The Incredible Fryette Power Station

Wazmeister · November 2017

One of those GAS moments, much researched and mulled over, that produces stunning results.

Enter the Fryette Power Station 2. An attenuator, super FX loop and much more.

I can say that even after one week of use, this is possibly my best ever purchase. Extra faff ? Yep. Extra cost ? Yep.
But, man extra sound !

My Carr Rambler has literally sprang into life with this amp. It opens up a whole new world....

The Rambler is now able to offer clipped tones at realistic volumes. I mount the PS2 on top of the Redplate RP50R, as seen below.

I've played a Matchless 30 a few times, and still miss my Lightning, and these are both too loud for home use. Not any more. Plug one of these in between the speaker and the amp and there you go. Simple.

Totally silent in my rig, which is vital.

But its the FX loop which has surprised me most. The Big Sky in the loop is incredible, as is the CE-2w. Looking forward to try a pre-amp pedals before and in as well. Pedals come alive, reminding of the G2 and how that somehow 'brings out the best' in them. The El Cap has been a revelation.

And I've yet to even try the Redplate with it !

And I'm thinking Dr Z Maz ? Matchless ? etc etc

Unreservedly recommended.

Moe_Zambeek · November 2017

Can I have it when you decide to sell?

only joking. I have my eye on one too, hoping that Fryette identified and fixed most of the bugs from the v1.

guitarfishbay · November 2017

What were the V1 bugs?

Wazmeister · November 2017

Moe_Zambeek said:

Can I have it when you decide to sell?

only joking. I have my eye on one too, hoping that Fryette identified and fixed most of the bugs from the v1.

Mate, I thought that I was going to return it and buy second hand. Worth every penny of the £699, and yes, it is a lot of corn.

I just need to get my head around the best way to combine it with the Gigrig G2...

I'd love your old Matchless head now !!

Moe_Zambeek · November 2017

guitarfishbay said:

What were the V1 bugs?

A number of them had faulty components and had to be returned, there were complaints about volume taper and tone loss and then there was the odd build flaw. All par for the course for Fryette ime, they use customers to do their beta testing. The Sig:X was the same.

The V2 has the 'operational' things fixed and there doesn't seem to be many complaints about the V2.

pmg · November 2017

@Wazmeister your old lightning still has a loving home and sounds particularly killer with my R8

ArchtopDave · November 2017

I've just bought one as well. It's a weighty little beast for it's size.

I traded in a guitar for it, and got a rather good trade in value - only bought the guitar 18 months ago, but, with the fall in the pound against the dollar etc, the current new price for this particular guitar is 50% more than what I paid originally.

mixolyd · November 2017

I can never decide whether it’s one of these or a Kemper that belongs as my dream upgrade.

The inclusion of the loop for time based fx is a big plus over a power scaled amp such as I’m used to. There are huge sounds to be had from using modellers like Helix with ‘verbs behind the IR block, but there’s always this slight feeling of unreality to it, like the sounds have been made in a factory somewhere. I don’t get that feeling with verbs in the front of my real amp - it’s all very direct and present in the room.

Fortheloveofguitar · November 2017

I've been looking at one for a while but put it off as I could get another quality used amp for that price

However I now think it's worth the pennies and ready to dive in now that Ive accumulated a lot of gear over the past 12 months that would benefit greatly from a PS V2

Fortheloveofguitar · November 2017

Peach have done me a deal in the V2 so I have one incoming in Tues

Looking forward to trying it out with my Cornford MK50 that arrived today

Plus many other uses for it too

paulmapp8306 · November 2017

guitarfishbay said:

What were the V1 bugs?

There wernt any,

The v2 adds a couple of switches (a high pass on/off - tho original was always on - and a line level toggle) that some v1 users asked for. Apart from that its identical.

Ive had the v1 for 2 years now, and its been flawless.

It is far east made, so QC is critical - and there have been a number of failures from new (or early on), which are generally (from what I believe) sorted/replaced. These wernt design flaws, but bad components not picked up in the QC. Mine was a "checked by Steve" unit (signed as inspected by him) - and as I said, has been flawless from day 1.

I believe the QC has been improved now (late on in the v1 run and for the v2 run) - which is the critical part of any FE build.

StuartMac290 · December 2017

What's the advantage of this over something like the Tone King Iron Man II or the Bad Cat Unleash?

FelineGuitars · December 2017

I've heard both Dave Friedman and John Suhr saying nice things about these.

