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Post subject: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2012 10:53 am
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Guys. I've been playing for a loooooonnggggg time. In fact, I played the gig when we skinned the last wooly mammoth for amp covers.

When you play ANY amp, it has certain strengths and weaknesses. That was one of the reasons I gigged with three amps 10 years ago. I worked with the strengths of each amp and tried to minimize its weaknesses.

The Mustang III has weaknesses. It has strengths. Work with the latter, and avoid the former.

My main Strat has EMGs with active EQ. Like any sane guitar player, I picked the highest gain model, cranked everything to "11" on both the amp and guitar, and marveled at how (#$@#$ confused the amp modeler got (saw WHAT?? You are giving me HOW MANY dB boost?? And then you want me to to WHAT??? Get serious, I'm a COMPUTER Jim, not a VALVE!!!)

So. I rolled off the gain and boosts and found that spot where I got a pretty good sound. That being said, I am NOT a high gain player. I do mostly clean with some dirt and crunch. But, I wanted to test the limits of the MIII.

Remember. This is NOT a valve amp. It is a computer sitting in front of a solid state 100w amp. If you expect it to behave like even an analog solid state amp, you will have problems. If you expect it to behave like a valve amp, you may also have problems. It sorta DOES, which is why I bought this over a solid state amp.

It is what it is. And it is absolutely, drop dead dirt cheap. I played it next to a '65 Deluxe last week. Did it have the complexity of the Deluxe? No. Clearly not. Did it hold its own? Absolutely. Tone is primarily in the hands anyway. The only two people who could tell the difference were the guitar geeks on stage anyway. The audience? They didn't give a <beep> about the difference. They were there for the music.

I think we sometimes expect far, far too much for $300 (my last serious gig rig set me back 10x that just for the amps, can't even estimate effects, cabling, routing, and hernia surgery from hauling this crap all over hell and back for smaller club gigs).

If I ever find that this amp won't do something I want, I'll either try something else or pick up another amp that will do what I'm after...(ain't no one size fits all amp anywhere, and never has been).


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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2012 3:41 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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:shock: THANK YOU! ...at least someone else finally gets it...

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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 2:47 am
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+1


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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:42 am
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Thank you Mr Obvious. Could you be more condescending???

I got rid of the Mustang III because of the unbearable fizz and I am no teenager and have played just about every high end amp in existence on stage and in too many venues or stage to keep track off, until my back could not take those 100 pounds monsters anymore and switched to modellers as stage amps, and no I am not talking about Axefx, plain old cheap Line6 pod, I am no millionaire.

My mustang III fizzed BADLY, on any setting, clean or crunch or high gain, with a guitar with PASSIVE electronics, no boost and with Carvin C22N pickups so a PASSIVE pickup and NOT a high output pickup at that with volume at 1 on guitar and NO pedals.

I am not expecting the world here, just a decent solid state without fizz. My fender Mustang I, which I still have and use on daily basis for practice sounds great for the price and a 1000 times better than the III, just because you don't have that overpowered transformer fizz tail which is irritating beyond beliefs. Geez, even the JC120, the real amp, has a bad case of hiss and I can live with it because you don't really hear it when you play...can't say the same about that fizztang III.

You know, not everyone who has that fizz problem is a pimpled teenager expecting a Bogner or a Riviera for 300$.


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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:56 am
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What if it starts doing something it didn't do when you got it a week after it's too late to take it back and pick something else up?

zonetones wrote:

If I ever find that this amp won't do something I want, I'll either try something else or pick up another amp that will do what I'm after...(ain't no one size fits all amp anywhere, and never has been).


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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 1:09 pm
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vassago66 wrote:
Thank you Mr Obvious. Could you be more condescending???


Wow. That's a bit harsh. I didn't get that vibe at all from his post.

O.


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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 6:24 pm
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I did.

Guess it depends on whether you have a fizzing amp you can't use, especially when the defect doesn't appear until well beyond any vendors' return period and fender won't cover it under warranty. But those of you who don't have it or don't care or who, amazingly, can't seem to hear it, seem to think the rest of us are just crybabies.

Let's be plain. If you like the fizzing mustang III-V, keep it. No sufferer of the fizz is going to tell you to not like the amp. But don't tell those of us significantly affected by it -- and who have lost money because of it -- that we should just settle.

Got it? I suspect not. I still suspect a class action suit might be a wake-up call for Fender and if someone cares to file one, I have provable financial damages to claim.



Orcatraz wrote:
vassago66 wrote:
Thank you Mr Obvious. Could you be more condescending???


Wow. That's a bit harsh. I didn't get that vibe at all from his post.

O.


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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2012 8:02 pm
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Joined: Sat Jun 18, 2011 4:31 am
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I agree that the OP is being rather condescending.


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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 8:00 am
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Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:26 am
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vassago66 wrote:
Thank you Mr Obvious. Could you be more condescending???

I got rid of the Mustang III because of the unbearable fizz and I am no teenager and have played just about every high end amp in existence on stage and in too many venues or stage to keep track off, until my back could not take those 100 pounds monsters anymore and switched to modellers as stage amps, and no I am not talking about Axefx, plain old cheap Line6 pod, I am no millionaire.

