Fender FR-12 preamp mod : The Hissterectomy

aflynt said:
Fair point. I watched a bunch of SOIC SMD soldering videos before I did mine and thought “this is cake, I can do that no sweat.” Then 1 1/2 hours of swearing and bleary-eyed hallucinations later I had the equivalent of Homer Simpson’s BBQ Grill steaming in a pile of flux on my bench. o_O

-Aaron
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My soldering joints look identical to your avatar :tearsofjoy:
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
Packed by Schrödinger, was it?
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Admittingly, I had to look that up.

"Schrödinger's Cat is a thought experiment devised by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, which he designed to illustrate a paradox of quantum superposition wherein a hypothetical cat may be considered both alive and dead simultaneously because its fate is linked to a random event that may (or may not) occur."

Now I'm even more confused :tearsofjoy:.
 
I ordered an FR12 in November and just got it this past week. It is so quiet I suspect they silently fixed the issue. I was expecting much worse. I did have a friend drop by who also got an FR10 - and his was about 3-4 db louder than mine - but not bad too bad.

 
Nimbas said:
I ordered an FR12 in November and just got it this past week. It is so quiet I suspect they silently fixed the issue. I was expecting much worse. I did have a friend drop by who also got an FR10 - and his was about 3-4 db louder than mine - but not bad too bad.

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Interesting, I got first the batch from musicians friend and the pair I have measured quieter than all the others.
 
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I have decided to return the FR-10 I purchased last week, which does have the hiss. Although it does sound good at volume, the hiss is quite noticeable when quiet. I apparently got an early model, as the date on the box is 202307 (July 2023). My music store is notifying the Fender rep., and will request a late model replacement.

As there was no FR-12 available, I could not perform a comparison, and would like to know if any here on this forum have had that opportunity to try both and get some assessment of the differences and any preferences. Thanks.
 
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Tomr said:
I have decided to return the FR-10 I purchased last week, which does have the hiss. Although it does sound good at volume, the hiss is quite noticeable when quiet. I apparently got an early model, as the date on the box is 202307 (July 2023). My music store is notifying the Fender rep., and will request a late model replacement.

As there was no FR-12 available, I could not perform and comparison, and would like to know if any here on this forum have had that opportunity to try both and get some assessment of the differences and any preferences. Thanks.
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I had a FR-12 and two FR-10s at the same time. I only briefly got to test the two before I returned the FR-12. The FR-12 had a little more bass to it, but not a huge amount - maybe a little "fuller" sounding perhaps? I kept the two FR-10s due to lack of space and returned the 12. I would have liked to have had two FR-12s but I have no room for them. I think the FR-10s are more than adequate for my use.
 
mtb said:
I had a FR-12 and two FR-10s at the same time. I only briefly got to test the two before I returned the FR-12. The FR-12 had a little more bass to it, but not a huge amount - maybe a little "fuller" sounding perhaps? I kept the two FR-10s due to lack of space and returned the 12. I would have liked to have had two FR-12s but I have no room for them. I think the FR-10s are more than adequate for my use.
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Anyone actually shoot the Frequency Responses of these 2 units?
 
Patzag said:
Thanks. I was looking for the comparison between FR 10 and FR 12.
I have a space problem so my order is going to be FR10s, but I don't want to lose fidelity.
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I think my next one will be a 10. And then either a second 12 ..or a second 10. I want a stereo matching pair eventually. Not sure yet which will win.
 
WKSmith said:
I think my next one will be a 10. And then either a second 12 ..or a second 10. I want a stereo matching pair eventually. Not sure yet which will win.
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I currently have 2 - FR12's but there was a cross over period of days when I was swapping units and had a FR10 with a FR12 and I really liked the combo. The directness of the FR10 with the increased bass response of the FR12. Not by any means a scientific observation more just how it felt
 
WKSmith said:
Yep I have a thread around here somewhere.

View attachment 133227
Here is the stock FR-12 baseline
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Can you help me interpret this?

The red trace is EQ knobs on 5. Is this the nominally neutral setting?

The blue trace is "EQ applied." Was the red trace without EQ applied? What EQ settings were applied for this measurement?
 
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