Fryette LXII

I also just pulled the trigger on a LXII. I have been waiting on this form factor for a few years now.

I use a red 1980's Marshall 1965A 4X10 cab that I wired for stereo. It sounds killer with my other amps but they are just too heavy to haul around.

I will do a comparison with these amps I own:

-Atomic 50/50 stereo power amp. Great gigging amp but heavy to carry. I plan to keep this amp and use it in my studio with passive monitors. Hard to beat for $350 US used.
-Fryette Powerstation 2. Love the sound but wish it were stereo. I also love how it does not quite use up 2 rack spaces so it allows me to fit it in a rolling soft Gator case. For example, I can get just about 5 rack spaces in a 4 space Gator case due to the design of the bottom of the case. If I like the LXII I plan to sell the PS2.
 
Any updates, people? If recording clips is a pain, perhaps you could simply post some written impressions? Would love to know how these sound and feel relative to some of the more popular PAs around here, such as Matrix.
 
Any updates, people? If recording clips is a pain, perhaps you could simply post some written impressions? Would love to know how these sound and feel relative to some of the more popular PAs around here, such as Matrix.

I am also wondering about this, along with comparisons to the PS2.
 
I got impatient waiting for feedback on this post, so I recently got an LXII to try out. I’ve had it for a week so far and am very impressed. It seems to be the missing bit of the chain that I have been looking for and could possibly lead to me finally selling my amps. Together with the Axe III, it really does sound and feel like playing a conventional amp through a cab and is well worth trying out if that is what you are looking for. It’s even surprisingly good at relatively low volume levels so you could definitely use it at home, although it does of course sound better as you turn it up.

I’ve been an Axe FX user for over 12 years and have owned the Ultra, II, II XL and III. We all know how the product has evolved and just got better over time but some of us - apparently a very small, picky minority - have not been able to completely satisfy the tube amp itch. I used my tube amps with my Axe FX initially and then I got a Matrix GT 1000fx power amp 7-8 years ago which was all the buzz on here at the time. It is very good at what it does and very transparent, but I just felt that I lost something in the feel and tactile response that you get from a real amp and cab and the sound just fell slightly short. So, for quite a while, I used a Retro Channel power amp which is not as transparent as the Matrix, but did provide more of the amp like feel.

The realism of the Axe III models now coupled with the easy manner of setting the speaker impedance curves - an important part of the equation - is a big move forwards and this led to me trying out a few more amp models than my usual go to choices. The Retro was colouring the amps too much and so I dug out the Matrix again and tried it with the Axe III for the first time and found that I preferred the transparency of the Matrix now over the feel of the Retro which was dulling over the differences between the amp models too much by comparison. Things were getting very close now and that lead to me trying the Fryette LX II and I have been A/B’ing it against my amps and I’m honestly now thinking that I prefer the Axe models to the real thing due to the ability to tweak the tone out to a greater degree of satisfaction.

I have 3 Zilla 2x12 cabs with different speakers, a Marshall 1960A 4x12 and a Two Rock 2x12. My amps are:

Marshall JCM 601, YJM 100 and JVM 410 H
Mesa MKV and Express
Two Rock 10th Anniversary

So far, I’ve been able to nail or surpass my Marshall tones and the Mesa’s but not quite yet the MKV clean or the Two Rock, but I’ve only just got round to those recently. I’m pretty sure that I can get the MKV cleans, but the Two Rock is quite a special amp and very transparent and complex - which is why I’ve left it until last.

I know that amp and cab guys are very much in the minority on here, but if you do fall into that category, the LXII could be worth checking out. I have absolutely no connection with Fryette and, in fact, given how long ago the product was initially announced, I didn’t have very high hopes. The only reason I have posted is because my interest was piqued by this thread, and then there has been only silence - so I thought I’d check it out myself, which is the only way to be sure anyway. The LXII is a solid and well built unit and runs surprisingly very cool to the touch. My only gripe so far has been that, after an hour or so of use, the fan noise can be quite loud and irritating high pitched whine, but we suspect that I may have a faulty sensor/fan and the dealer is waiting on feedback from Fryette on that point. It is no problem at all at practice or gig levels, but if you manipulate the Axe on the fly from the front panel as I do or want to use it at home, then this could be slightly irritating.