My mustang III fizzed BADLY, on any setting, clean or crunch or high gain, with a guitar with PASSIVE electronics, no boost and with Carvin C22N pickups so a PASSIVE pickup and NOT a high output pickup at that with volume at 1 on guitar and NO pedals.

I am not expecting the world here, just a decent solid state without fizz. My fender Mustang I, which I still have and use on daily basis for practice sounds great for the price and a 1000 times better than the III, just because you don't have that overpowered transformer fizz tail which is irritating beyond beliefs. Geez, even the JC120, the real amp, has a bad case of hiss and I can live with it because you don't really hear it when you play...can't say the same about that fizztang III.

You know, not everyone who has that fizz problem is a pimpled teenager expecting a Bogner or a Riviera for 300$.


I don't know why this is hard for some folks to understand. :? But it is.


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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2012 3:15 pm
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Well I can say my Mustang III is an amazing bag of tricks. Especially for the street price of $300. It is the best modeler I have heard when connected from its cheap crappy plastic mini headphone jack into my board or an external amp. Tones kick the snot out of Line 6 stuff, especially for Fender cleans. The advanced amp settings are a bit of fun, the FX (except the weak OD) and noise gate is excellent.

What a great disappointment is that what sounds so good through that little headphone jack gets fizzed out a bit through the internal power amp. I am happy with it for what it cost. I will keep it because it still has value. In 30 years I have owned a large variety of great sounding tube amps that are generally one trick ponies, and a pain in the $@! and worthless at midnight home volumes, require mics for recording etc.. For performance I have other amps I can use when the fizz might suck too much. But it would be oh-so-nice if it didn't do that because the strength of this amp is really its clean tones (right up until you hear the fizz).

(I am actually a bit pissed because I sold three nice tube amps after getting the Mustang III but before I realized the fizz was not actually just a bad speaker (that I was waiting to maybe get worse before I took the bother to warranty it) but a power amp flaw.)

Now the fizz does not make the amp useless, far from it, but it is just ANNOYING and screams Cheap Chinese Amp! Still useful for the typical classic rock routine, but such a disappointment in the Jazz and clean blues department.

Ya know this fizz is NOT because its a modeler. Its because it has cheap and crappy components or a poor shortcut power amp design. I understand building to a price/profit point. This is exactly what I see.

I am tempted to take this in for a "repair" but why bother if it does no good. Has anyone ever successfully gotten one of these that does not fizz? I am not sure if people know how to get the fizz. Its easy. Dial up a clean factory preset like the default 0 and dial a gain of maybe 3, a fairly medium volume setting, then a low master vol setting (like just enough to hear it). Play a B or B flat on your low E string and let it sustain until you have your fizz. Does anyone really have one of these amps that does not do this? Did you get it after exchanging it or was it always that way?

Did anybody one to a "Fender Authorized Service Center" for a successful "de-fizz" (I mean one that lasted)? Has anyone ever gotten a "credit" for purchasing a different Fender amp after fixes failed?

I can see already that the little mini headphone jack IS going to fail. I use it constantly to plug into my board. I might bump the plug I have in an adapter with a cable or something. I can see it coming. Really poor design, that jack should be 1/4 metal, in the back, would be way worth the extra $10 price it might cause from it likely $3 cost, easy.

Seriously, I would happily pay $200 more (street price) for one that has 1) a quality power amp with no fizz. 2) all Metal Connectors and Jacks, not plastic PC board mounted crap. This would include a 1/4 stereo line out / headphone. Also a Speaker Jack, with a 1/4 that the speaker plugs into the amp with, like most "real" amps I have ever owned. Also allowing connection to an alternate cab. A slightly better cabinet would be nice. Speaker mounting into particle board looks like an accident (not to mention noise) waiting to happen. Now then you would have a killer amp. I know Fender could do it, call it the Mustang Plus or something..


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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:27 am
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I've played every high end out there, too. The Mustang III fizz problem is real and simply should't be - even at this price point. The way Fender is handling it (bury head in sand) is worrisome at the very least and borderline criminal in my opinion.


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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 10:35 am
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Create a facebook social group already! lol

Seriously though, maybe if you create a "We want Support, Fender!" page or something, you might be surprised by the number of subscribers... Who knows if the numbers will then scare Fender and they'll do something about it... :roll:


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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2012 6:25 pm
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Hey one thing I just discovered is that the fizz is drastically reduced if you DO NOT use a cabinet setting (SET TO OFF). I have no problem with doing that on many of my presets - as long as they are for a 1x12 combo sim.

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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 6:41 am
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brucefulton wrote:
... I still suspect a class action suit might be a wake-up call for Fender and if someone cares to file one, I have provable financial damages to claim. ...
[/quote]

You forgot one thing.
In law, a class action, is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court (wiki source).

Since the fizz issue had started here, nothing was done...
Maybe you re just not so much after all.....

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Post subject: Re: A Serious Comment on "Fizz"
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 11:09 am
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FFXIhealer wrote:
:shock: THANK YOU! ...at least someone else finally gets it...


+1

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