2007 Framus Cobra

Overview

This amp is one I’ve been interested in for a long time, and was very hyped up in the late 00’s and quickly faded in popularity with some accusations about poor build quality, tolex, and the relatively odd EQ. Now that I’ve finally gotten one, I can see the complaints to some degree - the tolex on mine is in great condition but it is extremely thin and soft, and rips easily (I ripped it just putting the screw for the chassis back in when I disassembled it for the pictures on this page). It’s also very difficult to get inside since the front panel is all one huge piece, so I had to remove the corner pieces to get it out which was a big pain.

Luckily, mine is the V5, the last revision available, which has external bias points and a pot you can access easily on the rear of the amp. The V1 models did not have this, so I can imagine how much of a pain rebiasing those amps would be considering the pain I had taking the chassis out.

Moving on though, let’s talk about the tone, and why this amp is so unique. Both the Crunch and Lead channels share the same topology, but with the Lead having more gain available. The key feature of this amp is that both of these channels have a very unique EQ arrangement called a “Baxandall” EQ. To nitpick a little, it’s actually a “James” style EQ circuit, since a Baxandall would be Active and this amp has a passive tone stack. Essentially, this different EQ design has a much wider “Q” than a traditional amp’s EQ, creating this huge, broad sound. This also means that extreme settings of the treble, middle, bass, and even presence controls still sound very natural, and I’d say some of the more extreme settings I tested (which would sound terrible on something with a more traditional EQ like a Marshall) sounded absolutely fantastic.

I was surprised a bit by the level of gain on my amp, while the lead channel can get plenty saturated with the gain near max, for some reason I was expecting something closer to a 6505 or Fireball. The Cobra is definitely gainy, just not to that degree, which also means that rolling the gain down a little to let some of the brightness through means you may need to boost it to get those punchy palm mute chugs. And wow, does it sound great boosted.

It does have some other quirks, such as the Effects Mix control on the front panel causing a noticeable volume increase at the halfway point, and quieter at either end of the control (full dry, or full wet). Each channel has its own presence control which is welcome, but the deep control is over the whole amp, and thanks to that massively wide EQ, it can get boomy a bit too quickly, so I keep that rolled off most of the time, but it’s nice to mix in just a little for some more room shaking while practicing without a bassist. The notch switches on the crunch and lead channels are fairly useless to my ear, the mid cut is just too extreme to be very useful, but I haven’t fully explored all of the EQ options with the notch turned on and there is a faint Mesa Mark type sound there, which maybe could be enhanced with a little more tweaking.

One highlight of this amp I’ve commonly seen around the web is the glowing reviews for the clean channel, and they are absolutely right. This clean channel is fantastic, with a more Fender style tone stack (not the “James” or “Baxandall” of the crunch/lead channels) right after the input gain stage. The bright switch is very usable and adds some spanky treble which is great for getting a little extra cut for fast chord riffs. There’s something about the clean, a natural amount of compression that just really sings and it’s very light and airy sounding - I love it. It’s not a super thick jazz clean, think more like a Fender Vibrolux, great for funky sounds or ultra-clean near acoustic sounding chords.