NAD Framus Cobra V1

[Necky379]

So for honesty’s sake, this isn’t really a NAD for me, this thing showed up a couple weeks ago. But I’m familiar with it now, I’ve got some hours on it and I’d like to start a discussion. In another thread @DudeManBrother and I started talking about the Cobra but it wasn’t on topic so I decided to start a thread. It’s an amp people seem to disagree over.

Awhile back I started a thread looking for advice on what I should do to satisfy my Soldano gas after seeing High On Fire play. One of the options I brought up based on info I had read was the Framus Cobra. I was told in that thread the Cobra would be the least Soldano-like among amps I was considering. I did a lot of research, listened to a lot clips. In the end I decided I want a Soldano, not a copy not an amp that will sound like a Soldano. The prices right now for used Soldanos are crazy so as far as that goes I’m waiting for the new releases he’s doing this summer. With that put on the back burner I was still intrigued by the Cobra. It’s described as an improved Recto. I would call it that, it achieves the “Recto” sound that I could never seem to get with a Recto. It does what I’m looking for when I dial in a Recto and can never seem to get. One thing I’ll mention is that it uses EL34’s and I’ve never played an EL34 loaded Rectifier. Maybe that’s what the Rectifiers I couldn’t get along with were missing.







Everyone that has owned or read about the Cobra knows the effects loop sucks. I can’t believe an amp company would release an amp with this shit design. I know Rectifiers have shitty loops, I’ve read that SLO’s have shitty loops, my 5150 has a great loop. The 4 amps are related, the Cobra came out after the 5150, why not copy that loop? They must’ve had their reasons and I’m not an engineer but for Christ’s sakes the loop is useless they could’ve left it out completely IMO.

The clean channel is beautiful. It sounds better than the modified silver face Bassman I had. I don’t miss that thing anymore. It sounds Fender-y to me, not as bright as the Pro Reverb we have here and way more headroom than my Bassman had. Definitely an Easter egg, I was not expecting to ever like a high gain amp’s clean channel as much as I like this one.

Crunch channel is what I’m using. I have the mids lower than what most people post for settings. I’m running it through a 1960TV, that thing is all midrange, no need to have the mids turned up. Everyone says the Cobra was designed with G12M’s in mind, it’s true, it matches with that cab perfectly. I always crank the lows on any head I’ve put on that cab, the Cobra has an ungodly amount of lows where the greenies are lacking. With the volume up the speakers compress and it becomes apparent they voiced the amp for greenbacks. The low end the amp can put out is incredible. I’ve got the depth knob at 12 o’clock, any more is too much. Boosted with a GT-OD it’s perfection.

The lead channel I can take or leave. It’s good, there’s nothing wrong with it but IMO it’s truly a lead channel. I use my 5150 on the lead channel for everything, I would never use the Cobra lead channel for anything other than playing leads. It’s smooth and thick. TBH I haven’t spent as much time with it, now that I’ve got the Crunch channel dialed in I don’t have much interest in the lead channel. Maybe I’ll come back to it if anyone thinks I’m missing something.

I’m running it with my favorite amp my 5150. The 5150 is set up to grind and the Cobra pumps out lows and has the nice chime on top. I know 5150 + Recto is THE combo, I’ve tried it, it’s great, I like this combo better.

People seems to love or hate the Cobra. I read reliability horror stories, this is a V1 and it’s still going strong. The effects loop is a major disappointment, I run a noise gate in my 5150 loop and I wish I could run my other one in the Cobra loop but I can’t make it work. Instead of running my 2nd Endless Blockade in the loop I’m stuck using an NS-2 up front. I can deal with it, the Crunch channel is worth it. Anyone else still using a Cobra? Anyone get to play one before, what did you think?

 

[DudeManBrother]

I think it’s great that you’re loving it. I was hoping I would as well. If it didn’t sell so quickly I would have liked to roll tubes and see if that improved it. I still sometimes wonder if it just needed new tubes. If I ever find another under $600 like last time I’d probably give it another try. Ive already got the Recto sound covered with my Tremoverb, Archon, and Uberschall, but there’s always room for another great amp. The Cobra didn’t necessarily do it for me, but I wouldn’t say I hated it either. It was close, but not quite what I like tone wise.

 

[USMarine75]

I got rid of mine because I could never dial out the boomy bass. Admittedly I never tried an EQ pedal or mid/treble booster in front like a TS to help tame that bass. The Dragon was just so much more of what I wanted at the time, but like most of my gear I probably should have given it more play time. I never had it long enough to comment on reliability.

