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Rock aficionados have heaped boatloads of acclaim upon Dave Friedman’s BE preamp topology—praised for years as one of the most delectable “modified-Marshall-style” lead channels around. This Marshall model 2203-derived circuit has been reconfigured into several Friedman models over the years, but it has typically appeared in beastly 100-watt iterations like the BE-100. The BE-50 Deluxe changes all that by packaging three distinct channels into a versatile 50-watt head that Friedman calls “my most flexible design yet.”
It’s true: There are a lot of knobs on this thing. But approach the 3-channel design one step at a time, and it makes sense pretty quickly. There are two independent EQ stages: one for the clean channel, and one shared by the two lead channels. Each has bass, middle and treble controls. While the clean channel has a single volume control, the two lead channels—the standard BE channel and high-gain HBE—each have dedicated gain and master controls. All share a trio of output-stage controls labeled presence, response (negative-feedback-loop level), and thump (a resonance or deep control). The two-button footswitch (included) allows selection between the clean and lead blocks and the lead channel’s two gain levels (HBE is labeled “boost” on the footswitch).
The clean channel’s preamp is lifted from Friedman’s Buxom Betty, a non-master-volume amp that delivers bold, sparkling, American-meets-British clean tones that get a little crunchy when you push it hard. True to form, there’s no master volume on the BE-50’s clean channel, either, though it does have a 3-way bright switch to tailor the sparkle. A full-/half-power switch on the back panel means the two EL34 tubes can be run in pentode/full-power mode or in triode mode for a more club-friendly 25 watts. Four 12AX7s drive the preamp and phase-inverter.
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