Deadpool_25
Fractal Fanatic
Well that would be new for them.
Well that would be new for them.
Any decent floor monitor, the redsound products, Atomic... it never came to my mind to modify class D amps, technically speaking it's more risky than modifying tube amps. Anyway.. "let it be"...and "we're living in a free world".
What makes modifying a class D amp more risky than modding a tube amp?
Smd mount electronics. PWM circuits close to not repairable and risk of smoking the Amp as one component failure often induces the failure of other components. I use class D amps for years now, as almost any solid state Amp nowadays is class D, but when it fails you almost can be sure it ends up in Africa on the electronics belt. Close to no energy stored in the circuits makes them also less adapted to guitar than class A/B Amps, less "bass thump". It's there, a bit, they're bloody efficient, nobody will ever say "your sound is class D Amp" but still there's no comparison to their historical predecessors.
...if there might be tweed coming, I will "need" one of those as well.
Still brainstorming on this 1/4" hum problem. Have you or anybody else here by chance tried a Variac or a AmpRX Brown Box to dial in a voltage variance going to the main amp and seeing if the hum on 1/4" cable can be eliminated that way? Wonder if that might make a difference. I hardly have any electronics know how so these are just inexperienced guesses at best but sure would be interesting to try anyway. I don't have either one of the above or I would try it myself for everybody. I probably should get one at some point!This is going in the manual
My latest stock FR-10 with the 3 ICs swapped for the half a$$ed hiss fix sounds pretty nasty. It starts clipping at 9:00 with the FM9 at 3:00 like a harsh overdrive. (the last preamp amp stage is an actual tube screamer 4558 IC) . And the 5-7k highs have been knocked down a lot
It still has a small bit of hiss from the horn at the highest and most irritating frequencies.
The V2 lifts the blanket off ..and the clipping is tamed down a ton. And the hiss from the horn is gone. The hiss is pretty much entirely gone...unless you run the eq wide open. Don't do that. This isn't VanHalen level amplification.
There is an unresolved issue with the FRs though. If you plug in a 1/4 jack for input it will have a low level hum. Balanced, unbalanced, whatever. It has a small ground loop hum using the 1/4 input. It will do this on a stock pre or a V2.
Use a balanced XLR input. It sounds awesome. I don't care what the manual says. The FRs have a floating chassis ground independent from the 0v preamp ground. There is a major design flaw in the input board.
It is what it is. Don't use 1/4" inputs into the FR balanced or otherwise (not even humbuster) . I didn't build the input board or power supply. We are all still dealing with some stupid outside of the preamp circuit.
You can build a dummy 1/4" plug with the tip grounded to the sleeve ..plug it in and it will hum. Any 1/4 plug really. No wires needed. Insert it and hummm. Try it, it's great
Full galvanic transformer isolation won't even fix it. More really dumb $#!+ . Just don't use a 1/4" input. Act like it's not even there.
And my personal thanks to @Patzag and @lscottk for helping me work out all possible causes of hum in the V2
and to @LolainNB for the reminder that we can still bring some hiss back by diming out all of the cascaded EQ gain stages. Which is not cool at all.
I really appreciate the feedback from everyone that got in on the first batch of handmade V2s. You helped make hundreds of the next V2s sound amazing.
It's a really tiny hum. Just with the 1/4 input of the combo input jack. European power supplies may be immune to it. I have only seen US spec'd power supply boards though.
I have had luck using this line isolator, converting my 1/4 to XLR. It took care of the 1/4 hum for me, which I agree is tiny anyway.
I agree. It's such a tiny hum and only when cranked. Not a major deal at all but was just trying to help. Thanks for sharing the line isolator. Just checked it out and read about it.
I could be mistaken as I’m just a lowly guitarist with no real electronics chops, but this mod is only swapping out the preamp - it’s not changing anything about the power amp. Even if the power amp is class D, if you’re not modding the power amp itself, it seems like a pretty low risk mod? Or do I have it wrong?
They're mostly already awesome on the 2nd gen models (mainly just the flanger block which was rewritten, and then adding the harmonic trem was a solid). I got a small taste of it with the FM3. I think I'm ready to move up.Updated F/X are monster …
