Best bang for buck (reliable) Marshall tone?

Haych

Assuming I was in the market for say a 50 watt all tube head to do old school Marshall tones, what's the most economical way to go?  Loving what I'm hearing from the Suhr SL67 but not loving what it'll do to my wallet :O

Anything come close without causing bankruptcy and divorce?

Twinfan

At the risk of stating the obvious, a used 1987X is surely the answer?

Haych

Twinfan said:

At the risk of stating the obvious, a used 1987X is surely the answer?

There is no obvious where Marshall and I are concerned - I know very little about them and they've never really been on my radar but the older I get the more I think I need to explore the 'Marshall' thing.  Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into it.

StefB

Origin 50 I'd say.  Designed specifically to tackle old school Marshall, sonically and visually.

ICBM

Twinfan said:

At the risk of stating the obvious, a used 1987X is surely the answer?

This. They’re built as well as any Marshall ever made, totally reliable and sound great. You will need an attenuator if you’re going to crank it since they’re seriously loud.

For less volume and a thicker, more compressed sound, a JTM45 reissue.

TTBZ

1987x is an awesome amp. I'd love one if I had somewhere to crank it up. They're bloody loud but definitely give you that Marshall tone. Origin 50 is good too and the power scaling feature is pretty useful though it's still pretty loud!

Haych

Cheers all. There’s a used 1987x at RichTone music at the mo for about 850. It’s had a master volume mod but this seems to have done away with a couple of inputs - is that likely to be a problem? Would it be best to source an unmodded example?

ICBM

Haych said:

There’s a used 1987x at RichTone music at the mo for about 850. It’s had a master volume mod but this seems to have done away with a couple of inputs - is that likely to be a problem? Would it be best to source an unmodded example?

That sounds too much for a modded one, at least without knowing what’s been done and how well. From the description it’s probably had a full 2204 mod, which may or may not be what you want.

More typically a PPIMV is regarded as keeping more of the original character, and is usually done by replacing one of the speaker jacks or only one of the inputs.

gordiji

There's a ceriatone chucacabra in amps£. Now i have a yeti which is very similar & will do any marshallesque tones from plexi onwards. So a well made amp like that can deliver reasonable bedroom noodling tones to industrial injury loud plexi tones (and everything in between) depending on how you set it up. The manual is googlable & worth checking out.

welshboyo

Does it have to be a head?

Shameless Plug for my Mesa Stiletto Ace - does the Marshall thing with ease, plexi and modded JMP/JCM sounds..

Haych

ICBM said:

Haych said:

There’s a used 1987x at RichTone music at the mo for about 850. It’s had a master volume mod but this seems to have done away with a couple of inputs - is that likely to be a problem? Would it be best to source an unmodded example?

More typically a PPIMV is regarded as keeping more of the original character, and is usually done by replacing one of the speaker jacks or only one of the inputs.

From what I can see from the online pics, it does look as if one of the input jacks has been sacrificed to make way for the MV pot.  The input beneath that looks to have been blanked off though.  Obviously I can't tell from the pics what's been changed inside.

welshboyo said:

Does it have to be a head?

Shameless Plug for my Mesa Stiletto Ace - does the Marshall thing with ease, plexi and modded JMP/JCM sounds..

Ha! nice one fella, I did see your post actually and it is a steal (and you're not that far from me).  I'll give it some thought, but I do like the head/cab format for ease of moving around.  IME Mesa are heavy and in a combo format (bulky) aren't the easiest to lug about. 

Haych

gordiji said:

There's a ceriatone chucacabra in amps£. Now i have a yeti which is very similar & will do any marshallesque tones from plexi onwards. So a well made amp like that can deliver reasonable bedroom noodling tones to industrial injury loud plexi tones (and everything in between) depending on how you set it up. The manual is googlable & worth checking out.

Thanks bud, I'll take a look and have a Google of the manual.

shaunm

ICBM said:

Twinfan said:

At the risk of stating the obvious, a used 1987X is surely the answer?

This. They’re built as well as any Marshall ever made, totally reliable and sound great. You will need an attenuator if you’re going to crank it since they’re seriously loud.

For less volume and a thicker, more compressed sound, a JTM45 reissue.

This totally

Dopesick

Yeah there are two Ceriatone amps in the Classifieds. Damn fine amps they are too.

Failing that, for much less money you could get a s/h Laney GH or AOR off eBay which are both fantastic. Although if you have the budget I probably would go for the 1987X or the aforementioned Ceriatones.

Collings

ICBM said:

More typically a PPIMV is regarded as keeping more of the original character, and is usually done by replacing one of the speaker jacks or only one of the inputs.

I had a PPIMV fitted to a JTM45 and it worked really well. The tech that did it actually recommended fitting the PPIMV on the front panel in place of the presence control and moving the the presence to the rear panel as with the PPIMV low the presence control has less effect.

I didn't go down this route and used one of the speaker jack holes as suggested but might be worth considering if you only use very low PPIMV settings.

TTBZ

There's a Ceriatone on the Facebook buy/sell group UK GAGEX too, it's a plexi with PPIMV and FX loop. I'm not affiliated with it, just saw it pop up and remembered this thread! 

Haych

TTBZ said:

There's a Ceriatone on the Facebook buy/sell group UK GAGEX too, it's a plexi with PPIMV and FX loop. I'm not affiliated with it, just saw it pop up and remembered this thread! 

Think that's also over in the Amps£ section too.  I believed it's in Romania, though.  That puts me off well before I've read the blurb to be honest. 

Thanks for the heads-up though.

zepp76

Collings said:

ICBM said:

More typically a PPIMV is regarded as keeping more of the original character, and is usually done by replacing one of the speaker jacks or only one of the inputs.

I had a PPIMV fitted to a JTM45 and it worked really well. The tech that did it actually recommended fitting the PPIMV on the front panel in place of the presence control and moving the the presence to the rear panel as with the PPIMV low the presence control has less effect.

I didn't go down this route and used one of the speaker jack holes as suggested but might be worth considering if you only use very low PPIMV settings.

I have a PPIMV fitted to the speaker output of my JTM45 and it makes it really useable. Fantastic amps, mines a keeper!

timmysoft

DSL100 Uk not import version 

Haych

timmysoft said:

DSL100 Uk not import version 

100 watts is a bit overkill TBH.  I was under the impression that the UK built models weren't as good (read: "reliable") as the Vietnamese?

ICBM

timmysoft said:

DSL100 Uk not import version 

Other way round if you want reliability.