Studio JTM - headroom?

the_pman28

I'm looking for a second amp with view to having a spare if ever my vintage Deluxe Reverb dies. The weight, price and format of the Studio JTM are pretty appealing plus it sounds good from the clips I've heard. 

However, I tend to run my Deluxe clean (around 3 - 4 on the volume) and use it as a pedal platform with enough clean headroom to boost volume over the other guitarist in the band for solos. 

So, my question is does the Marshall have the ability to be set relatively clean and still achieve reasonable gigging volumes with clean headroom to spare. For reference, I've had a lot of 15-20 watt amps (predominantly EL84 types) where they fell short because they distorted too soon and any boost = more gain rather than volume.

Thanks! 

ecc83

My yardstick has always been that a 15 W (2 el84/6v6) is loud enough* for quite a large pub with a not too mad drummer for jeeeust breakup rock. To get the same level clean needs 30-40W and I would look to amps with EL34/6L6 and fixed bias. A true 50W, well designed valve amp will cover most venues and be clean at all but the biggest.

All the above assumes a decent speaker setup. No less than 100dB/W/Mtr and 2x12* or bigger will help, especially to stay clean.

However, you are looking for "backup"? Solid state amps are very good these days though they might not give you "the last word in valveiness" they are cheaper, MUCH lighter and  far more compact. I am thinking one of the 100W pedals now extant. The punter will never have a 'king cue!

*The guitar amp industry seems only recently to have realized that the 2x12 should be "stood oop" i.e. vertical. This give a slight increase in sensitivity (but every dB matters!) and better room coverage. The hI fI/PA industry knew this 60 years ago!

Dave.

webrthomson

I've got one recently and while it’s a great little amp mines starts clipping by about 4 on the volume controls. It pretty loud but I’d have serious doubts its loud enough to be gigging with.

 As @ecc83 says I think you would need to look at more watts for the headroom.

Best pedal platform I even used was an old JMP Superbass, utterly deafening, sounded glorious

the_pman28

ecc83 said:

My yardstick has always been that a 15 W (2 el84/6v6) is loud enough* for quite a large pub with a not too mad drummer for jeeeust breakup rock. To get the same level clean needs 30-40W and I would look to amps with EL34/6L6 and fixed bias. A true 50W, well designed valve amp will cover most venues and be clean at all but the biggest.

All the above assumes a decent speaker setup. No less than 100dB/W/Mtr and 2x12* or bigger will help, especially to stay clean.

However, you are looking for "backup"? Solid state amps are very good these days though they might not give you "the last word in valveiness" they are cheaper, MUCH lighter and  far more compact. I am thinking one of the 100W pedals now extant. The punter will never have a 'king cue!

*The guitar amp industry seems only recently to have realized that the 2x12 should be "stood oop" i.e. vertical. This give a slight increase in sensitivity (but every dB matters!) and better room coverage. The hI fI/PA industry knew this 60 years ago!

Dave.

Thanks, yeah sorry, I perhaps should have clarified - whilst this is a 'backup' for my main gigging amp, I'm also keen to have a nice second amp to noodle with, so it's not all necessity driven. 

The 22 watt 6v6 Deluxe Reverb has always been more than enough amp for me in any given gigging situation - I rarely get above 3 on the volume (un-mic'ed) and that's with a relatively loud drummer and second guitarist. 

the_pman28

webrthomson said:

I've got one recently and while it’s a great little amp mines starts clipping by about 4 on the volume controls. It pretty loud but I’d have serious doubts its loud enough to be gigging with.

 As @ecc83 says I think you would need to look at more watts for the headroom.

Best pedal platform I even used was an old JMP Superbass, utterly deafening, sounded glorious

Thanks, sadly as i expected 

webrthomson

the_pman28 said:

webrthomson said:

I've got one recently and while it’s a great little amp mines starts clipping by about 4 on the volume controls. It pretty loud but I’d have serious doubts its loud enough to be gigging with.

 As @ecc83 says I think you would need to look at more watts for the headroom.

Best pedal platform I even used was an old JMP Superbass, utterly deafening, sounded glorious

Thanks, sadly as i expected 

What I would say is it cleans up nicely on the guitar volume pot, so you could roll it back for normal and up for solos, bit fiddley, but it's what a lot of 60’s and 70’s did on their Les Pauls – neck for clean bridge full up for roar, pickup selector to change sound.

