Headrush FRFR Go review – “An idea so good it’s amazing nobody has thought of this sooner”
$149/£149, headrushfx.com
Amps, they’re something of a dirty word these days, aren’t they? We live in an age when many guitar players are ditching big rigs and big onstage volume for the more predictable and portable world of amp pedals, modellers and the like – but what do you do when you get home?
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Because it’s all well and good having a meticulously crafted pedalboard with your UA Dream or Quad Cortex sitting at the end of it putting out perfectly realised sonic nirvana when you’re running into the PA or a big ol’ powered cab at a show… but where does that leave you when you want to practice or jam in the sanctity of your own home? Your options up until this point have been compromised at best.
You could bypass your amp pedal and go into a traditional practice amp of course, but that might throw off the whole balance of your signal chain. You can play through headphones, but how many of us really want to do that all the time? If you happen to have a home recording set up you could run them through flat-response studio monitors… but they’re not designed for that.
Image: Adam Gasson
Then there’s the FRFR powered cab solution. Plenty of guitar players use this for gigs, but by and large these cabs are designed for the stage and are equal parts massive and loud – hardly the preserve of the bedroom or spare room. They’re also pretty damn expensive – costing significantly more than similarly-sized regular speaker cabs.
If only then, someone would design a compact and portable FRFR cab that was designed to facilitate easy and enjoyable home practice for players using some sort of floor-based amplification solution. And it wouldn’t hurt if it was affordable.
Oh, Headrush! Thank goodness you’re here…
Headrush FRFR Go – what is it?
Headrush was one of the first brands to cotton on to the need for guitar players to have quality powered cabs – as befits a company that grew out of the DigiDesign Eleven high-end amp software.
The company quickly earned itself a rep for its quality guitar-specific full range flat response cabinets that had such clever additions as basic tone shaping and Bluetooth for running backing tracks and the like. But there were two issues with the existing design for practice purposes – their size, and at 2000 watts they’re pretty damn loud for using at home.
Image: Adam Gasson
The imaginatively named FRFR Go solves pretty much all those problems straight out of the gate. It’s a 30-watt FRFR cabinet that’s a hair smaller than a Positive Grid Spark, weighs a little over 7lbs, and has a built-in rechargeable battery that offers over 12 hours playing time. And it costs under $150.
Like its bigger brothers, the FRFR Go can hook up to your phone via Bluetooth for streaming music and backing tracks, and also has both 3.5mm aux in and headphones out. You also get the ability to tweak your final tone on the amp with a simple treble and bass EQ stack, plus knobs to control the input level and the overall master volume. There’s even a carry handle on the top so you can take it anywhere – magic.
Headrush FRFR Go – usability and sounds
The FRFR Go is not a complicated beast, and that’s absolutely to its credit. You don’t need to pair it up with an app or anything first, simply plug in your amp pedal or modeller of choice and go at it.
Pairing your phone via Bluetooth is equally straightforward – just hit the pairing button next to the Bluetooth status LED, find it on your phone and you’re sorted. There’s no way to tweak the input volume level for music on the cab itself, so you’ll have to do that on your device, but the input volume from the guitar side makes it pretty simple to balance your levels on the fly.
I ran various pedalboard amp solutions into the FRFR Go over the course of my test, including Neural DSP’s Nano Cortex, a Walrus ACS-1 and a couple of different UAFX amp modellers (the Ruby and the Knuckles if you’re interested), and broadly I was pretty damn impressed with the powered cab’s delivery of the sounds.
The FRFR Go features a pair of 3-inch speakers and a large rear bass port to deliver shimmering cleans and densely saturated high-gain chugs to your ears. The bass response in particular is satisfyingly punchy for something so small. It doesn’t quite do the same ‘magic trick’ thing that Positive Grid’s Spark 2 does in terms of making it feel like you’re in the room with a real big amp, but that’s offset by the flexibility of what you can run into it – the ability to run something as powerful and high quality as a Quad Cortex or a UAFX pedal in a bedroom environment is quite a thing.
Image: Adam Gasson
The 30 watts of juice isn’t a lot in this realm – and it’s worth noting that this comes down to 25 watts when you’re running on battery – but it’s plenty loud enough for the bedroom, living room and possibly even for relatively polite busking or coffee shop-type gigs. It definitely isn’t loud loud however – and I did notice a little bit of distortion creeping in with the volume dimed, and there’s a very low level background hiss to be mindful of too – weirdly this seems to get louder when playing off the battery.
Another thing to be aware of is the stereo situation. While the FRFR Go has two speakers and will play back music in glorious stereo, the guitar input is strictly mono. However, if you don’t fancy buying a pair of these cabs for ping-pong delay delights, there is a workaround of sorts. A TRS cable into the FRFR Go’s stereo aux input will get your multi-effects stereo algorithms shining, but you’ll need a ¼-inch to 3.5mm adapter or minijack Y cable.
In terms of build, it’s pretty rock solid – the Marshall-style knobs are rugged and dependable, the rubber carry handle is comfortable and the MDF cab is nicely covered in black tolex.
Headrush FRFR Go – should I buy one?
Sometimes a product comes along and makes you ask, ‘How on earth hasn’t anyone thought of this before?’ The FRFR Go is emphatically one of these – and it’s a remarkable situation that we’ve got this deep into the pedalboard amp fad without another company coming up with something similar.
The FRFR Go is not suitable for gigging in any meaningful way, but that’s akin to criticising a Fiat 500 for not having enough boot space. It’s designed for you to use your amp modellers at home without having to resort to headphones, and it does that with aplomb.
The convenience of it being battery (or mains) powered is another huge plus if your living situation makes finding peace to play guitar a bit of a struggle – it also could be a boon for songwriting sessions or even drummer-free band practices.
The price is also pretty stellar – it’s $50 cheaper than any other FRFR powered cab I could find out there and several hundred bucks cheaper than most of the big brand competition. It bears repeating that it’s amazing that nobody thought to do this before, but we can all be glad Headrush got there in the end.
Headrush FRFR Go – alternatives
There aren’t really any other small, portable FRFR cabs out there, so if you’re looking for alternatives you’re probably looking for a bigger unit – and a more expensive one at that – the next cheapest option is Valeton’s 1,000-watt VFR-110 FRFR ($249/£229). Positive Grid’s Spark Cab ($299/£289) offers a wealth of input and output options, and can run line and mic-level inputs – it’ll also charge your phone! The most ‘normal’ looking FRFR cab is Fender’s Tone Master FR-10 ($519.99/£439) – it’s a powerful beast, but it looks like a regular Fender black panel amp.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
