Are Marshall amps poor quality

ThePrettyDamned

TTBZ said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

I think Marshall will fix this. 

I know it's a long time coming, but the Internet is a powerful tool and surely by now they've seen what people want. 

Yea, they're expanding the marketing/media departments a bit. I know cause I'll be working there in about a month I'll pass these comments on! Seems like everyone on forums been on about a good jcm800 channel switcher for ages.

Amazing! 

jpfamps

martinw said:

TTBZ said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

I think Marshall will fix this. 

I know it's a long time coming, but the Internet is a powerful tool and surely by now they've seen what people want. 

Yea, they're expanding the marketing/media departments a bit. I know cause I'll be working there in about a month I'll pass these comments on! Seems like everyone on forums been on about a good jcm800 channel switcher for ages.

Good luck, but you'll probably find yourself working on phones, tea caddies, golf umbrellas and all sorts of other 'lifestyle' products.

If they made decent amps, they wouldn't need a media/marketing department. Well, not much of one. They get more free marketing than any other company in the world; every time someone thinks of a rock god on stage, he's in front of a 'wall of Marshalls'. It's in the language. We use 'Marshall-ish' as an adjective.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

darthed1981

clarkefan said:

Wow.  But sort of expected.  It isn't just in design that Marshall have problems,  their marketing people should be fired.  The minute the Astoria amps appeared the internet lit up with criticism. How could that happen?  How do you fuck that up?  It's like nobody in Marshall gives a fig about what users actually want from them.

Well their marketing people certainly get an internet fail, if for no other reason than how people talk about the MG series.  These SHOULD have a reputation as a reasonable range of cheap-ish solid state amps.  Yes you pay for the "name" a bit but people do that with iPhones and don't have a problem with it.

So an entry level product where when someone buys one the internet should be reviewed as such, not as nice as tube amps, you can get an equivalent or slightly better product at a slighlty lesser price, but fine as an amp for beginners or low volume use.  In fact, they are the butt of all jokes.

At the same time Blackstar, Vox and Fender's ranges seem to get almost universal praise, something is amiss here, MGs are not as bad as everyone makes out.

ICBM

darthed1981 said:

clarkefan said:

Wow.  But sort of expected.  It isn't just in design that Marshall have problems,  their marketing people should be fired.  The minute the Astoria amps appeared the internet lit up with criticism. How could that happen?  How do you fuck that up?  It's like nobody in Marshall gives a fig about what users actually want from them.

Well their marketing people certainly get an internet fail, if for no other reason than how people talk about the MG series.  These SHOULD have a reputation as a reasonable range of cheap-ish solid state amps.  Yes you pay for the "name" a bit but people do that with iPhones and don't have a problem with it.

So an entry level product where when someone buys one the internet should be reviewed as such, not as nice as tube amps, you can get an equivalent or slightly better product at a slighlty lesser price, but fine as an amp for beginners or low volume use.  In fact, they are the butt of all jokes.

At the same time Blackstar, Vox and Fender's ranges seem to get almost universal praise, something is amiss here, MGs are not as bad as everyone makes out.

The current MG series must be OK - I've never seen a single dead one, unlike the previous MG-DFX series which are notoriously unreliable... so they are learning. But I agree, far more should be made of this series. And why, now the AVTs have (rightly) gone, don't they make a mid-market hybrid amp at all?

With the Astorias, why didn't they make them look like Marshalls? As it was, they looked like an odd combination of some over-styled boutique amp in colours a lot of people didn't want, with a cheap black grille cloth that didn't go with it at all. If they'd made them look like a JTM45/Bluesbreaker - or even just done them in black with basketweave grilles - I think they'd have sold OK.

jpfamps

With the Astorias, why didn't they make them look like Marshalls? As it was, they looked like an odd combination of some over-styled boutique amp in colours a lot of people didn't want, with a cheap black grille cloth that didn't go with it at all. If they'd made them look like a JTM45/Bluesbreaker - or even just done them in black with basketweave grilles - I think they'd have sold OK.

You've obviously not played through one then......

ICBM

jpfamps said:

You've obviously not played through one then...…

No. Do they sound terrible too?

Although that wouldn't necessarily stop them selling .

John_P

I think they would have been better to split the range like Fender/squier  Gibson/epiphone etc
   
I look at the reissues and handwired amps as real marshalls and the mg, avt as amps with the marshall logo.    

iirc they briefly brought back the park brand name and would have been better to have the cheap amps as Park by Marshall instead of hurting their rep as a high end aspirational product.   

fretmeister

TTBZ said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

I think Marshall will fix this. 

