Friedman IR-X Dual Tube Preamp

I bought this to try and at first I did not like it. The factory IR’s weren’t appropriate for my taste. I purchased some trusted third party IR’s and with those you can make this unit very versatile. All it takes is some good quality 2x12 cab sims for Ch1 and you can even get edge of breakup cleamish sound. For Ch2 some additional 4x12’s capturing Marshall, Mesa or Orange cabs make a difference especially if you A/B those with factory cabs. You can also switch the pedal cab sims off and connect to an OX Stomp or similar. For home studio the Synergy modules sound a bit better but for pedal board direct applications this actually works.

Overall I think that the idea of a tube preamp with digital output for modern usage at home, for recordings and on stage is great and I would be happy to see more products like this from other companies.

In this particular case we have great sounding device with some flaws that need to be addressed. First problem is a lack of grounding when you are using device standalone with an ac adapter that comes with the preamp. The noise is significant and there is a great chance your dedicated pedal power supply wouldn’t be able to handle it because Friedman requires 800mA and 9-12 volts (which is great on the other side, tubes require power) so please consider that. However when you go to the audio interface it’s usually grounded and you have relatively low hum. Also hp output and balanced output sound different, hp being more bright.

Other thing that can be improved is software. It feels outdated in terms of user experience. The ir uploading process is clunky, and it’s not very easy to go through you library of irs to choose what fits best. The toggles are not showing what they are actually doing so you don’t know if you’ve switched off brightness or went to position I. Firmware updates automatically and no one asks you if you’ve switched off want to do it, but to update the app you have to go to the Friedman website and download it.

Boost setting on the side of the preamp are plastic, very small and are hard to turn. Looks like they are made for a screwdriver, but I didn’t want to mess with them with a screwdriver because they are plastic and the screwdriver probably will damage them so I’ve never used them.

Would be great if the preamp felt a little more expensive, I think it deserves it.

Overall I recommend it. In my opinion it’s better than digital emulations, more natural and organic sounding. It’s good, but still a full sized 100w amp head would beat it, so if someday it can be on par it would be awesome. For now relatively easy fixes are power supply and software. Can’t wait to see updates for this product.