But I’m glad you’re loving yours. And yes that clean channel was really good.

 

[Necky379]

What cabs did you guys try it through when you had it? I like it best with an oversized Marshall with G12M’s.

 

[DudeManBrother]

I tried it with my Marshall 1960a with T75’s at that time, Peavey 5150 Cab with Sheffield’s (supposedly Greenback copies), Mesa 112 with C90, and Mesa 212 with V30’s

 

[Necky379]

Does the Dragon have less low end? I think one of reasons the Cobra pairs so well with G12M’s is because it has so much low end. It does get out of control quickly though I noticed. It actually starts to gurgle down low with too much dialed in. Little adjustments go a long way, the controls are sensitive and there’s plenty of terrible tones it’s capable of emitting. Once I finally found what I was looking for I was sold on the thing.

 

[sonoftheoldnorth]

Does the Dragon have less low end?

I have a Dragon and it has WAY too much low end and low mids. I'm running an OD808, the Bass at 4/10, the depth at 3.5/10 and I've EQ'd out some more flub from 60hz to like 300hz. The funny thing is, you can't just turn the bass knob right down, because anything below like 3.5/10 takes all the other frequencies with it.

Not sure what positions you are dialing in on the Cobra, but I have found the Volume knobs have to be really cranked 8-10/10 to get the best sound. Apparently the Cobra and Dragon are almost exactly the same amp, save for a few caps or something.

What don't you like about the loop? Apparently it was designed for rack gear? Have you tried the loop level trick for some extra volume and clarity, if you aren't using it?

 

[Necky379]

@sonoftheoldnorth I’ve got the channel volume knobs maxed out and the loop knob at 12 o’clock as suggested in other threads. 12 o’clock is the loop level trick right?

What I don’t like about the loop is that it’s a parallel loop that neuters the amp if it isn’t at 12 o’clock and that my noise gate doesn’t work with it. When I put my gate in there everything goes to shit, it’s like something is getting overloaded. I have a Recto preamp I’m going to be selling soon, that also has a similarly bad loop so I’m assuming it’s a design flaw. I use the same gate with my 5150 and the amp actually sounds better to me with it in the loop. I was looking forward to using one with the Cobra but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be possible. Have you had different results? Maybe I have a bad tube if the loop is tube driven? I didn’t think of that until just now, if I have a bad tube driving the loop and I swap it out will running a gate in the loop with the level knob maxed sound worse than nothing in the loop and the knob at 12? I don’t want to change the way the thing sounds in any way now that I have it set. It might make more sense to just leave it alone and run an NS-2 up front instead of a Blockade in the loop.

 

[wakjob]

Congrats!

Hands down the most brutal live sound I've ever heard.
I complimented the guitarist at the bar when they got off stage. He was still wicked excited about his new amp.

Good lord. It was like ripping a two inch thick piece of canvas a 1000' long.

And yes, he had the matching cab.

 

[sonoftheoldnorth]

@sonoftheoldnorth .

Yeah that's the trick.

I believe it's because the loop is setup for Line Level stuff like rack gear. My EQ pedal freaks out and clips too. I just ended up using a GSP1101 4cm and tbh the gate and EQ in there works for me. The plus side is; the Dragon channels can be controlled via MIDI and the GSP1101 plays well with it.
Maybe the pedal clipping can be remedied if there way to convert the pedal level to line level?

 

[Necky379]

Ebtech makes something I think but I’d be concerned with putting something in the loop that needs to have the knob maxed out. A gate isn’t going to work right with the knob at 12 o’clock and that really does make a big difference in sound. Is it less important if something is actually in the loop?

I don’t mind using a gate up front, it works just fine. If there’s something I don’t know though I’d like to try it at least, maybe I can use my nice gate in the loop.

 

[budda]

Can you not mod the loop?

 

[Shask]

I find this thread funny. I don't have a Cobra (always curious about them....), but because of all the loop talk! I have been researching loops all week, lol. That, and you mentioned Soldano. I have been drawing up some plans to mod the loops of my amps. I have a Jet City JCA100HDM, and the loop sucks. It overloads my Boss pedals in the same way you mention. It is like a fuzzy wall of mess. I decided to re-wire the amp, and after days of research I decided to do exactly what you said, lol... copy the 5150 loop, with the addition of a global Master. I have looked at like 20 different designs, but why not go with something known to work with anything?

