This Happened (Friedman BE-100 DLX Content)

[ErictheRed]

I'm just a sucker for a good deal, even if it means a 3-hour drive round trip.

So far I like it a lot better than the BE-50 Deluxe that I had for almost 6 months, but that's not saying very much, honestly (I was pretty disappointed in that amp). We'll see if this one sticks, it has all of the features that I could want on a Marshall-style amp but there's just something about the sound of a Friedman that doesn't exactly gel with me. They're somehow both polite/refined/polished sounding, and yet dark and foreboding. This makes them both well-suited for modern music and yet not aggressive in the way that I think of aggressive at the same time. I'll try to get this one to rehearsal and check it out with the full band soon.

I'm having fun butchering Mastodon for now, though! It's very easy to play and smears notes together nicely, while maintaining clarity at the same time.

 

[jaqueh]

that lester is fire too! are you playing it through a loadbox or attenuator?

 

[Seven]

Sweet!

 

[ErictheRed]

that lester is fire too! are you playing it through a loadbox or attenuator?

No, just using the master volume (which is very good), but I can get pretty loud at home when the wife's not around.

 

[jaqueh]

No, just using the master volume (which is very good), but I can get a little loud at home when the wife's not around.

that's awesome rock on!

 

[ErictheRed]

The guitar is a 2009 R9, the one guitar that I will absolutely never part with as long as I live.

Yeah, so far my first impressions (I was home all day yesterday) are that it's a dark and foreboding sound, very much Mastodon/Alice in Chains type of tones as opposed to those 70s "cranked Marshall stack in the sun" brighter, more open rock sounds if that makes sense. Of course it could be how I'm dialing it in and my speaker cab (Mesa Traditional 4x12" with the top to Vintage 30s swapped for G12H75 Creambacks).

 

[mdubya]

What is it?

 

[ErictheRed]

Friedman BE-100 Deluxe.

 

[redking]

Welcome back to Team Friedman - Hope tou enjoy your stay!

 

[dju]

So you weren't thrilled with the BE-50 Deluxe but thought you would like the BE-100 Deluxe?
Besides the extra 50 watts what are the differences between the 2 amps?
I thought they were the same amp except for the 50 or 100 watt power output.

 

[redking]

So you weren't thrilled with the BE-50 Deluxe but thought you would like the BE-100 Deluxe?
Besides the extra 50 watts what are the differences between the 2 amps?
I thought they were the same amp except for the 50 or 100 watt power output.

I think it has a different clean channel if I am not mistaken.

 

[Deftone]

Wow...nice score! Where did you go to get that one? I think I might have seen it on CL?

 

[ErictheRed]

So you weren't thrilled with the BE-50 Deluxe but thought you would like the BE-100 Deluxe?
Besides the extra 50 watts what are the differences between the 2 amps?
I thought they were the same amp except for the 50 or 100 watt power output.

It has a few more features than the BE-50 Deluxe. The clean channel is completely different for one. It also has the C45 switch which kind of re-voices the whole amp (making it closer to a JCM 800 instead of a Plexi according to Dave, though not exactly). It seemed to me that the whole BE-100 Deluxe was brighter and more cutting/aggressive than the BE-50 Deluxe on demos, but having it in person now I don't really think so. It also has two three-position toggle switches to select what frequencies the Thump and Presence control affect, so you have much more control to dial those in than with the BE-50 Deluxe. I thought that the extra options might make it better for me, and I really didn't like the BE-50 Deluxe's clean channel at all. It sounded almost like it had some 80s chorus thing going on all of the time.

On top of all that, I picked it up used and am pretty sure that I can move it along for the same price that I bought it for, so I'm not really risking anything financially.

 

[ErictheRed]

Wow...nice score! Where did you go to get that one? I think I might have seen it on CL?

Yeah, Craigslist.

 

[ErictheRed]

So in short, after being pretty disappointed with every other Friedman amp I've played/owned (Smallbox, Runt 50, and BE-50 Deluxe) I somehow still bought this one...and I LOVE it!

It's a lot more different than the BE-50 Deluxe than you might think at first. Besides the "clean" channel being completely different, according to Dave, the difference in the BE-50 BE and HBE channels are only one gain stage; switching to HBE only adds a gain stage to the BE channel, nothing more. In the 100 Deluxe, switching to the HBE channel adds a gain stage AND revoices things so that it sounds better overall and a little bit more different than the BE channel. I suspect that the two BE channels in the 100 and 50 are a little different from each other as well, but it could just be my two amps.

The 100 Deluxe also has a lot more tweakability which lets you get much closer to an actual Marshall sound. The C45 switch, for one, really opens up the amp and adds back a lot of that high end "bite" that was missing on every Friedman I've ever tried in the past. I know that there was a Response knob on my BE-50 Deluxe, but it still never seemed to have nearly as much high end presence or aggression as with the 100 Deluxe Response toggle disengaged (in the middle position). So I'm guessing that the component values just didn't allow the BE-50 to get nearly as aggressive or bitey as the 100 can get.