I know it's a long time coming, but the Internet is a powerful tool and surely by now they've seen what people want. 

Yea, they're expanding the marketing/media departments a bit. I know cause I'll be working there in about a month I'll pass these comments on! Seems like everyone on forums been on about a good jcm800 channel switcher for ages.

When the Mini Jubilee head was released I posted on their facebook page to ask whether a Mini 2203 was coming too. There were fecking hundreds of "I'd buy that in a heartbeat" responses from other people.

Marshall's response: No. We have no plans for that.

Nobbers.

ThePrettyDamned

fretmeister said:

TTBZ said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

I think Marshall will fix this. 

I know it's a long time coming, but the Internet is a powerful tool and surely by now they've seen what people want. 

Yea, they're expanding the marketing/media departments a bit. I know cause I'll be working there in about a month I'll pass these comments on! Seems like everyone on forums been on about a good jcm800 channel switcher for ages.

When the Mini Jubilee head was released I posted on their facebook page to ask whether a Mini 2203 was coming too. There were fecking hundreds of "I'd buy that in a heartbeat" responses from other people.

Marshall's response: No. We have no plans for that.

Nobbers.

Lol oh marshall, that right there was a hint of free market research. 

ICBM

John_P said:

I think they would have been better to split the range like Fender/squier  Gibson/epiphone etc
   
I look at the reissues and handwired amps as real marshalls and the mg, avt as amps with the marshall logo.    

iirc they briefly brought back the park brand name and would have been better to have the cheap amps as Park by Marshall instead of hurting their rep as a high end aspirational product.   

No, the Park name has no brand value at all with players not old enough to remember the 60s ones. They tried that with the first series of MG amps, and after a couple of years they ended up re-badging them as Marshalls, upon which sales improved.

I agree that they need to split the ranges - the easiest way would be simply to use the plain white Marshall script logo for the standard ranges, and either a gold-fronted reissue one or a plexi block logo for the upmarket ones.

Whereas now, some twit has decided to put the plexi logo - and checkerboard grille cloth - on some of the DSLs, which just looks stupid and probably takes away any kudos that logo has on the HW reissues. They just don't seem to have a clue.

english_bob

ThePrettyDamned said:

A JTM45 ish channel and a jcm800 channel in one amp, with a good effects loop and a well built pcb with a good layout. 

Someone here reckons this is what the Laney Lionheart is- with a different power section (who can turn up a 50-100W Marshall these days anyway?)

I can't say whether they have a well built or laid out PCB, but I think the effects loop on the current Chinese ones is OK.

webrthomson

fretmeister said:

TTBZ said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

I think Marshall will fix this. 

I know it's a long time coming, but the Internet is a powerful tool and surely by now they've seen what people want. 

Yea, they're expanding the marketing/media departments a bit. I know cause I'll be working there in about a month I'll pass these comments on! Seems like everyone on forums been on about a good jcm800 channel switcher for ages.

When the Mini Jubilee head was released I posted on their facebook page to ask whether a Mini 2203 was coming too. There were fecking hundreds of "I'd buy that in a heartbeat" responses from other people.

Marshall's response: No. We have no plans for that.

Nobbers.

Genius sir - I think you should run marshall just for that comment!

Reverend

I can imagine the meeting.

Right, we made the best rock amp ever made. Should we capitalise on that?

Nah, let's work on the nailing the wasp in jar market instead. we can utilise new technology to nail every possible combination of jar type and wasp species. 

Brilliant idea. 

Cirrus

Bring back Jim Marshall I say.

normula1

english_bob said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

A JTM45 ish channel and a jcm800 channel in one amp, with a good effects loop and a well built pcb with a good layout. 

Someone here reckons this is what the Laney Lionheart is- with a different power section (who can turn up a 50-100W Marshall these days anyway?)

I can't say whether they have a well built or laid out PCB, but I think the effects loop on the current Chinese ones is OK.

That was me, and the pre-amp pretty much is
The original version has a parallel loop but that's fairly easy to swap to serial and it and the reverb are solid state.

jpfamps

ICBM said:

jpfamps said:

You've obviously not played through one then...…

No. Do they sound terrible too?

Although that wouldn't necessarily stop them selling .

I had a play through one the other day in Macaris over the road from us.

