Best bang for buck (reliable) Marshall tone?

TTBZ

Depending which eras of Marshall you're after the 2555x is a great amp and really versatile. Or the mini jubilee 2525. Both made in the UK but not extortionately priced.

darcym

here is a curve ball that you can pickup for a song, the Jackson Ampworks El Guapo, is killer, it's small, light, loads of options to give you two channels of marshall voices that you can taylor to your needs. I'm not a Marshall guy but needed one, and this turned out to be really really good, so bought it. 

jonnyburgo

Jet City?

timmysoft

ICBM said:

timmysoft said:

DSL100 Uk not import version 

Other way round if you want reliability.

Like I’ve said before, I’ve never had one let me down on the road

equalsql

jonnyburgo said:

Jet City?

This^^ What do you reckon @mudslide73, is your JC in Marshall territory?

digitalscream

equalsql said:

jonnyburgo said:

Jet City?

This^^ What do you reckon mudslide73, is your JC in Marshall territory?

I don't think the JCA50H is right for it - @ICBM hears Marshall, but I hear Soldano. I'd hazard a guess that the Amelia would be more appropriate for this kind of thing. It's sorta-kinda-unofficially a Cornford MK50-esque circuit, I believe, and probably the most flexible amp Jet City make.

ICBM

timmysoft said:

Like I’ve said before, I’ve never had one let me down on the road

You're lucky. We've said that before too .

digitalscream said:

I don't think the JCA50H is right for it - @ICBM hears Marshall, but I hear Soldano.

I do hear Soldano, just a brighter and more 'Marshally' version of it than an SLO.

Haych

I do already have a JCA50H, and while it's a great amp, especially for the financial outlay, I don't hear Marshall so much in it.  Perhaps if I modded it to take EL34s it might take on a different character?  It doesn't seem like a difficult mod either TBH.

That said, I'm starting to lean towards buying a kit and building my own Marshally clone - I've always wanted to have a go and I have the aptitude and skills (read: I'm patient, can solder well and follow instructions) for it.  If I ever sold it on I might not get as much back for my trouble, I accept that, but the initial cost is lower anyway so there's a couple of swings and roundabouts.

The Jet City Amelia has always appealed to me too.  Now that's been grown in the ring I might have to reconsider everything I've typed above

mudslide73

equalsql said:

jonnyburgo said:

Jet City?

This^^ What do you reckon @mudslide73, is your JC in Marshall territory?

 I cut the bright caps and have NOS RFT preamp valves in my JCA50H so that would help a bit I think. I reckon the rhythm channel isn't too far away with G12H30s - I've had a couple JCMs (900 mk3 and an old type DSL50) and it's miles better than either (not hard I know). 

If you change your mind about selling yours @Haych please let me know I would very much like another.

Haych

mudslide73 said:

equalsql said:

jonnyburgo said:

Jet City?

This^^ What do you reckon @mudslide73, is your JC in Marshall territory?

 I cut the bright caps and have NOS RFT preamp valves in my JCA50H so that would help a bit I think. I reckon the rhythm channel isn't too far away with G12H30s - I've had a couple JCMs (900 mk3 and an old type DSL50) and it's miles better than either (not hard I know). 

If you change your mind about selling yours @Haych please let me know I would very much like another.

Will do @mudslide73 but for its used cash value it's hardly worth selling.

p90fool

Haych said:

I do already have a JCA50H, and while it's a great amp, especially for the financial outlay, I don't hear Marshall so much in it.  Perhaps if I modded it to take EL34s it might take on a different character?  It doesn't seem like a difficult mod either TBH.

That said, I'm starting to lean towards buying a kit and building my own Marshally clone - I've always wanted to have a go and I have the aptitude and skills (read: I'm patient, can solder well and follow instructions) for it.  If I ever sold it on I might not get as much back for my trouble, I accept that, but the initial cost is lower anyway so there's a couple of swings and roundabouts.

The Jet City Amelia has always appealed to me too.  Now that's been grown in the ring I might have to reconsider everything I've typed above

I don't really think changing from 6L6 to EL34 will make your 50H much more like a Marshall, you'd be better off investigating some preamp mods. 

The first thing I did was cut the bright caps which gets you a bit closer, but it still doesn't have that nice feathery edge to the high frequencies that say a 2204 has - it's still has too much upper mids and feels too "punchy" for want of a better word. 

Funnily enough the cheapest head, the 20H is nearest out of all the JCs, but isn't really loud enough. 