It really does capture the sounds of the old amp. It is actually only 10 watts less of output power to the JTM it’s based on!

noisepolluter

webrthomson said:

the_pman28 said:

webrthomson said:

I've got one recently and while it’s a great little amp mines starts clipping by about 4 on the volume controls. It pretty loud but I’d have serious doubts its loud enough to be gigging with.

 As @ecc83 says I think you would need to look at more watts for the headroom.

Best pedal platform I even used was an old JMP Superbass, utterly deafening, sounded glorious

Thanks, sadly as i expected 

What I would say is it cleans up nicely on the guitar volume pot, so you could roll it back for normal and up for solos, bit fiddley, but it's what a lot of 60’s and 70’s did on their Les Pauls – neck for clean bridge full up for roar, pickup selector to change sound.

It really does capture the sounds of the old amp. It is actually only 10 watts less of output power to the JTM it’s based on!

I’ll bet it’s brilliant with any of those big valve preamp pedals. Probably even better than the SV20 would be as I understand the treble channel is a bit less strident. 

Really need to try my Dickinson D1 through one of these at some point. 

shaunm

It’s worth noting that the full sized JTM45 doesn’t have lots of headroom either. It starts to break up pretty early with humbuckers.

Winny_Pooh

Matchless lightning?

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/265828/matchless-lightning-reverb-1x12-15w-combo-1-600-now-1-500#latest

ecc83

"The 22 watt 6v6 Deluxe Reverb has always been more than enough amp for me in any given gigging situation - I rarely get above 3 on the volume (un-mic'ed) and that's with a relatively loud drummer and second guitarist."

Ah now! That amp, fairly unusually, runs the 6V6s in fixed bias. This is what give it its headroom, the more common cathode biased pair of 12W tetrodes/pentodes would be clipping at little over 15W. The FDR will I bet get close to 30W if hardly pressed.

Dave.

the_pman28

Winny_Pooh said:

Matchless lightning?

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/265828/matchless-lightning-reverb-1x12-15w-combo-1-600-now-1-500#latest

Wouldn't that be lovely!  I've eyed that one up - surprised it's still available. Still an 18w EL84 amp though so i suspect it will have similar headroom issues.

ecc83 said:

"The 22 watt 6v6 Deluxe Reverb has always been more than enough amp for me in any given gigging situation - I rarely get above 3 on the volume (un-mic'ed) and that's with a relatively loud drummer and second guitarist."

Ah now! That amp, fairly unusually, runs the 6V6s in fixed bias. This is what give it its headroom, the more common cathode biased pair of 12W tetrodes/pentodes would be clipping at little over 15W. The FDR will I bet get close to 30W if hardly pressed.

Dave.

That's good info - never realised why it was the Deluxe could handle gigs far better - thanks!

p90fool

shaunm said:

It’s worth noting that the full sized JTM45 doesn’t have lots of headroom either. It starts to break up pretty early with humbuckers.

Yep, a real JTM 45 is barely enough to be a pedal platform for me, and the 20w Studio series Marshall I had was nowhere near. 

The 50w Origin is perfect though, and way cheaper. 

Winny_Pooh

the_pman28 said:

Winny_Pooh said:

Matchless lightning?

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/265828/matchless-lightning-reverb-1x12-15w-combo-1-600-now-1-500#latest

Wouldn't that be lovely!  I've eyed that one up - surprised it's still available. Still an 18w EL84 amp though so i suspect it will have similar headroom issues.

ecc83 said:

"The 22 watt 6v6 Deluxe Reverb has always been more than enough amp for me in any given gigging situation - I rarely get above 3 on the volume (un-mic'ed) and that's with a relatively loud drummer and second guitarist."

Ah now! That amp, fairly unusually, runs the 6V6s in fixed bias. This is what give it its headroom, the more common cathode biased pair of 12W tetrodes/pentodes would be clipping at little over 15W. The FDR will I bet get close to 30W if hardly pressed.

Dave.

That's good info - never realised why it was the Deluxe could handle gigs far better - thanks!

They do have more filtering in the power supply and a choke, probably the loudest el84 amps out there.

Or just buy another deluxe reverb or a Carr