How much can we trust reviews the new Marshall DSL's are going to get ?

Telejester

If the very first review of any of the new dsl's is carried out by Tom Quayle it will be the best amp he has ever played, we all know this and that is why his reviews are worthless. If lee anderton reviews one they will be magnificent because he has a warehouse full of them that he is trying to flog. If Shane Diorio on the other hand finds they are a pile of shit, then he will pull no punches and will deliver unbiased and factual opinions.

Im real keen to try the new dsl20 hr head but I do know the older dsl's are hideous under the lid and i hope this wont be repeated. Marshall will be keeping an eye onthe reviews for sure, Quayle, Guitarist magazine, Chapman, Lee Anderton and their gushfeast biased reviews arent worth a damn........so where do we go to get the real lowdown ?

StefB

Telejester said:

........so where do we go to get the real lowdown ?

Your nearest dealer to give one a whirl personally?

crunchman

StefB said:

Telejester said:

........so where do we go to get the real lowdown ?

Your nearest dealer to give one a whirl personally?

They are unlikely to let you open it up to see how well it is built though.

The Peavey Classic 30 sounds good but I'd never buy another because of the way it is built.

Plectrum

Is Shane Diorio that intheblues gobby little bloke? I don't put any weight on his opinions about anything. I agree with you about the rest of them. Basically I'll wait until Marshall put up some demo videos and form my own opinions.

Really though there's no substitute for trying one yourself.

Telejester

Plectrum said:

Is Shane Diorio that intheblues gobby little bloke? I don't put any weight on his opinions about anything. I agree with you about the rest of them. Basically I'll wait until Marshall put up some demo videos and form my own opinions.

Really though there's no substitute for trying one yourself.

i wouldnt say he is gobby, id say he is passionate

CarpeDiem

I'd suggest watching a variety of videos, including the home-grown ones, and form your own views. More importantly, try one out with your own guitar (and possibly favourite pedal) at a dealers. In terms of assessing build quality or durability, you could try to take peak inside to see how it's built if you know what to look for. Guitarist magazine reviews do provide an assessment on build, albeit limited in scope.

mixolyd

Plectrum said:

Is Shane Diorio that intheblues gobby little bloke?

I don’t have any problem with what he has to say but his playing really rubs me the wrong way.  I wouldn’t take gear advice from someone whose playing I find so tasteless.

timmysoft

I've said it before, I toured with old DSL's, hundreds of gigs every year, shit venues, cold vans, sweatbox festivals and it never missed a beat. I know plenty of guys who did the same. They've got a bad rep because there are so many out there, you're bound to get more failures. 

clarkefan

timmysoft said:

I've said it before, I toured with old DSL's, hundreds of gigs every year, shit venues, cold vans, sweatbox festivals and it never missed a beat. I know plenty of guys who did the same. They've got a bad rep because there are so many out there, you're bound to get more failures. 

To be fair they have known issues, I've currently got the "channel switcher jammed on gain channel" one I'm trying to deal with.

But I'll fix it, and I'll keep fixing it, cos it sounds fucking great.  I have zero interest in the new ones, or any other amp, cos it sounds fucking great.

ICBM

Telejester said:

Im real keen to try the new dsl20 hr head but I do know the older dsl's are hideous under the lid and i hope this wont be repeated.

The current Vietnamese-made series is much better than the previous UK-made series.

timmysoft said:

I've said it before, I toured with old DSL's, hundreds of gigs every year, shit venues, cold vans, sweatbox festivals and it never missed a beat. I know plenty of guys who did the same. They've got a bad rep because there are so many out there, you're bound to get more failures.

Up to a point. It's not so much how many fail - although it is quite a lot, even in relation to the number out there - it's *why*. The type of failures shows serious design flaws and possibly a material quality issue.

Blown transformers are common - partly because both the amps and the cabinets use a poorly-designed impedance-switching system which can leave the amp with no load, partly because they're just not very good quality.

Burnt-out main PCBs are common because the layout is terrible and the material isn't good enough to withstand the voltages across it. Marshall had at least two goes at re-designing it and still didn't fix it completely.

Any of these failures is a roughly £100 parts, plus labour, repair - even if valves don't blow as well (they often do). Repair bills well over £200 are not unusual.

There are several other more minor faults too, including bias runaway or outright failure which can destroy the whole set of power valves.

Compare them to the other really common valve amp - the Fender Hotrod series - and although the number of failures is probably roughly similar, the severity of the ones on the Marshalls is usually far worse. It wouldn't be an exaggeration that I've changed more than ten times as many transformers on Marshall DSLs and TSLs (same amp apart from the control section) as Fender Hotrods, and I've never had to replace a board on a Hotrod (Blues Juniors are another matter!).

I don't deny that you may well have used DSLs with no trouble - you were lucky, or at least not unlucky. The proportion of failures means the majority of users probably don't experience them, but it's still far higher than it should be.

Ask any tech, not just me.

RandallFlagg

Buy one from Andertons, try it and send it back if you don't like it, you have 14 days for full refund at Andertons and 30 days for exchange.

That's the best review.

John_A

RandallFlagg said:

Buy one from Andertons, try it and send it back if you don't like it, you have 14 days for full refund at Andertons and 30 days for exchange.

That's the best review.

Are they not obliged to give you 30 days with refund under DSRs?  

Fuengi

I think Shane Diorio's reviews are genuinely done, I just don't think he's got a particularly good ear.

For example, he made a series of videos about the Fender Mustang III amp and how you couldn't tell it apart from the expensive valve amp it was modelling.

How to put this delicately... Utter bollocks, it is a dreadful sounding amp that doesn't even begin to reproduce a valve tone.

He seems to lack nuance, subtlety and detail in his playing and I think that translates into his reviews. 

Just my opinion   

hywelg

You cannot trust anyone's ears but your own. 

gubble

Plectrum said:

Is Shane Diorio that intheblues gobby little bloke?

Is that the chap who takes things apart in his living room, wears a baseball cap and usually starts his videos saying "it's me I'm back" whilst doing some jazz hands?

RandallFlagg

John_A said:

RandallFlagg said:

Buy one from Andertons, try it and send it back if you don't like it, you have 14 days for full refund at Andertons and 30 days for exchange.

That's the best review.

Are they not obliged to give you 30 days with refund under DSRs?  

No, 7 days is the minimum legal cancellation period. The Distance Selling regulations are now the Consumer Contract Regulations.

Telejester

gubble said:

Plectrum said:

Is Shane Diorio that intheblues gobby little bloke?

Is that the chap who takes things apart in his living room, wears a baseball cap and usually starts his videos saying "it's me I'm back" whilst doing some jazz hands?

no, that is tony mckenzie

Nerine

Wait...

They've redone the DSL again? 

rico

Nerine said:

Wait...

They've redone the DSL again? 

Keep up at the back!

rico

Telejester said:

gubble said:

Plectrum said:

Is Shane Diorio that intheblues gobby little bloke?

Is that the chap who takes things apart in his living room, wears a baseball cap and usually starts his videos saying "it's me I'm back" whilst doing some jazz hands?

no, that is tony mckenzie

I cannot stand that guy. 

Telejester

rico said:

Telejester said:

gubble said:

Plectrum said:

Is Shane Diorio that intheblues gobby little bloke?

Is that the chap who takes things apart in his living room, wears a baseball cap and usually starts his videos saying "it's me I'm back" whilst doing some jazz hands?

no, that is tony mckenzie

I cannot stand that guy. 

to his credit he is no tom quayle saying everything is magnificent, if tony thinks something stinks he says so