.
I've been hearing that new transformers are being used, as well as "different" heaters being utilized for tubes.
Dave emailed me to say he could upgrade the PT.
Click to expand...

Hhhhmmm ... that's odd ... I have and older one (with separate inputs and simple clean) made in George's shop and don't think it's noisy nor hissy when compared to another amp similar in gain. Certainly quieter then any Marshall, Mesa or Orange I played. Both my Bogner 101b and my Soldano SLO had buzzing transformers (mechanical audible buzz and vibration) while BE-100 is dead quiet. And it's much quieter then 80's mode on Fargen Olde 800 MkII I had.

HBE input has a higher noise floor but it also has another gain stage.

I run BE with gain at 3 o'clock and turn down for cleans, live I don't hear the noise at all as it ends up being lower then all the other ambiance noise around it.
 
i've swapped a few different. the jjs made it warm but flat n less gain. i really like the bite in the chinese tubes n best imho thou.
 
Yea well I'm not experiencing any problems at all, not like the second poster is with his old power transformer, I'm just talkin about swapping tubes for tone. So far this is one of THE first amps I've never really wanted to tinker with and sounds great as is.... But I have a real nice NOS preamp tube collection (like anything that's been made since the 50's) So thinkin about playin around with V1 & V2. I've got Mullards, Bugle Boys, RCA's, EI's, Rayheon blackplate (that I'm thinking will rock in this amp) and many more good ol' 50's-60's tubes.

In my Bogner I went back to all Shug 12ax7B's, so that might be the Friedman's case too, but you'll never know till you try.

Going to do a swap comparison this weekend! I'll post the results.
 
Mike D.":3gfiv605 said:
I've swapped preamp tubes to get rid of hiss at higher gain levels. Not very successful, but getting a bit better with
Tubestore "prefered series" 7025 tubes.
I have an older version BE-100 that was upgraded to a two button footswitch and full clean. Power transformer hums louder than other amps I own.
Amp hisses loudly when gain is set from 1:00 on. All switches in back are off.
I've been hearing that new transformers are being used, as well as "different" heaters being utilized for tubes.
Dave emailed me to say he could upgrade the PT.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Ive just landed some Tubestore "prefered series" 7025 tubes also, and will be putting them into my SS100 & even the BE100.

You shouldn't be having hiss/hum from Friedman amps - I've also got Bogners, CAA, etc & the Friedmans are by far the quietist amps around. My old BE100 is very quiet.

I assume your upgrade was done by Dave? If not, that might be the problem. If so, you have a lifetime warranty - give him a call?
 
I have with my BE 100, but really just because the originals were causing a bit of noise. It came with tung sol 12AX7s in V1 and V2, and chinese 12AX7s in V3 and V4. I still have that combination in there... didn't really see a need to change it, especially since I've had good luck with these in my KS mods.

Not a fan of JJ power tubes because I've had more failures with those than any other brand, so I currently have new sensor mullards in there. So far so good, but I think the JJs were a better match as far as tone goes.

And not sure what's up with that amp mentioned above. My BE-100 is one of the quietest amps I've owned (it is the newest version though)
 
BE-100 is the first amp I haven't tinkered with yet ... every single amp I've bought in the past few years, the first thing I do is start swapping tubes, mostly because there was always something that was just not 100% right and I was trying to "fix" it with tubes.

I'm too scared to swap anything in the Friedman in case it doesn't sound as good ... just don't wanna mess with it ... not sure what more or different would I want from it at this point.
And I do have a small but nice NOS collection I could play with. Yes, I know I could just put all back to original but it sounds so good I'm paranoid that something will happen and I won't have it back exactly as it is now.

If ti ain't broke ... don't fix it!!!
 
I made a couple tube swaps and I'm actually even more excited about the tone now. Called Doug up and got him to find me a really good high gain low-noise Tungsol 12ax7 for the V2 (input stage) BE-Clean channel and it's brighter, tighter, and even less noise. For the HBE V1 I went with a Ruby AC5 HG+ and it's more controllable with less noise and more mids. And thats it. The tone was killer before but just wanted to see if I could get a little more liveliness and a little less noise. And in case I didn't mention this, before people start saying "well that was unnecessary"... My amp came stock with two JJ 12AX7HG's in V1 and V2 cause Dave was having a hard time finding non-microphonic decent tubes. So maybe mine just sounds like how it's supposed to now.
 
Here is what I've settled on over a few NOS pre's and others I've tried. Haven't messed with the power tubes cause Dave's got that one right for me, the JJ EL34's seem to sound great with the BE100. It seems to be harder to find good Tung-Sol's but if they came stock they your covered, but mine came with two JJ's in V1-2 cause like Dave's said, it's harder to find good ones.

V1-Ruby 12ax7 AC5HG+
v2-Tung-Sol High-Gain 12ax7
V3-ARS 12ax7 stock
V4- Ruby 12ax7 AC5HG Balanced

I didn't touch the tubes for a bit since the tone is great with the stock pre's, but Dougs Tubes has always made an improvment in the sound of my amps and they last a very long time. Never had a preamp tube issue ever when going through Doug.
 
iggs, don't worry about swapping take your time and insert/extract carefully. As long as you don't damage the socket, you're fine and swapping in and out won't change or harm the amp.

I would suggest taking a black sharpee and marking the base below the glass each location you took it out of just in case you want to put them and ensure in the exact order your got them from.
 
mark5152":bb0s3lt5 said:
i dont know why anyone would, i love mine the way it came!
Click to expand...

I don't know why anyone would not. It's a great amp with the stock tubes, but I can attest that I did notice an improvement with different tubes.

Why not experiment to find the perfect mix for your ears? You spent 4 grand on an amp with $10 tubes. Sure, I could be happy driving around a Corvette with an S rated tire, but why the hell would you not put on a W or Y?

I put NOS Mullards and RCA's in my JJ because a great amp deserves great tubes. Tube changes definitely make an audible difference, so even rolling modern tubes to find your favorite sound makes sense.
 
I tried some NOS RFT 12ax7's in my Smallbox and switched right back to the stock preamp tubes. RFT's normally improve the sounds of my Marshall amps, but not so much in my Friedman. It sound great with the stock JJ's and Chinese tubes.
 
Anyone getting radio programs coming through the clean channel of their BE100? I was....until I attached a ferrite core magnet to the guitar cable inches before the input jack. No more radio channel interference. I use Mogami cables, and tried different ones before clipping on a ferrite box. Cleaned it up immediately!
 
I'm a big fan of Ruby (shuguang) 12ax7's.
The Tungsol 12ax7's are right up there to.

I really like RFT ECC83's in a Marshall Plexi.
Especially if your looking for a tube with early breakup and less headroom.
Super quiet tube as well (plates are very short).
 
After going back and forth on pre's I prefer the tungsol over the jj in v1 in my smallbox. Power tubes are ARS el34's and the rest of the pres are Ruby. Sounds awesome.
 
I have all black plate raytheons in my Butterslax. Power tubes sounded great so never changed them. I have a lot of badass vintage tubes that test better than new ones. They make all my amps sound better.
 
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