Fender FR-12 preamp mod : The Hissterectomy

WKSmith said:
It's getting closer by the day 🙂

Taiwan and Shenzhen are on spring break for a couple of weeks though.

I'm out in the shop soldering up the first pcb proofs today ..before ordering the gold plated V2 production boards.

Long before the V2 waitlist at the beginning of this 900 post journey, I asked @Deadpool_25 and @Lysander to be my only two beta testers. Their V2s are in this batch of proofs. And unless there is a major glitch in these final board proofs, they should be receiving the very first ones and sharing their findings in just days.

And 4 of you awesome folks reached out before the waitlist was announced to be on the informal waitlist. I kept your first contact as your waitlist position.
@LolainNB you are at #2 🙃

Thank you all for your continued support. V2 is a really cool project.


View attachment 134363
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Would I by chance be one of those 4 people already added to your waitlist, good Sir?
I nagged to be in on it a good few times in this thread anyways, even during doing the Lysander mod and your recommended V1 optimizations on the original preamp board.
If not no problemo, please do add me and/or tell me where to send additional information. Thank you very much @WKSmith !
 
quasimono said:
Would I by chance be one of those 4 people already added to your waitlist, good Sir?
I nagged to be in on it a good few times in this thread anyways, even during doing the Lysander mod and your recommended V1 optimizations on the original preamp board.
If not no problemo, please do add me and/or tell me where to send additional information. Thank you very much @WKSmith !
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Thank you! And yes I have you down.
PM your email when you get a few ..so you get the news when they are ready
 
IMG_1386.png

If you were wondering if the V2 would kill the backline AITR mojo..

Red is the stock FR-12 freq curve, light blue is the V2 preamp in the same FR-12.

Eq knobs all centered at 0 (noon)
Cut knobs at 1 (off)

Less than 1dB deviation in just a couple of spots.

Don't mind the missing trace at 20Hz. I quit sampling below 35Hz . It's below the port tuning and the charts qet wonky down there.
 
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WKSmith said:
View attachment 134598

If you were wondering if the V2 would kill the backline AITR mojo..

Red is the stock FR-12 freq curve, light blue is the V2 preamp in the same FR-12.

Eq knobs all centered at 0 (noon)
Cut knobs at 1 (off)

Less than 1dB deviation in just a couple of spots.

Don't mind the missing trace at 20Hz. I quit sampling below 35Hz . It's below the port tuning and the charts qet wonky down there.
Click to expand...
Impressive.
 
WKSmith said:
If you were wondering if the V2 would kill the backline AITR mojo..

Red is the stock FR-12 freq curve, light blue is the V2 preamp in the same FR-12.

Eq knobs all centered at 0 (noon)
Cut knobs at 1 (off)

Less than 1dB deviation in just a couple of spots.

Don't mind the missing trace at 20Hz. I quit sampling below 35Hz . It's below the port tuning and the charts qet wonky down there.
Click to expand...
How flat can you get the frequency response by tweaking knobs?
 
rickboot said:
How flat can you get the frequency response by tweaking knobs?
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Haven't got to that yet. I've been tuning the V2 all day to make sure it gets completely out of the way with the knobs centered. This eq does some cool stuff.
We shall see. 🤣

But honestly if you want flat, reference monitors.... The FR-x x is not the best choose of hardware. That's not really its thing.

But I will see how flat I can get it. I know that's important to some players. I can only do a little to compensate for the cabinet, ports, class D amp, horn, system response. Which is created not flat at all (perhaps a factory backline curve just by luck and parts working out)
 
WKSmith said:
Haven't got to that yet. I've been tuning the V2 all day to make sure it gets completely out of the way with the knobs centered. This eq does some cool stuff.
We shall see. 🤣

But honestly if you want flat, reference monitors.... The FR-x x is not the best choose of hardware. That's not really its thing.

But I will see how flat I can get it. I know that's important to some players. I can only do a little to compensate for the cabinet, ports, class D amp, horn, system response. Which is created not flat at all (perhaps a factory backline curve just by luck and parts working out)
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I agree that the FR-10 and 12 are not the best choices for a true FRFR speaker, and Fender has obviously designed them for the guitar player community. However, as the dreaded hiss problem seems to have been resolved both by WKSmith and, possibly Fender, I would be interested in learning more about what other advantages and characteristics the V2 brings to the FR-10 and 12.
 
