It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
Yes they are, and amongst other issues, they have a known problem with a bridge rectifier which is marginally specified and overheats. It usually ends up desoldering itself causing loss of output from the amp. I guarantee you that if you'd opened your amp up you would see evidence of overheating around that component. Just because yours didn't fail doesn't mean that there's not a problem. This kind of penny pinching is typical of Marshall, and given the couple of pence involved for a correctly specified part, shows how little they understand how to make reliable amps.
Again, I disagree. (Sorry to keep picking on you! ). There have always been good and bad amps around, and there are some good well-designed and built amps around nowadays, just as amps back in " the good old days" were made as cheaply as possible and there was a lot of crap around. Most of the crap is now in landfill, and we only see the survivors.
However, we also now have access to products at much, much lower prices, so it's logical that you're going to get a lower quality, built-to-a-price product designed for a short lifespan with no repair-ability.
Back in 1968 a 50W Plexi might have cost you a months wages, and would still have been thrown together by factory workers who didn't really care about the quality of what they were doing (apart from Rosemary of course!) I suspect many Plexis bit the dust in the 70s, being regarded as just another failed consumer item, not a future collectable.
Now if you pay a month's wages for an amp, you will probably get something of much higher quality.
However you won't, you'll pay £150 with free shipping, shop around to save the last £10, complain that the courier didn't bring it in under 24 hours at the weekend, send it back because you don't like the treble content, complain about having to pay return shipping, or perhaps keep it for 6 months then complain because the tech wants £50 to repair it (if he can, as the importer doesn't carry spares - it was made in China of course), then eventually throw it away after a year or two, then repeat the process.
Sorry, went of at a tangent there. Some or all of the above paragraph might have been exaggerated for effect, but you catch my drift.
You see, we bring this shit on us-selves. It's the curse of modern society - education outstrips intellect. I blame Martin Lewis.
I actually agree with this. Most modern stuff, in real terms, is so cheap - and cheaply assembled, with designs that do not learn from the experience of the techs that even work for their own company! Modern Marshalls have left me cold - and experience of them going pop for other members of the band and the experiences they had when they did go pop has put me off even more.
In the mean time Marshall have blown an absolute fortune on designing series after series of poorly-designed amps which have bitten them in the backside for warranty repairs and then been discontinued after a fair short run when buyers realise this. It's really not a good track record.
They *do* still make good amps - the reissues. The build quality of these is up there with anything they've ever made, so I'm not purely bashing Marshall! If only they could take a big step back and start again with the 'modern' range - based directly on these instead of tearing the whole thing up and starting from scratch as they always seem to. The Vintage Modern was a good idea in theory - but badly executed.
I say all this as the owner of a TSL122 combo by the way… it doesn't sound that bad, although I did modify it somewhat to fix the main fault it had by an alternative method. But it still isn't reliable, and has at least one other fault which needs to be looked at when I can get round to it. There's just so much wrong with the design of it.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
But wait... what about the Astoria range? Point to point hand made isn't it?
As far as larger companies are concerned I'd obviously and naturally rate Mesa up there. We don't half pay for it in the uk though..
• Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@Goldeneraguitars
To the OP, have you considered building your own amp from a kit? Have a look at www.ampmaker.com for British designed and made kits that are easy to build & with good instructions & support.
http://tertl.blogspot.com - personal blog
Handwired Bluesbreaker:
http://i545.photobucket.com/albums/hh384/buckethead_311/Amp stuff/1962 Bluesbreaker_zpsjvjuiepr.jpg
Standard JTM45 reissue:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z84/ibanezking/jtm456.jpg
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
ive had 5 different Marshalls over the years and the only one I had a reoccurring problem with was a JCM900 dual reverb.
Edit- I love Marshall, I've owned many types all my playing life, even a '69 PA head, I'll use my DSL head till it goes puff.
its a wonder that some brain at Marshall hasn't thought "why don't we do an amp that does both of those amps"
surely that would sell?
They really really need to read and then get their expensive heads around the 6,000 plus posts in the Boss Katana thread over on TGP.
And listen to their fans. Not rocket science.
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.
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. That's what people want - it doesn't even need to be astonishingly amazing sounding, just ballpark those tones in a reliable package that looks right and they've got a absolute winner.
I bet it'll arrive within the next couple of years. Hopefully.
As an amp builder myself, I did question the comment at the time, but he was quite adamant - the same components he said.
I can only imagine he meant the same values, which isn't the same thing at all.
http://tertl.blogspot.com - personal blog
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.