I might write a long review (and compare this to my other 3-channel amp, the Mesa TC-100), but for now I'll just say that I really love this after being very disappointed in other Friedmans. This one is finally able to go past the extremely polite, polished, refined Friedman sound into something more raw, raunchy, bitey, whatever you want to call it. I played it at rehearsal last night and it's great!

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

Glad it’s working out.

My wife and I started as friends, then after a while there was a slow smolder, then an open flame and then, full-tilt romance. Do amps work the same way?!?

 

[Thunder Dump]

Glad it’s working out.

My wife and I started as friends, then after a while there was a slow smolder, then an open flame and then, full-tilt romance. Do amps work the same way?!?

Not completely. The amp won't ever say a word if you leave it at home and bring a different amp to a gig.

 

[Deftone]

So in short, after being pretty disappointed with every other Friedman amp I've played/owned (Smallbox, Runt 50, and BE-50 Deluxe)

Interesting....

Since I have an extra JCM800 2204 now, I was thinking I might try to trade one for a Friedman. Demos have always sounded great to me but I probably need to try them out myself.

 

[ErictheRed]

Interesting....

Since I have an extra JCM800 2204 now, I was thinking I might try to trade one for a Friedman. Demos have always sounded great to me but I probably need to try them out myself.

Yeah I think you will need to try them, like anything else. Personally I find that a lot of video demos show the boring/refined/polite side of Friedman amps pretty clearly and many of them don't sound very interesting to me. Playing a Smallbox combo in a store was one of the most uninspiring experiences I've ever had trying out gear, and why I walked away with a Suhr Badger 35 some years ago, for instance.

Here's one shootout where I find the Friedman the most boring of the bunch for instance:

I notice that the bright switch could be put into a brighter position and you could probably engage the C45 switch on the back to get it to sound more cutting and closer to a Marshall.

This one doesn't sound as bad to my ears, but again I prefer the other amps in this video:

I suppose that if you're tired of fighting a super-bright Marshall (that thread about the SV20 being too bright reminds me of this), then Friedman amps will sound great to you. I find a lot of them seem to have been dialed in for bedroom players or something though, personally. Really lacking in cut and bite and aggression. If you want those aspects in a Friedman I think that your options are much more limited, but the BE-100 Deluxe has a lot more than others I've played (still not as much as a 2203) and I'm guessing that something like a Twin Sister might as well, with the extra switching options. I might try to check out a Twin Sister sometime just for the size/portability factor.

It was Zach Wish that made me want to give the BE-100 Deluxe a chance. Notice that Dave Friedman himself commented on a video and suggested a way to get it sounding closer to the 2203:

I still prefer the Marshall 2203 in Zach's shootout videos, but the Friedman has so many other things going for it (multiple channels, etc). All in all, if I set up the BE-100 Deluxe to be the brightest/most aggressive it can be (though not necessarily the highest gain), then I'm very happy with it. I think that my TC-100 will take a break for a while, I've already redone my entire pedalboard around the Friedman and really enjoyed playing it at rehearsal Wednesday night!

 

[redking]

Yeah I think you will need to try them, like anything else. Personally I find that a lot of video demos show the boring/refined/polite side of Friedman amps pretty clearly and many of them don't sound very interesting to me. Playing a Smallbox combo in a store was one of the most uninspiring experiences I've ever had trying out gear, and why I walked away with a Suhr Badger 35 some years ago, for instance.

Here's one shootout where I find the Friedman the most boring of the bunch for instance:

I notice that the bright switch could be put into a brighter position and you could probably engage the C45 switch on the back to get it to sound more cutting and closer to a Marshall.

This one doesn't sound as bad to my ears, but again I prefer the other amps in this video:

I suppose that if you're tired of fighting a super-bright Marshall (that thread about the SV20 being too bright reminds me of this), then Friedman amps will sound great to you. I find a lot of them seem to have been dialed in for bedroom players or something though, personally. Really lacking in cut and bite and aggression. If you want those aspects in a Friedman I think that your options are much more limited, but the BE-100 Deluxe has a lot more than others I've played (still not as much as a 2203) and I'm guessing that something like a Twin Sister might as well, with the extra switching options. I might try to check out a Twin Sister sometime just for the size/portability factor.

It was Zach Wish that made me want to give the BE-100 Deluxe a chance. Notice that Dave Friedman himself commented on a video and suggested a way to get it sounding closer to the 2003:

All in all, if I set up the BE-100 Deluxe to be the brightest/most aggressive it can be (though not necessarily the highest gain), then I'm very happy with it. I think that my TC-100 will take a break for a while, I've already redone my entire pedalboard around the Friedman and really enjoyed playing it at rehearsal Wednesday night!

I've talked to Zach online and he's a very cool guy and was happy to share his experiences with me regarding the Soldano SLO 30. His band is very cool too.

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