Apologies that my post turned out to be quite so lengthy!!
 
@MNG Thanks for the in-depth review. I saw a few forum posts where people said they had ordered, or recieved their LXII but then no reviews, so I was starting to wonder if it was a dud after all this time.

I assume you’re running it in FRFR mode and not using the ‘enhance’? Do you set the impedence curve in the axe FX iii flat?
 
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@MNG Thanks for the in-depth review. I saw a few forum posts where people said they had ordered, or recieved their LXII but then no reviews, so I was starting to wonder if it was a dud after all this time.

I assume you’re running it in FRFR mode and not using the ‘enhance’? Do you set the impedence curve in the axe FX iii flat?

Hi, I do prefer the LXII in flat mode, yes. The presence and depth are useful but not necessary for me so far anyway, although I can see that particularly the presence may be useful to give your sound a kick in certain scenario’s without having to tweak the Axe FX settings at all. I don’t have enough experience with it yet to know how I may use those, but I’m happy enough without them so far.

Regarding the impedance curve, I found with the Axe II that this was a particularly important part of the equation to get right with whichever real, physical cab you are using. With the Axe II, it was a bit tedious and time consuming to a) figure out the parameters for each real cab that you used and then b) to have to dial all those parameters back in every time you wanted to try a different amp because all your settings are over ridden back to default when you select a new amp. With the Axe III, you can quickly hunt through cab curves that should be in the ball park and take it from there. Once you find a default cab curve that works with your real cab, you just select that one every time - or try alternatives for different flavours, it’s so easy now. I find it really quite easy to set up and change now. For example, the Zilla option works really well with one of my Zilla cabs and a couple of the Marshall options work well with my 4x12. This has been very liberating for me as I am much more inclined to try new amps now.

I posted about this on the Axe II thread a few years ago, but I seemed to be in a minority of 1. Interestingly enough though, Cliff posted a comment, again a few years back now, about the importance of this with real cabs and he postulated that a forthcoming Axe III would have an output/input section to run through physical cabs so that the Axe could intelligently figure out the dynamic response of the cab and react accordingly. I guess he changed his mind on that, but the recently introduced presets are incredibly handy. From memory, these are on the final page of the amp settings (from the front panel) about 75% of the way down towards the bottom of the page for those that may have missed them. I have only picked up on them in the last 2-3 months, so I don’t know when they were introduced, but I really like them!
 
Did you also try to take the speaker impedance curve completely out of the picture? As a tube amp the LX Is already interacting with the guitar speaker(s) regarding impedance and resonance, so there isn’t really a need for simulation on the modeler’s side.
 
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Did you also try to take the speaker impedance curve completely out of the picture? As a tube amp the LX Is already interacting with the guitar speaker(s) regarding impedance and resonance, so there isn’t really a need for simulation on the modeler’s side.

Good point Yek. I did wonder about that before the LXII arrived and agree that your point seems the logically correct position to take.

I don’t know how long they have been there, but I discovered the impedance curve presets when I took the Retro Channel amp out and replaced it with the Matrix and I then had to re-dial my Axe FX amps to adjust for that change. The Matrix was sounding pretty good with the re-tweaked amps and the right curves and when I took it out and put the LXII into the rack, it sounded great from the off and so I never revisited that question. I will do so though I think, just out of curiosity.