It was pretty bad.

I was using a LP Junior, which you would of thought should have been a good match!

I've not seen any in for repair, which suggests that either they are reliable, or they haven't sold any......

peteri

Let's be honest, they have been struggling for years.

I started playing 83, so remember the JCM800 pretty well. My first 'proper' amp was a 25/50 Jubilee series, I lusted after the 9000 rack series etc.

Really for a very long time (I would argue since JCM900) Marshall has missed the mark somehow most times, I owned a 401C and that was ok soundwise, it sounded like a Marshall which loads hadn't - but mine too was unreliable, and also just didn't seem that well built on the outside (Tolex etc).

I was very excited when the Jubilee re-issue and mini came out, and I feel it's broadly accurate. But it reminded me I don't need one anymore, the world has moved on.

When I think of the Marshall range - I (probably without grounds) think of a few things:

1. Overly heavy/loud amps

2. Poor master volume

3. Wasp in jar

4. Amps that sound good - but at a level which is beyond anything I can use anymore.

Take the Class 5, I can't tell if it's any good. The couple of times I've tried to demo, it's sounded thin and brittle - and stupidly loud, meaning within 2 minutes I'm done on the demo - rather than working out if I can make it work.

If they would make either a nice Bluesbreaker with amazing mv or scaling.

Or/

Basically a modern amp - what I mean with that is something which has a decent effects loop, allows me to have a drive and a clean sound without massive compromises (one of the problems for me with the Jubilee re-issue, same problem with the original actually), takes pedals well and is reasonably priced. And has a master volume/scaling solution which means it's viable to use at home and small/medium gigs.

Winner!

I think Orange does better because it's stuck to it's brand a bit more, I actually don't like them - but I understand what they represent and what they're good for, they've not bothered with loops which don't work (usually) and when you look at the amp, you kind of know what it's trying to be.

Collings

jpfamps said:

ICBM said:

jpfamps said:

You've obviously not played through one then...…

No. Do they sound terrible too?

Although that wouldn't necessarily stop them selling .

I had a play through one the other day in Macaris over the road from us.

It was pretty bad.

I was using a LP Junior, which you would of thought should have been a good match!

I've not seen any in for repair, which suggests that either they are reliable, or they haven't sold any......

I,ve got one which I think sounds great and compares favourably to my jcm 800 and jtm 45. Mine is the custom so no idea what the duel or classic sound like but I had heard people thought the classic was a little under whelming but it was designed as a pedal platform so maybe this was not taken into account.

I know there was a lot of criticism over the looks but I like it and to be honest many of the other boutique builders are using similar colour schemes and people rave about them. It just that its a Marshall so many peoples expectation is it must be black.

ICBM

Collings said:

I know there was a lot of criticism over the looks but I like it and to be honest many of the other boutique builders are using similar colour schemes and people rave about them. It just that its a Marshall so many peoples expectation is it must be black.

Ironic, when Marshall were one of the first - possibly the first - to offer 'custom colours', back in the early 70s… and these amps are now very valuable. (The shop I work for recently sold a 1973 Super Lead full stack in red for £4500.)

My problem with them is the lack of colour choice - the pastel colours are OK, but they need to be a custom option with black as standard, and not specific to each model - and that on the cabs and combos, the black grille cloth looks unbelievably cheap and out of place regardless of the colour.

I'm not a fan of that fussy panel shaping in the top and especially the bottom of the cabinet grille cutouts either - it's not quite so bad on the heads. It all smacks of marketing desperation to do something different, over proper design to do something that they used to do well.

I'm still completely of the opinion that if they just made some sensible updates to some of their classic models, built them well and made them look like classic Marshalls, they'd sell as many as they could make.

Collings

ICBM said:

My problem with them is the lack of colour choice - the pastel colours are OK, but they need to be a custom option with black as standard, and not specific to each model - and that on the cabs and combos, the black grille cloth looks unbelievably cheap and out of place regardless of the colour.

I'm not a fan of that fussy panel shaping in the top and especially the bottom of the cabinet grille cutouts either - it's not quite so bad on the heads. It all smacks of marketing desperation to do something different, over proper design to do something that they used to do well.

I'm still completely of the opinion that if they just made some sensible updates to some of their classic models, built them well and made them look like classic Marshalls, they'd sell as many as they could make.

I,ve seen a black one which was custom ordered by a usa dealer and it did look good and possibly more in keeping with peoples expectation of a Marshall.