JTM45 reissue, a few questions.

zepp76

Modulus_Amps said:

hubobulous said:

I have the Rockcrusher and Rockcrusher Recording. Both seriously impressive sounding

on my wish list, every review I have seen has been really good

Yeah I've not read a single bad review on them either.

Well, all these glowing comments on how good the JTM is has me thinking maybe I should just go for it! Maybe put a good amount of gear up for sale here and a few guns on the shooting forum (air rifles are another of my hobbies) and see how close I can get to the asking price. But can I really justify the price? Hmm.

ICBM

They aren't all that expensive second hand compared to the new price... you should get a pretty clean one for £500 even though they're well over a grand new now.

zepp76

ICBM said:

They aren't all that expensive second hand compared to the new price... you should get a pretty clean one for £500 even though they're well over a grand new now.

@ICBM That cheap really? That would be great, I'll keep an eye on the usual sources then.

p90fool

When they were £799 I bought a three-month-old one from shop for 300 quid, with no master volume or reverb gimmickry they're a bit of a bargain second hand.

zepp76

p90fool said:

When they were £799 I bought a three-month-old one from shop for 300 quid, with no master volume or reverb gimmickry they're a bit of a bargain second hand.

@p90fool  They only used to be £799? When was that? I'm not really wanting to spend the best part of £1200 on one so it would have to be used. I wonder why they've gone up so much?

p90fool

That was a long time ago, in about 2002 I think, though I've bought two others for under £600 in the last five years or so.

I sold my last one on eBay about 18 months ago for £675 and was delighted with that price after being offered £300 a by a couple of people on here.

They're not cheap, but they do depreciate a lot for the original owner then stabilise after that.

ICBM

zepp76 said:

p90fool said:

When they were £799 I bought a three-month-old one from shop for 300 quid, with no master volume or reverb gimmickry they're a bit of a bargain second hand.

@p90fool  They only used to be £799? When was that? I'm not really wanting to spend the best part of £1200 on one so it would have to be used. I wonder why they've gone up so much?

Increasing production costs. They're still built largely by hand in the UK. Only the PCB loading is automated, and that's a fairly small part of the build cost for one of these.

The cynic in me would say also to help cover the warranty repairs on just about every other amp they've made in the same period .

Hootsmon

can I pop in for a mo guys?

are the loud cleans quite different from a twin?

how would they differ from a twin as a platform for some Kingsley toob  OD pedals?

I guess I am tryin' tae gauge if they have around the same level of headroom as the twins.....

happy new year tae you all 

ICBM

hootsmon said:

can I pop in for a mo guys?

are the loud cleans quite different from a twin?

how would they differ from a twin as a platform for some Kingsley toob  OD pedals?

I guess I am tryin' tae gauge if they have around the same level of headroom as the twins...

Not even close to the same headroom as a Twin, through similar speakers. Not only do they break up (ie clip) a lot sooner, the clean sound isn't as clean and clear below that.

Whether one would be as good with a Kingsley, I don't know - never tried one. But I hear the Kingsley is based on the Mesa V-Twin? If so, no - the V-Twin likes big clean-clean amps best… like a Twin. The Marshall works better with fuzz, distortion and overdrive pedals which can often sound fizzy or harsh with a Twin.

zepp76

@ICBM ok possibly the last question if you don't mind, why do some people connect two of the channels with a patch lead? I see some people do it and some don't. Is there any benefit to doing it? Thank you for all your help so far you've been very helpful and have helped me make up my mind as to wether or not to get one.

ICBM

zepp76 said:

@ICBM ok possibly the last question if you don't mind, why do some people connect two of the channels with a patch lead? I see some people do it and some don't. Is there any benefit to doing it?

To be able to blend the normal/bright channel with the very bassy channel. This is more usually done with the later JMP models where the bright channel is much brighter and can be very shrill on its own - the JTM45 is much less so, so most people just use the bright channel.

zepp76 said:

Thank you for all your help so far you've been very helpful and have helped me make up my mind as to wether or not to get one.

You've actually made me start to wonder about getting one too .

zepp76

@ICBM haha! Would you go new or used? I'd be a bit worried about depreciation going new but then again I'd have no plans to sell it. Gear4music are currently doing them for £1038 I don't know how long that will last?

I must get my arse into gear and put some stuff up for sale if I'm going to do this, I don't mind moving on some pedals but I'm going to struggle letting go of one of my guitars! I think the Gretsch Streamliner will have to go if I do as I've hardly played it since buying it but it's a great guitar and was featured in G&B magazine's gear of the year review. Anyway, I'm waffling on a bit now so must go and figure out how I'm going to do this! 

ICBM

zepp76 said:

@ICBM haha! Would you go new or used? I'd be a bit worried about depreciation going new but then again I'd have no plans to sell it. Gear4music are currently doing them for £1038 I don't know how long that will last?

Used, always. I don't think I've bought a properly new amp since the Marshall Lead 12 I got in 1985, and that may be the only one ever. I did technically buy my Mesa DC-5 new, but ex-demo so it was cheap.

I would certainly never buy a new amp which loses around 60% of its value on resale, even if I thought I was going to keep it forever.

If I did get one I'd want to mod it heavily anyway - sorry purists! I would convert it to a 2203 preamp circuit (which can be done on the existing PCB, as Marshal themselves did) and use the other two input jacks for an FX loop.

Modulus_Amps

ICBM said:

I would certainly never buy a new amp which loses around 60% of its value on resale, even if I thought I was going to keep it forever.

yes, but if others don't buy new amps then we may run out of second hand amps for you to pick up at a steel!

zepp76

Calling @ICBM  could you please take a glimpse at this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Marshall-JTM45-2245-/112277364520?hash=item1a24409f28:g:KSsAAOSwjDZYg20N

What do you think? Worth the asking price or too much? Thank you for your help.

ICBM

Far too much, even for a mint and untouched one - let alone one that's been modded/bodged and put back to stock - read the repair sheet.

zepp76

ICBM said:

Far too much, even for a mint and untouched one - let alone one that's been modded/bodged and put back to stock - read the repair sheet.

Yep that's what was putting me off, had to ask though.

ICBM

zepp76 said:

Yep that's what was putting me off, had to ask though.

It might have been done well - but it would useful to see inside. How well was possible may also depend on how badly it was bodged previously, even with the best tech to put it right. A slight puzzle is that they don't need modding at all to run KT66s, and I don't know anyone who doesn't consider it an improvement - so I don't know what was done, why, and why it needed to be undone…

And it's still at least £200 overpriced in that condition, I would say - although having just done a little checking they seem to have gone up a bit above the ~£600 or so they used to sell for even in mint condition.

zepp76

I'm struggling to find anything used in a decent price bracket, I don't want to buy new and lose a ton of money. 
Its typical, I missed a decent one with a 1960tv 4x12 cab on gumtree but I had to wait for my pedals to sell and now I have the money there's nothing! I don't know where else to look other than eBay, gumtree and the forum.

ICBM

Be patient - they aren't rare. If you really, really want one desperately I'd pay up to £750 probably, that way you won't lose too much in the unlikely event of not liking it.

One went for that on Ebay before Christmas with a post-phase-inverter mod by MJW (who I would trust even without seeing inside), KT66s and a Hotcovers cover.