My old Triple Recto has a parallel loop. I am going to mod it next week. I decided to leave it parallel though because I plan on using a G Major 2 with it. I wanna give it some more time because I don't think that is the real issue. The main issue is you lose all your bass when you use it, so I am going to change a part to fix that. I don't think parallel is your issue either. I think it is just set to line level, which don't play nice with Boss Pedals. You could probably mod it to instrument level if you really wanted to.

 

[Necky379]

I not opposed to mods. If I were to do it my main concern would be that it would change the way it sounds which I don’t want to do. Part of dialing it in is the “boost” you get by setting the loop knob at 12 o’clock.

I haven’t researched the circuit, I can understand the basics but circuit analysis is beyond what I’m capable of. Maybe this “boost” isn’t actually a boost, maybe higher or lower settings are actually removing gain from the base which is found at 12 o’clock? This would mean to me that if the circuit was modified to a serial loop that would permanently put it at that base level. Hopefully that makes sense, I’m having a hard time describing the thought.

@budda Let’s say I have it mod’ed to instrument level and insert my gate, being parallel I’d have to max out the loop knob for the gate to gate the full signal. That could potentially ruin my tone because the knob is no longer at 12 or it may not make any difference, I wouldn’t know unless I try it. I don’t want to experiment with my amp but I’m going to keep digging and see if I can come up with anything. Until then or maybe permanently, the NS-2 works fine.

 

[newamerikangospel]

My Framus Cobra is my desert island amp. Ruby el34bstr really set the amp up. I would recommend pulling your channel volume down a bit (3'oclock is minimum, but adjust as needed). My lead channel (dont know if it carries over for all cobras) has a weird thing where the bass knob seems to saturate, and moves the frequency up towards lower mids if you set it high (really close to max), and it causes the mid frequency to move up as well. So leaving the bass lower allows the amp to be more precise and cutting, with the bass higher it allows you to dial in a more riffy, low mid tone.

I do have a low gain tube in v3, so I dont know how much this contributes to the weird eq saturation, but it definitely helps tame the gain and overall high end of the lead channel (tames some of the crunch channel high end too)

 

[Necky379]

I’ll check that out on the lead channel, I still haven’t spent too much time with it, the Crunch channel is just so damn perfect. What would turning down my channel volume do? When I was dialing it in I just maxed it out and went right over to the eq knobs. I remember sweeping the channel volume knob a bit but more seemed better so I quickly set it to “all the channel volume” and didn’t do anything else with it. I’ve got the master volume up pretty loud to match the 5150.

 

[newamerikangospel]

On mine, after the 3'oclock sweet spot it starts to shape the sound. I feel like the channel volume can/does clip the v4. Probably why the mix knob sounds better at noon, because its clipping the v5 between the wet and dry signals. A lot of things on the amp affect others in weird, cumulative ways. I prefer the mix knob full for crunch, to darken it up, and noon for lead to give it more bite.

 

[Necky379]

That’s interesting, I’ll try it out. I’ve got to get new preamp tubes in it too after I get back from vacation. They aren’t microphonic or anything but they’re noisy and they’re EH’s. I’ve never swapped out EH preamp tubes before without thinking the sound improved.

 

[penguin_316]

I had one coming up on 15 years ago. It was very sick, the lead channel I always found as meh. The crunch channel with a boost was where it was at...but it didn’t need a boost really. I just preferred it with one.

I sold it because it would always get hot as shit and one day I looked inside to see the massive birds nest of Chinese factory wiring and figured it’d blow up on me.

Same story as one of those Madison Divinitys’ I had back in that time frame too. Got really hot really fast and had a rubber burning smell. Sold them both with the quickness, but I do always think about that Cobra.

 

[Necky379]

@penguin_316 Maybe someone was fucking around in there before you owned it? I looked up gut shots before I bought mine because I was a little bit concerned with reliability after reading different posts around. This isn’t my amp but the wiring doesn’t look too crazy in the pics I was looking at:


Compared to a Recto Rev F shot, the Cobra just has less components and zip ties:

5150ii uses a lot of ribbons and twists:




I really don’t know a lot about amp wiring but the Framus shots didn’t seem alarming. Not SLO clean but the routing looks somewhat thoughtful.

Also, yours was made in China? Mine says made in Germany on the back although I’d imagine Chinese components were used. I run mine at pretty loud volume for 30 minutes + when I use it and haven’t noticed any excessive heat when I shut it down. No more than the 5150.

Definitely with you on that Crunch channel, boost or no boost it’s incredible but I too prefer it boosted.