REVIEW: Red Sound MF.10 FRFR versus Matrix GT1000FX with real guitar cab

JanHaakma

Member
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Well...

Spent quite some time today comparing and testing amp/cab setups. I have been A-B'ing between the Red Sound MF.10 stereo set (cab simulation active) and the Matrix plus HOOK 1x12" cab (cab simulation bypassed).

To me it's really quite obvious: the FRFR sounds (and feels!) 'boxier' and more lifeless than the real guitar cab. The guitar cab sounds way more open and dynamic to me. The FRFR kind of sounds like there's a blanket over the speakers, only when turned quite LOUD this gets out of the way a bit.

The guitar cab does have a little sizzle in the highs sometimes, I think I can eq that out.

To be honest I was not expecting this... And take into account that I was even comparing a full stereo set to a mono 1x12" guitar cab! I reckon a stereo pair of HOOK cabs would only get better. So I'm quite sure I'll get another HOOK 1x12".
 
I know I was comparing two different things. But the Red Sound aims to be kind of ‘the same’ as what I was comparing it to... A guitar cab backline.

So I’m not sure I understand what you mean: to me this is the comparison that matters.
Not really. The MF.10 aims to be the best FRFR on the market. And I think it gets there pretty well.
That is a very different thing from a guitar cab :)
 
Not really. The MF.10 aims to be the best FRFR on the market. And I think it gets there pretty well.
That is a very different thing from a guitar cab :)
Well.. they also advertise it as the ultimate ‘amp in the room’ experience. In my experience, it not that great at giving you that experience.

So for people who’d expect it to be totally amp in the room like: you’d better get a good solid state power amp (like the Matrix) and use a real guitar cab or two. Cab sims turned off, of course.
 
Well.. they also advertise it as the ultimate ‘amp in the room’ experience. In my experience, it not that great at giving you that experience.

So for people who’d expect it to be totally amp in the room like: you’d better get a good solid state power amp (like the Matrix) and use a real guitar cab or two. Cab sims turned off, of course.
That all depends on your presets and IR‘s.
I can easily nail the sound of my Friedman with it‘s matching 4x12 Cab and an late 60‘s AC30 with the Redsounds.
 
Well.. they also advertise it as the ultimate ‘amp in the room’ experience. In my experience, it not that great at giving you that experience.

So for people who’d expect it to be totally amp in the room like: you’d better get a good solid state power amp (like the Matrix) and use a real guitar cab or two. Cab sims turned off, of course.
Your comparison is a lot closer than a lot I've seen....where people try to compare a cab to running through their studio monitors set up for stereo monitoring. That will never sound like a cab in the room...and the better your room is, the weirder it'll sound.

And I firmly believe that if you like this, you like this. But the mono vs stereo is actually a big deal. The FRFRs are just speakers. I've done stereo and wet/dry with FRFR speakers....and it's always harder to set up 2 speakers than it is to set up one. People really discount the acoustic effects of running speakers like this.

FWIW, I also don't quite understand how people deal with those issues from running multiple cabs. Every time I've tried, unless one of them is kill-dry/wet-only, I wind up moving them around the room an inch or so at a time and flipping phase to get the bass and the high-end to sound right. It's simpler to just not use stereo and deal with wet+dry summing in electronics rather than in the room. But...that's also just my preference.

IME, almost any single speaker run correctly (more or less like you did) sounds like a guitar cab. But to really do a direct A/B, you have to compare 1-to-1 or 2-to-2 and have them physically in the same place....which is a huge PITA.

I'm pretty sure it was JBL that did some research with something like that for hi-fi speakers where they had them all on a big turntable so they could keep the placement the same, and the whole thing was behind an acoustically neutral screen so the listeners couldn't see the speakers they were listening to.....I don't remember what they were testing or what their results were, but IMO those are the ridiculous lengths you have to go to in order to actually do apples-to-apples comparisons between speakers.

Or just use whatever you like and accept that you might like one thing over another due to some variable you didn't control for rather than because of real differences between them.
 
Well.. they also advertise it as the ultimate ‘amp in the room’ experience. In my experience, it not that great at giving you that experience.

So for people who’d expect it to be totally amp in the room like: you’d better get a good solid state power amp (like the Matrix) and use a real guitar cab or two. Cab sims turned off, of course.
Totally agree with you. I have an FM10 original, not the g66 version. Cuts great and nice through any band mix due a kind of mid boost. Stand alone I confirm it tends to sound a bit boxy and too focused. Anywa it t is no comparison with a CLR, the CLR sounds better imho. Wish I could try your setup btw, guess that sounds killer.
 
FWIW, I also don't quite understand how people deal with those issues from running multiple cabs. Every time I've tried, unless one of them is kill-dry/wet-only, I wind up moving them around the room an inch or so at a time and flipping phase to get the bass and the high-end to sound right. It's simpler to just not use stereo and deal with wet+dry summing in electronics rather than in the room. But...that's also just my preference.
This is my solution to this problem:
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It doesn't exactly do ping-pong echoes the way that you probably expect (they end up with as much of a forward/back spatial position as left/right), but the modulation effects fill the room in 3D....
 
I know I was comparing two different things. But the Red Sound aims to be kind of ‘the same’ as what I was comparing it to... A guitar cab backline.

So I’m not sure I understand what you mean: to me this is the comparison that matters.
You are using an IR into an FRFR speaker cabinet... That is a mic'd cab compared to a real cab. Regardless of claims it will never sound the same.
 
You are using an IR into an FRFR speaker cabinet... That is a mic'd cab compared to a real cab. Regardless of claims it will never sound the same.
As Jan said.. at higher levels this difference tends to disappear. I experienced that too, but at home and small rehearsals you can't make that for your fellow musicians. Maybe one of these small floor frfr amps yek presented a long time ago with a 1x12 cab can help for these situations, mono but that's all right.
 
This is my solution to this problem:
1112211149a_HDR.jpg


It doesn't exactly do ping-pong echoes the way that you probably expect (they end up with as much of a forward/back spatial position as left/right), but the modulation effects fill the room in 3D....
What am I looking at here? Are you using the stacked amps on the side and what looks like an FRFR with a built-in amp? Or are you downmixing to mono?
You are using an IR into an FRFR speaker cabinet... That is a mic'd cab compared to a real cab. Regardless of claims it will never sound the same.
I used to think that. Now...I'm not so sure.

As long as you don't push the mic pres nonlinear, the biggest impact of the mic/pre/etc. is just as another EQ you don't control. It seems like they do fine once you set the speaker up right.
 
A close mic on a speaker is very different than hearing the same speaker in a room.
Like I said, I used to really believe that. I still may. But, it seems like once you account for the speaker interacting with the room and the level....it's not as different as it appears from a naive comparison of just recording and listening through monitors.
 
What am I looking at here? Are you using the stacked amps on the side and what looks like an FRFR with a built-in amp? Or are you downmixing to mono?

I used to think that. Now...I'm not so sure.

As long as you don't push the mic pres nonlinear, the biggest impact of the mic/pre/etc. is just as another EQ you don't control. It seems like they do fine once you set the speaker up right.
CPS Spacestation XL.
 
The point to me is having something that sounds and feels like an amp, solely for myself as a musician.

I was not looking for something PA-like, I don’t really care about al those terms like FRFR and ‘miced up sound’. Just want a good sound & feel for myself and let the FOH guys take care of the PA (miced up) sound.

If I may ask: what is (for a guitarist) the point of having a PA speaker in an amp form?
 
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