Review : Headrush FRFR Go

A few weeks back, I did a podcast episode talking about the lack of small, lower output FRFR speaker systems. At the time, the only one that I could find with some level of availability was the Headrush FRFR Go. At the time, I could only refer to the marketing material because I had never even seen one in the real world. A recent transaction that resulted in a returnable item provided the funding to buy one, and where I am, they are rather scarce, so I found one and bought it. I regret that it wasn’t at The Arts Music Store, because the shopping experience left much to be desired. My purchase price was $199 CAD out the door, before the usual government pickpocketing of taxes.

Why A Small FRFR?

I love all my amps, With only a few exceptions, all my larger amps are tube based. Not because I think tubes are always better, but because when I spent the money, I bought what I liked best at the time. But at the same time, I am a big fan of profilers like the Quad Cortex and the Kemper and I think that the Tonex pedal is a pretty decent modeller. I am also very much enjoying my pedal sized amplifiers such as those from Universal Audio, TECH 21 NYC and EBS. While I can run all of the profilers, modellers and pedal amps direct into an interface and then studio monitors, it kind of locks me down in terms of where I can play and also in terms of size, weight and connectivity complexity.

So I thought it might be interesting to have an FRFR exclusively for home practice and fun that was lightweight and portable that I could use with any of my non-traditional amps. I did not need loud, but I wanted good sound that wasn’t colouring the input sources. So off I went to get the Headrush FRFR GO!.

It is quite small. Smaller in fact than my Spark 2 or Katana AIR, or Yamaha tabletop. Like the Katana and the Yamaha, the speakers are small, 3” in diameter in this case. That’s really no difference from the Spark Mini either, and I like that very much, but unlike the others, that Spark speaker is an FRFR getting fed a computational audio signal. The Headrush FRFR Go takes your modelled output from your device and makes it audible with no colouration or additional computational audio.

In fact, what makes an FRFR special is that there is NO computational audio involved. I would personally prefer no tone stack either in the FRFR but there is one in the Headrush FRFR Go so part of my ownership will involve figuring out how to defeat it. If I want to play with a tone stack, it is in the modeller/profiller/pedal amp.

Overview

As I mentioned this is a small device with basic controls, including Gain, Treble, Bass and Volume. There is a single instrument or signal chain input, as well as the ability to use it as a bluetooth speaker or with some other device that can be connected via a ⅛ TRS to use it as a speaker. I’m not testing any of that for the simple reason that they don’t fall into any of my use cases, and thus, I don’t care.

Specifications

I screen captured these direct from the Headrush website. Sorry the text is so small, but their website layout is clearly built to display best on phones and not on real computers.

Peak output power is 30 watts when on Mains power and 24 watts when running off the built in rechargeable battery. The maximum SPL of 109 dB is plenty loud for home use, but you won’t like it cranked all the way up. It gets distorted and not the nice kind of distorted. There are the inputs noted earlier. The Bluetooth is v5.0. The device when plugged in pulls only 45 watts so it’s easy on your electric bill. It’s just over 7 pounds and the fit and finish work are excellent. The control knobs are very Marshall looking.

Playability

It’s an FRFR. Run your modeller/profiler/pedal amp output to the input. Like most amplifiers it is mono only as an instrument device. You can do some jiggery pokery to use a converter to take outputs from stereo devices and run them into the AUX input with an appropriate Y cable, but somehow 5 inches of separation is not very stereo in my book. Nothing would prevent one from buying two of the Go units for true stereo if one is so inclined and that still is pretty reasonable for a stereo rig. There is no complexity and no secret squirrel bullshit involved. Plug in and go. Obviously you need to feed it an appropriate modelled output that includes a cab simulation or it’s going to sound a lot like turtle puke. While I expect that the majority of buyers will understand this, I never underestimate the capacity for people to be stupid. Certainly I have already encountered this in whining about full sized FRFRs that were mis-sold or the buyer did not understand the concept.

From that simple perspective, it works great. I set it up first with my TONEX pedal for as simple a setup as possible and it sounded just fine for the use case. No fizz, no crackle, no mud. I then tried it with a couple of UA Amp pedals as well as the BOSS IR-200 (best JC-120 emulation out there in my opinion) and for bass with my EBS Microbass3 and the TECH 21 NYC 2112.

I confess that I find zero value in the presence of a battery as everything that I put in front of it needs AC power. As I have no experience with any of the Headrush modellers, I thought that maybe one of the Headrush modellers ran on a battery but some quick research put the NO in that idea. I suppose then the battery is there if you are using the device as an output for some other audio device via AUX input or Bluetooth. As neither are of any interest to me, and you still need AC power if you want to do a playalong, the battery strikes me as an extra cost for very little return.

So mine is going to be plugged into power because anything else that I use with it is going to need AC power anyway. So it goes.

Wrapping Up

In terms of satisfying the use case requirements, the Headrush FRFR Go is an excellent choice. It is quite inexpensive, has more than enough volume for home use, sounds excellent so long as the quality of the model or profile is good, otherwise the garbage in - garbage out rule applies and it is SIMPLE to use. I personally have no use for the battery power option, but you may be in a completely different set of use cases. At under $200 CAD, there is NO competition at the time of this writing and it rides on the excellent reputation of the other Headrush FRFR speaker systems. I own the 108 and the 112 and they are superb and this fits in where size and weight are a premium consideration. I recommend this product. As you should know by now, I received no compensation, freebies or other considerations for this review.

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