Best poweramp for Axe III (Goal: LOUDDDDD)

I own a Matrix 1600, 2000 and 5000 and was using them to drive two 4x12 cabs with high wattage Eminence Delta Pros. If you use any high gain settings and use palm mutes, you will clip the 1600 and 2000 much earlier than you might think. And, you will hear it, It sounds terrible. You don't ever want to hit the red lights on a Matrix even for a second, it defeats the purpose of having such a high headroom high fidelity amp. That is why I bought a 5000 and never had that problem again...
 
tobafett said:
Totally agree on the design of the depth and presence adjustments. I don't understand what they were thinking. Although, I never have them enabled anyway, so it does not really matter when using the LXII with a modeler for me.

I had a PS-2A, and when I A/B'd it against my SD PS170, it really was not that much better, IMO, at more than double the price. Granted the PS-2A can do all sorts of other cool things, but I do not need those features.

The LXII sounds better than the PS170 to me, but its also more than double the price, and weighs a lot more. I still gig with my PS 170 on my FM9 pedal board when bringing the larger set up just is not feasible. Or I am feeling lazy. LOL.
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I’ve been wanting to try a KSR PA50. Yes it’s not a rackmount solution, but I hear good things about it.
 
sprint said:
Would be interesting to hear Steven Fryette's explanation for the "dumb" decision on where those controls are located.
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I think he has talked about it in some of Fryette's live streams. Apparently their users would not typically adjust those controls much if at all so they thought, why not just put the trimmers where they are most convenient in the circuit for minimal noise and just provide a front panel toggle for them.

I still think it's a stupid design. I found myself tweaking the presence/depth on my Fryette PS-100 at least a bit here and there. It would be an easy way to do a little bit of sound tweaking for e.g different venues, setting it all up in soundcheck vs how it sounds with a room full of people etc.

Sure, you would get more mileage using global EQ on your Fractal for that but it's not something you can access on the fly in a few seconds between songs. It takes a lot of clicks to get there before you adjust a single thing.
 
axes said:
The point of the LXII is being as transparent as possible. As soon as you engage the Presence/Depth it becomes a colored PA tone which would not be necessary/preferable in case of a modeled power amp characteristic.
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axes said:
The point of the LXII is being as transparent as possible. As soon as you engage the Presence/Depth it becomes a colored PA tone which would not be necessary/preferable in case of a modeled power amp characteristic.
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I guess im in the minority here, I want the fryette power amps flavor, for its flavor. Anyone who has ever used their amps preamp with a fryette power amp knows what I’m talking about: it makes everything better. I do this all the time, but often with my driftwood purple nightmares power amp ( which is incredible). I have yet to find an amp that DOESNT sound better when using a fryette power amp, the axe is probably no different.
 
laxu said:
I think he has talked about it in some of Fryette's live streams. Apparently their users would not typically adjust those controls much if at all so they thought, why not just put the trimmers where they are most convenient in the circuit for minimal noise and just provide a front panel toggle for them.

I still think it's a stupid design. I found myself tweaking the presence/depth on my Fryette PS-100 at least a bit here and there. It would be an easy way to do a little bit of sound tweaking for e.g different venues, setting it all up in soundcheck vs how it sounds with a room full of people etc.

Sure, you would get more mileage using global EQ on your Fractal for that but it's not something you can access on the fly in a few seconds between songs. It takes a lot of clicks to get there before you adjust a single thing.
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Exactly, it’s stupid. Usually stuff like this doesn’t bother me at all, but this one does big time. Enough that I won’t buy one more than likely and will wait until I can get a 2902.

Again, I’ve yet to make an amp worse with a fryette power amp, OR when cranking up its own presence and depth knobs.
 
VESmedic said:
I guess im in the minority here, I want the fryette power amps flavor, for its flavor. Anyone who has ever used their amps preamp with a fryette power amp knows what I’m talking about: it makes everything better. I do this all the time, but often with my driftwood purple nightmares power amp ( which is incredible). I have yet to find an amp that DOESNT sound better when using a fryette power amp, the axe is probably no different.
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Sure, I agree. Still, the LXII was designed with especially this use case (amplifying a modeler) in mind so that's why they didn't really care about access to Presence and Depth.
 