By the way, I know you did it a while ago, but your amp guide is the best and most helpful item of information out there imo. I found it to be a great resource, thanks very much for your effort on that. 👍
 
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Quick check in. I finally got to fire up my LXII last night after owning it a month (I've been wiring a patch bay in the studio the previous month). Anyway I don't have a wow moment yet because I did not get a chance to really crank it. My first impression though is positive after trying it though both my Marshall 4X10 cab and new to me 1964 Vox JMI 2X10 cab. I wired both cabs in stereo and love it with the LXII. I still have my old PS2 and loved it but it was mono and I did not want to rack two of them. My Marshall and Vox amp settings translated very well and gives me that feel I like about tube amps. It will take some tweaking but I plan to keep the LXII for sure.

My only initial gripe is the fan. Wow it's loud but probably no louder than any other power amp I have used. Not really acceptable for studio use but that does not matter to me because this will mostly be used for live.
 
Quick check in. I finally got to fire up my LXII last night after owning it a month (I've been wiring a patch bay in the studio the previous month). Anyway I don't have a wow moment yet because I did not get a chance to really crank it. My first impression though is positive after trying it though both my Marshall 4X10 cab and new to me 1964 Vox JMI 2X10 cab. I wired both cabs in stereo and love it with the LXII. I still have my old PS2 and loved it but it was mono and I did not want to rack two of them. My Marshall and Vox amp settings translated very well and gives me that feel I like about tube amps. It will take some tweaking but I plan to keep the LXII for sure.

My only initial gripe is the fan. Wow it's loud but probably no louder than any other power amp I have used. Not really acceptable for studio use but that does not matter to me because this will mostly be used for live.

from A sound POV was it the same as the ps2? Notice any difference?
 
I have my first jam with it Sunday so I will report back more.

I got to play with it a bit more just at low levels. I still really like it. I would say it’s still right on par with my PS2 and Atomic 50/50 amp. The fan is still louder than the Atomic but I’ll take that over the 1U and weight any day.

if it helps I’ll do a video soon of the PS2 vs LXII. I’ll also play the same patch through my Accugroove FRFR’s just for comparison since not many videos exist on these and questions pop up.

One other observation on the LXII is the build quality is superb. The build material is extremely rugged.
 
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I have my first jam with it Sunday so I will report back more.

I got to play with it a bit more just at low levels. I still really like it. I would say it’s still right on par with my PS2 and Atomic 50/50 amp. The fan is still louder than the Atomic but I’ll take that over the 1U and weight any day.

if it helps I’ll do a video soon of the PS2 vs LXII. I’ll also play the same patch through my Accugroove FRFR’s just for comparison since not many videos exist on these and questions pop up.

One other observation on the LXII is the build quality is superb. The build material is extremely rugged.
Great, and thanks... Looking forward to the comparison🤘🏻
 
My only initial gripe is the fan. Wow it's loud but probably no louder than any other power amp I have used. Not really acceptable for studio use but that does not matter to me because this will mostly be used for live.

It is well built and sounds great and runs surprisingly cool - the fan was my only negative point as well. Other than that, it’s very good indeed.

The fan seems to get stuck in high mode after a while and is then a quite irritating high pitched, turbine whine. The LXII fan is way, way noisier than my Matrix GT1000FX amp which is almost silent by comparison. This video below from Fryette is pretty disingenuous and misleading marketing in my opinion. I agree that for home or studio use, this noise could be quite problematic for some. If the noise might potentially bother you, you should disregard the video below because it is quite far from the truth.

 
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Removing the fan would be very unwise I'd say.

A 'normal' sized 2 channel 50W per side rack mount tube amp has a fan too - it also has at least twice the space for heat to dissipate into.

Removing the fan in a 1U amp is going to make the transformer melt I reckon.

It's a decent power rated amp .... play it loud enough to come to life and you won't hear the fan!
 
Removing the fan would be very unwise I'd say.

It's a decent power rated amp .... play it loud enough to come to life and you won't hear the fan!

Correct. It isn’t an issue other than at lower volume levels or if you are close to the amp. I just don’t like the way that they market it against the Matrix in that video because it is completely misleading and unfair to Matrix imo. I don’t like their ethics - but I do like the LXII.
 
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