The ability to have your otherwise too loud amp clip and then tame the volume to something usable but with "that sound"

Or the ability to use a small amp like a Fender Champ at it's sweet spot and make it louder with the same sweet tone

paulmapp8306 · December 2017

What's the advantage of this over something like the Tone King Iron Man II or the Bad Cat Unleash?

The original bad cat, and the tone king are reactive load attenuaters..The Fryette has that, but also a 50w power amp as well - with a loop in between the 2. That means you can take a low powered amp and make it louder as well as a loud amp and make it quieter. You also have the loop which is great if your amp doesnt have one.

The "re-amp" part can be used as a plain mono valve power section - so can be used to amp an AFX, Kemper, Helix etc for use with a guitar cab.

The Bad Cat unleash v2 is a similar design though (ie it has the re-amplifier as well), so would be very similar. Not sure it has the loop though.

StuartMac290 · December 2017

Yeah, it has a loop. It's dropped in price a lot too.

jaymenon · February 2018

I got a Fryette Power Station V2 recently - and moved it on. A quality piece of gear - in the right context. My observations (I compared it with a Sequis Motherload Elemental, which I also sold):

With my amplifier (RedPlate Blackverb - sort of Dumble derived) I found the power station rather redundant since the BlackVerb is designed to work with a fairly clean power section. The Master Volume works well enough.

I suppose with Marshall type amplifier (or indeed any non-master volume amplifier or amp designed to work best with output valve saturation) the Power Station would be an absolute revelation.

I’ve tried both of these attenuators with my Eminence Reignmaker FDM speaker which is set to almost the lowest point of its sensitivity. At around 91.5dB sensitivity, I’m down about 8dB even before we start...

1. The Fryette does have an element of fan noise which though not a deal breaker, is a bit of a nuisance at low levels. The Sequis is of course silent - so if you want to play at really low levels, a passive attenuator has that advantage.

2. No modelling device can mimic the three-dimensional sound of an open back cabinet - which is to my mind, essential to the clean ‘blackface’ tone. (I love Scuffham S-Gear for recording, but for noodling at home nothing beats plugging into an amplifier)

3. The Sequis has a ‘non-stepped’ type speaker volume control pot which is every bit as finely adjustable as the one on the Power Station.

4. The Master Volume on the RedPlate does a great job, though on balance I do feel that increasing the master volume and using the attenuator gives a very slightly 'better' tone. But in a double blinded listening test, I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the difference.

5. The ‘tone control complex’ on the power station is useful. However, a good quality graphic (or even parametric) equaliser in the series effects loop of my amplifier does an equally good job of adding a little ‘loudness’ at higher levels of attenuation with the Sequis (loudness as in the little switch on hi-fi amplifiers in the old days)

6. The impedance adjustability and also the ability to amplify a low wattage amplifier are certainly advantages to the Power Station (none of which are however relevant to me).

Hope this is useful...

ICBM · February 2018

paulmapp8306 said:

guitarfishbay said:

What were the V1 bugs?

There wernt any,

Yes there were.

The one I worked on had two serious faults - one design flaw, and one bit of assembly carelessness which could have been dangerous.

The first is that there is a filter cap which is rated for 450V but which sees much more - when the amp is on standby the voltage on it rises to about 525V. This is just asking for trouble. This particular one had a hum problem which was reduced when I replaced the cap with a 500V one - still not ideal, but better. There isn't room on the board to fit a proper stacked cap arrangement.

The second is that there is an unused mains voltage tap on the PT, and instead of being terminated properly or sealed up, it's just shoved down between the side of the PT and the chassis. Worse, on this one the heatshrink sleeve hadn't been done properly so the unprotected crimp connector was *almost* touching one of the screws in the chassis.

OK, as long as the unit is earthed properly then the worst a contact between the two would have done is blown the fuse, but this isn't good enough. If the earth is missing for any reason - including at the wall socket or further back - then the chassis would become live at mains voltage.

Absolutely not good enough on a commercial product. I wouldn't be happy buying a V2 unless I was sure both these things had been fixed.

guitarfishbay · February 2018

Wow. I’m no longer looking for one as I picked up a Mesa 2:90 for a good price. Actually @ICBM you won’t believe it but it was missing a screw, I sent Westside an email as I couldn’t find an obvious replacement for it on Screw Fix’s website and they sent me the screw and a bunch of picks for free in the post. Pretty much only see negative stuff about them on this board so a good story for once.

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The Incredible Fryette Power Station

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