Are Marshall amps poor quality

AllthegearNoidea

I've been looking for a small tube amp to complement a fender princeton. I'd like a marshall but I tried a class 5 and it dies as I was trying it (brand new). 

Any thoughts

fretmeister

Don't buy that one.

Danny1969

Might have been infant mortality failure, new valves can fail quickly. Friend of mine brought a brand new bass breaker from PMT, took it home and the valves failed within minutes 

As anything, be it an amp or a laptop or a car you have to be model rather than brand specific ..... some Marshalls are terrible in design but not all ...... 

AllthegearNoidea

fretmeister said:

Don't buy that one.

I'm looking for a small plexi. If not the class 5 what could you suggest

AllthegearNoidea

Danny1969 said:

Might have been infant mortality failure, new valves can fail quickly. Friend of mine brought a brand new bass breaker from PMT, took it home and the valves failed within minutes 

As anything, be it an amp or a laptop or a car you have to be model rather than brand specific ..... some Marshalls are terrible in design but not all ...... 

in general is the build poor compared to others 

Bridgehouse

AllthegearNoidea said:

Danny1969 said:

Might have been infant mortality failure, new valves can fail quickly. Friend of mine brought a brand new bass breaker from PMT, took it home and the valves failed within minutes 

As anything, be it an amp or a laptop or a car you have to be model rather than brand specific ..... some Marshalls are terrible in design but not all ...... 

in general is the build poor compared to others 

No, but more accurately, yes.

fretmeister

AllthegearNoidea said:

fretmeister said:

Don't buy that one.

I'm looking for a small plexi. If not the class 5 what could you suggest

Cornell Plexi 7

AllthegearNoidea

fretmeister said:

AllthegearNoidea said:

fretmeister said:

Don't buy that one.

I'm looking for a small plexi. If not the class 5 what could you suggest

Cornell plexi. 

AllthegearNoidea

AllthegearNoidea said:

fretmeister said:

AllthegearNoidea said:

fretmeister said:

Don't buy that one.

I'm looking for a small plexi. If not the class 5 what could you suggest

Cornell plexi. 

Do you have personal experience of the amp?  1x12 or 1x10. Is the mkii worth buying over the mki?

ICBM

The Class 5 is a terrible amp. I'm surprised any dealer has a new one left, they were discontinued several years ago… unless they've been reissued?

richardhomer

I was in PMT in Salford yesterday and noticed they had a Bluesbreaker reissue in - priced a considerably to the North of £2000. To be fair there was a little notice advising interested parties to speak to a 'crew member' for their best price.

I've no idea whether these are any good - they're really not my kind of amp - but I was genuinely amazed at the price....

AllthegearNoidea

richardhomer said:

I was in PMT in Salford yesterday and noticed they had a Bluesbreaker reissue in - priced a considerably to the North of £2000. To be fair there was a little notice advising interested parties to speak to a 'crew member' for their best price.

I've no idea whether these are any good - they're really not my kind of amp - but I was genuinely amazed at the price....

Me too.

ICBM

richardhomer said:

I was in PMT in Salford yesterday and noticed they had a Bluesbreaker reissue in - priced a considerably to the North of £2000. To be fair there was a little notice advising interested parties to speak to a 'crew member' for their best price.

I've no idea whether these are any good - they're really not my kind of amp - but I was genuinely amazed at the price....

That will be the Hand Wired reissue. The standard PCB one is not much more than half that.

Along with the JTM45 head, one of the best-made and best-sounding amps they make now - somewhat ironically, given that it's a reissue of their first.

GoldenEraGuitars

Every company has had their share of great amps and bad amps. Same as most things in life... you have to take the good with the bad.

Nit knowing context of your needs it's hard to accurately advise or suggest a brand let alone a specific amp. If it were me I'd be looking at a Marshall VM2266C, 70s JMP combo or going for broke with a Friedman.

monquixote

I have an mjw mini jcm800 for sale which will be better made  than any Marshall

ICBM

lonestar said:

If it were me I'd be looking at a Marshall VM2266C

I wouldn't…

monquixote said:

I have an mjw mini jcm800 for sale which will be better made  than any Marshall

+1

Jeremiah

Fender Bassbreakers are meant to be Plexi-like I think - or you could try "Brit" mode on an Egnater Tweaker

GoldenEraGuitars

ICBM said:

lonestar said:

If it were me I'd be looking at a Marshall VM2266C

I wouldn't…

monquixote said:

I have an mjw mini jcm800 for sale which will be better made  than any Marshall

+1

Owned 2 mate and gigged with one. Never had an issue and at volume on the low dynamic channel with a clean boost you could have mistaken it for a jtm45. Cracking amp imo.

ICBM

lonestar said:

Owned 2 mate and gigged with one. Never had an issue and at volume on the low dynamic channel with a clean boost you could have mistaken it for a jtm45. Cracking amp imo.

So why have I repaired several? With faults that were caused by design flaws and poor spec of components.

Why were they discontinued after only a short production run, considering the investment that went into them?

Why has one of their most well-known users (Robin Trower) now gone back to using a JTM45 and a Bluesbreaker?

The same as with *every single time* someone says they owned an unreliable amp and never had a problem with it  - you need to look at the overall picture. Whether the failure rate is 5% or 25%, you could easily own one for a while and it would be fine, but one is clearly much worse than the other.

The VM is poorly designed and poorly made.

GoldenEraGuitars

ICBM said:

lonestar said:

Owned 2 mate and gigged with one. Never had an issue and at volume on the low dynamic channel with a clean boost you could have mistaken it for a jtm45. Cracking amp imo.

So why have I repaired several? With faults that were caused by design flaws and poor spec of components.

Why were they discontinued after only a short production run, considering the investment that went into them?

Why has one of their most well-known users (Robin Trower) now gone back to using a JTM45 and a Bluesbreaker?

The same as with *every single time* someone says they owned an unreliable amp and never had a problem with it  - you need to look at the overall picture. Whether the failure rate is 5% or 25%, you could easily own one for a while and it would be fine, but one is clearly much worse than the other.

The VM is poorly designed and poorly made.

I was talking about my own experience. I don't think there is a need for that much condescension mate.

 I prefer older Marshalls, I've owned several of them too. My favourite (if I had the space to turn it up) would be the 87x.  

Now... to add further fuel I did say that ive owned two VMs and gigged with them with no issue. I've also gigged a DSL401c with no issue and apparently they're prone to overheating (?)

So, perhaps I got lucky. But I think it's fair to say that most modern amps from larger companies aren't made to the same standard as yester-year. I'd imagine this had helped smaller boutique builders show off their art.

DJH83004

Going back to the Class 5 for a moment, Marshall actually issued a service bulletin on how to rectify 'rattling issues' I still have it if anyone still has a rattling Class 5, I would be happy to send it over.