If I was after a 2204 and still had a 50H I'd probably just copy the Marshall preamp section as far as practicable. 

Just as a reference, the old folded steel Marshall Drivemaster pedal into a JCA100 set clean sounds almost exactly like a 2204.
I had them both here side by side and the resemblance was astounding, it even FELT right, so I don't think the power section is the problem. 

digitalscream

p90fool said:

Haych said:

I do already have a JCA50H, and while it's a great amp, especially for the financial outlay, I don't hear Marshall so much in it.  Perhaps if I modded it to take EL34s it might take on a different character?  It doesn't seem like a difficult mod either TBH.

That said, I'm starting to lean towards buying a kit and building my own Marshally clone - I've always wanted to have a go and I have the aptitude and skills (read: I'm patient, can solder well and follow instructions) for it.  If I ever sold it on I might not get as much back for my trouble, I accept that, but the initial cost is lower anyway so there's a couple of swings and roundabouts.

The Jet City Amelia has always appealed to me too.  Now that's been grown in the ring I might have to reconsider everything I've typed above

I don't really think changing from 6L6 to EL34 will make your 50H much more like a Marshall, you'd be better off investigating some preamp mods. 

You'd have to replace the power transformer - the heater current required by EL34s is twice the spec. You can get away with KT66s, but that's about it.

ICBM

It's not going to make any real difference anyway - a JCM900 with 5881s still sounds more or less the same as one with EL34s. Different enough that it's worth converting because the EL34s *do* sound slightly better and more 'Marshally', but only a minor nuance compared to the preamp design.

timmysoft

ICBM said:

timmysoft said:

Like I’ve said before, I’ve never had one let me down on the road

You're lucky. We've said that before too .

digitalscream said:

I don't think the JCA50H is right for it - @ICBM hears Marshall, but I hear Soldano.

I do hear Soldano, just a brighter and more 'Marshally' version of it than an SLO.

It’s not luck, I’ve toured with and tech’ed for loads of bands that have run DSLs for years with no issues. I know of more people who have had reliability issues with 5150s! 

the great thing about all the internet giving the DSL a bad name is the fact that you can pick up the 100w heads for under £300. 

ICBM

timmysoft said:

It’s not luck, I’ve toured with and tech’ed for loads of bands that have run DSLs for years with no issues. I know of more people who have had reliability issues with 5150s! 

the great thing about all the internet giving the DSL a bad name is the fact that you can pick up the 100w heads for under £300. 

Just ask any tech who has worked on them. If yours have been reliable, you're lucky. It's not just the rate of failures, it's the *type* of failures - they're due to design faults, mostly on the main PCB but not only there.

This one is totally typical. See the huge burn mark? That's caused by incompetent board design.



On top of that sort of thing there are issues caused by running the speaker current through a jack switch, bias runaway, total bias failure caused by the supply going through multiple contact points on a jumper cable to a separate PCB, filament supply failures due to under-spec push-connectors, a cap which was used as a band-aid to prevent oscillation failing... it just goes on and on. It's a terribly designed amp, and if some don't fail it's entirely by luck and not judgement.

This is what happens when the bias jumper connector fails. The remarkable thing about this series compared to almost any other valve amp is that apart from this, valve failures are *less* common than other ones, rather than more.



As yet, I haven't seen any of this sort of issue on the new Vietnamese-made ones.

Haych

ICBM said:

timmysoft said:

It’s not luck, I’ve toured with and tech’ed for loads of bands that have run DSLs for years with no issues. I know of more people who have had reliability issues with 5150s! 

the great thing about all the internet giving the DSL a bad name is the fact that you can pick up the 100w heads for under £300. 

Just ask any tech who has worked on them. If yours have been reliable, you're lucky. It's not just the rate of failures, it's the *type* of failures - they're due to design faults, mostly on the main PCB but not only there.

This one is totally typical. See the huge burn mark? That's caused by incompetent board design.



On top of that sort of thing there are issues caused by running the speaker current through a jack switch, bias runaway, total bias failure caused by the supply going through multiple contact points on a jumper cable to a separate PCB, filament supply failures due to under-spec push-connectors, a cap which was used as a band-aid to prevent oscillation failing... it just goes on and on. It's a terribly designed amp, and if some don't fail it's entirely by luck and not judgement.

This is what happens when the bias jumper connector fails. The remarkable thing about this series compared to almost any other valve amp is that apart from this, valve failures are *less* common than other ones, rather than more.



As yet, I haven't seen any of this sort of issue on the new Vietnamese-made ones.