Marshall bluesbreaker.

markj

Whos had one, got one. experience of one. There’s one in Dawson’s sale at the moment.

ICBM

Huge, heavy, awkward, very well made, fantastic-sounding, loud but not unusably so at gig volume, takes pedals perfectly, tremolo is a bit pants. I think that's more or less it...

The original shallow-cabinet version won't take KT66s, if that matters to you - the later deep-cabinet one will.

relic245

Had one for a couple of years.

At low volume the clean sound to me was unbeatable. 

TTBZ

They sound great but fuck lugging one around on a regular basis, they're so heavy. For that sort of sound I'd get a JTM45 and 2x12 cab.

Voxman

markj said:

Whos had one, got one. experience of one. There’s one in Dawson’s sale at the moment.

For major gigging or just home/small club play?  If you want a great bluesbreaker tone for home/small club use there's the 18w 'mini-bluesbreaker' - the Marshall 1074x (1x12) and 1058x (2x10").  And even for bigger gigs these can be miked up - and way lighter to take around.  

25-30 years ago I had an original 1958, but knew nothing about amps and didn't know what I had and sold it to Vintage & Rare for £200 - they must have seen me coming.  Probably be worth around £7,500 today. Biggest gear mistake EVER    

ICBM

The 18Ws don't sound anything like a Bluesbreaker though. They have nowhere near the bottom-end and big sound - much more of a middy 'small amp' sound, and raspy rather than crunchy when cranked up.

And I have recently worked on an original 18W model 1973 - the 2x12" version - so I know it's not the speakers.

Caffeine_Vampire

I had one. It was Steve Dawson’s (Marshall engineer) personal amp. It’s big, heavy and sounds like overdrive heaven. Perfectly gig worthy but pretty much a one trick pony (although the trick is exceptional). It gives up the expected goods effortlessly so it all depends on whether you’re a ‘one tone fits all’ player or if you’re more diverse. Contrary to the above comment, I didn’t find it to be a great pedal amp ymmv. 

p90fool

Voxman said:

markj said:

Whos had one, got one. experience of one. There’s one in Dawson’s sale at the moment.

For major gigging or just home/small club play?  If you want a great bluesbreaker tone for home/small club use there's the 18w 'mini-bluesbreaker' - the Marshall 1074x (1x12) and 1058x (2x10").  And even for bigger gigs these can be miked up - and way lighter to take around.  

25-30 years ago I had an original 1958, but knew nothing about amps and didn't know what I had and sold it to Vintage & Rare for £200 - they must have seen me coming.  Probably be worth around £7,500 today. Biggest gear mistake EVER    

An original 1958 Marshall? I think you saw THEM coming 

I agree with ICBM, the 18w is not related to the JTM45 or Bluesbreaker either in design or tone and is no substitute for one. 
It's cosmetically similar, that's all. 

guitartango

I have the Marshall 1974x amp, great little amp but can be a little heavy for us oldies

Parker

Was my ‘signature’ sound amp in my original band - easily my favourite Marshall (probably because it doesn’t sound too much like most Marshall’s!!).

GoldenEraGuitars

I borrowed one for a few gigs in England while I was at uni. 

Do you have a life assurance policy? Because if  it doesn’t do your back in it’ll certainly crush you if it lands in top of you

In all seriousness, what an amazing amp. Cleans are beautiful, the break up is stunning and as said above it takes pedals very well. It’s unfortunate that the gigs I did involved stairs. 

Plus... it looks the bollocks too

Sassafras

It's the only Marshall I've found that has a really great clean sound. Well, there is another one but I can't remember what it's called.

TimmyO

Sassafras said:

It's the only Marshall I've found that has a really great clean sound. Well, there is another one but I can't remember what it's called.

JCM800 low input 

ICBM

Major .

Actually most Marshalls have a great clean sound. You just have to not expect them to sound like a blackface Fender...

Sassafras

I think it was called Club & Country or something very like that.

lukedlb

Marshall super bass for THE clean. After years of being my favourite, a Marshall 1968 p.a. Is tempting me away by the various inputs providing a range of tones. 

ICBM

Sassafras said:

I think it was called Club & Country or something very like that.

Those do have a fantastic clean sound - the circuit is essentially a Fender Twin copy, but without the tremolo and using EL34s. But they also do a great slightly tweedy, slightly Voxy overdrive because they have a post-phase-inverter master volume - I think the first production amp to do so.

I had two of them - wonderful-sounding amps, but weigh a ton. They're also unstable with the factory-fitted castors on and have an alarming tendency to fall over .

lukedlb said:

Marshall super bass for THE clean. After years of being my favourite, a Marshall 1968 p.a. Is tempting me away by the various inputs providing a range of tones. 

I've done a couple of those for customers, one with Super Lead and Super Bass input sections, and one with all four different voicings - Lead, Bass, Organ and PA. You can't make it exact because the Lead tone stack and PI coupling cap values are slightly different from the other three, but if anything the Lead is a bit too shrill so that's not a bad thing.

robmac5150

ICBM said:

The 18Ws don't sound anything like a Bluesbreaker though. They have nowhere near the bottom-end and big sound - much more of a middy 'small amp' sound, and raspy rather than crunchy when cranked up.

And I have recently worked on an original 18W model 1973 - the 2x12" version - so I know it's not the speakers.

so was the 1973 lacking ? 

shaunm

robmac5150 said:

ICBM said:

The 18Ws don't sound anything like a Bluesbreaker though. They have nowhere near the bottom-end and big sound - much more of a middy 'small amp' sound, and raspy rather than crunchy when cranked up.

And I have recently worked on an original 18W model 1973 - the 2x12" version - so I know it's not the speakers.

so was the 1973 lacking ? 

I’d say it’s a mix of the EL84 vs EL34/KT66 and lower power. 

I agree with @ICBM that the two amps don’t sound the same. The 18w amps have their own sound and they are excellent but they don’t sound like a JTM45 or Bluesbreaker. 

TTBZ

I quite like the 1973x but it's definitely a different sound, got that "small amp" squish and raspy breakup I quite like it but its not something I'd use all the time.