Tomr said:
I agree that the FR-10 and 12 are not the best choices for a true FRFR speaker, and Fender has obviously designed them for the guitar player community. However, as the dreaded hiss problem seems to have been resolved both by WKSmith and, possibly Fender, I would be interested in learning more about what other advantages and characteristics the V2 brings to the FR-10 and 12.
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Fender has for sure put a hiss fix in place. This will be a very limited run for the V2. For people like me that bought a hissy one.. It is a cool solution. I'm not making much on these at all. I just wanted to share this project with my fractal family.

The clip light and phantom protection are utility features but pretty cool.

The eq is pretty freakin awesome. More on that soon. But grab some knobs and it does some magic the stock FR Can't.

This is an awesome trick too . The jumper can bypass the crossover input straight into the class D amps line in. For Fx200 ish coax drivers.
Or using spdt switches on the mute and across those terminals, you could also have a switch to kill the horn and take the low pass off the 12" from the crossover low side bypass. (Instead of the jumper). For a more conventional 12" backline ... if you are into that thing.

IMG_1388.jpeg

The pots turn with 40 really fine notches in the travel. They feel expensive and sexy.

The opamps are in sockets for trying different models.

Lots of cool stuff. For a very few busted FRs
 
WKSmith said:
Fender has for sure put a hiss fix in place. This will be a very limited run for the V2. For people like me that bought a hissy one.. It is a cool solution. I'm not making much on these at all. I just wanted to share this project with my fractal family.

The clip light and phantom protection are utility features but pretty cool.

The eq is pretty freakin awesome. More on that soon. But grab some knobs and it does some magic the stock FR Can't.

This is an awesome trick too . The jumper can bypass the crossover input straight into the class D amps line in. For Fx200 ish coax drivers.
Or using spdt switches on the mute and across those terminals, you could also have a switch to kill the horn and take the low pass off the 12" from the crossover low side bypass. (Instead of the jumper). For a more conventional 12" backline ... if you are into that thing.

View attachment 134607

The pots turn with 40 really fine notches in the travel. They feel expensive and sexy.

The opamps are in sockets for trying different models.

Lots of cool stuff. For a very few busted FRs
Click to expand...
Looks like there is more than enough justification to consider the V2 as an upgrade to the FR-10 and 12 regardless of the hiss problem. It's certainly reassuring to know that such talent and support resides among the Fractal community. I hope that WKSmith receives some recognition and reward for all his efforts.
 
Tomr said:
Looks like there is more than enough justification to consider the V2 as an upgrade to the FR-10 and 12 regardless of the hiss problem. It's certainly reassuring to know that such talent and support resides among the Fractal community. I hope that WKSmith receives some recognition and reward for all his efforts.
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Very kind words .
I don't need recognition or reward. Doing something the right way, taking that extra time, putting people over profits, doing what you say you will do, finishing what you start.. these should not be foreign concepts for corporations or small builders in the FRFR space... who have missed the mark by miles.

if anything I hope to inspire FRFR manufacturers to get their act together, and raise the bar for what we as consumers expect in product quality, and especially in truthful communications and by putting outstanding customer service first.

I hack everything. Pedals, guitars, amps, component and IC swaps, I have hacked pic controllers, and FV-1 DSP effects IC, midi controllers ...

....Except for one piece of gear.
I have never felt the need to even open up a Fractal product. The only thing in this universe that is better than FAS build quality, feel, tone, and programming ... is their remarkable customer service.
 
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10:12.png


This surprised me

Red is the stock FR-12 hissy model
Yellow is the stock FR-10 with the factory 3 ICs swapped "hiss fix"

from the looks of the highest freqs, there are likely some other component swaps beyond the 3 ICs
...and I need to do some more testing, but the V2 seems to have even less hiss than the factory "Fixed"FR preamp.

Edit: the V2 has way less (maybe 1/4 or less) of the hiss of the "fixed" stock pre with the same neutral settings. Noticeably, and remarkably less.
 
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Here is a comparison of the idle hiss. it is really very small. The phone and YouTube are compressing a bit so it sounds exaggerated. You can even hear a truck on a side street going past toward the end.

The FR-12 on the bottom has the V2 pre. It is almost dead silent.
The brand new FR-10 on top has the factory stock "hiss fix"

And though the hiss "fix" is much better than the original FR-xx pre, it still falls way short of the V2 design.




this was the hiss on the stock FR-12 I posted back in October (F-corp already had their fix in place then it seems)

 
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