I've been using an LXII for about 3 years now. The presence and depth locations are a little frustrating, but I only really use them when playing at near conversation volume level at most. I would rather dial in the EQs on my fractal units to get right where I want that bottom end to be.

Anyways, as much as I enjoy it, the unit has been finicky for me a few times, sometimes in ways that I haven't completely sussed out yet or have just avoided. I had on e pretty big failure where an internal power connection coming directly off the mains fried. According to my amp tech, the small plastic connectors just weren't up to handling that much voltage, so he hard wired the connection instead. He was interested in the unit, but also point out some design compromises to keep things lightweight and easy to manufacture. More recently, I tried to run into a single cabinet in bridge mode, but had some really weird static-y sounds when I hit the low E string. Changed back to stereo and only using one channel, the noise was gone. So now no more bridge mode. Oh well.

I find the unit to be a bit bright overall, and often have my output EQs with a sizeable boost somewhere in the low range, and a broad high-shelf bringing the top end down a little bit. I almost exclusively play clean/EOB and low gain sounds, and actually prefer a little looser bottom end. This could be also be partially based on how I dial in my patches, as I try to tighten up the bottom end more for my direct FOH signal.

Pic of the unit in a single space Case Smith Custom rack:
 
I love using the LXII, sounds great!

I tend to agree with sprint & axes comments "the LXII was designed with especially this use case (amplifying a modeler)", which is why I swapped out a couple of v30's for Celestion F12-X200's in a Mesa 2x12 cab. It is a match perfect for the intended purpose of the LXII IMHO.

I tweaked the Presence and depth knobs before it went into a rack and use a foot switch to engage/disengage. They're designed to be set & forget.
I vaguely recall Steven saying the reasoning for the positioning was to fit everything into the 1u rack form factor, with the limited real estate available behind the front panel. For someone like Iaxu's needs, I can understand the limitations of not having knobs readily available.

I've had no problem with running in bridge mode and find 100w plenty loud enough for stage volume, and that's only using 2x12's. Any louder, I'd be deaf within a week.

As someone stated earlier, if any more volume is needed, get a larger PA. Add a fold-back wedge (or 2) as well if necessary (Grab some earplugs too).
 
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Zedhed said:
I love using the LXII, sounds great!

I tend to agree with axes comments "the LXII was designed with especially this use case (amplifying a modeler)", which is why I swapped out a couple of v30's for Celestion F12-X200's in a Mesa 2x12 cab. It is a match perfect for the intended purpose of the LXII IMHO.

I tweaked the Presence and depth knobs before it went into a rack and use a foot switch to engage/disengage. They're designed to be set & forget.
I vaguely recall Steven saying the reasoning for the positioning was to fit everything into the 1u rack form factor, with the limited real estate available behind the front panel. For someone like Iaxu's needs, I can understand the limitations of not having knobs readily available.

I've had no problem with running in bridge mode and find 100w plenty loud enough for stage volume, and that's only using 2x12's. Any louder, I'd be deaf within a week.

As someone stated earlier, if any more volume is needed, get a larger PA. Add a fold-back speaker (or 2) as well if necessary (Grab some earplugs too).
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Are you using IRs with the F12-x200s?
 
If I need to be loud I’m bringing my Germino Club 40 and Lead 55 and leaving my FM9 home. My FM9 sounds pretty great through my PA-100. I can still peel paint with the Fryette and FM9.
 
Shask said:
I have been curious about the differences between them.
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I haven't owned the Syn but reading up on the topic tells me people usually thought it was less lively and colder sounding - this is pretty much in line with my experiences with the Syn50 head which I've actually owned and found quite cold sounding, especially with british-style preamp modules (Friedman, Plexi, etc).
 
My favorite amp for the FM9 is the power section of an EVH 50W head.

Any of you LXII users ever compare? I'm just curious because the 50W EVH heads seem to work so damn well for me--better than any other amp FX loops I've tried, and I've tried quite a few including an EVH 100W head. I've been guessing it's because the loops on the 50W heads aren't tube-buffered, but that's just a guess.
 
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