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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
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I know I've often been pretty harsh on Marshall - I don't really like the sounds of a lot of their modern amps, and some of the design mistakes are quite shocking for a company with the experience they should have - but I really *want* them to do well… my first proper amp was a Marshall, and I've always loved the old ones. I do see hope, too - the very most recent series seem to be a lot better thought-out, and have proved noticeably less unreliable already. It started with the current MG series, I think - abandoning the fan-cooled cheap power IC approach of the previous (and AVT) series and going back to properly heatsinked discrete transistors. Since then the JVMs have been pretty good, the new (sadly not UK-made) DSLs are much better than the old ones, and the Codes appear to be good.
From another thread, it appears their financial situation is pretty good, too - they're profitable despite all the apparently short-lived production runs. Maybe the headphones and radios sell well .
"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
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To be fair, if Marshall made one of those - or any of the HT range - with the same feature set but a more Marshally sound, I'd probably buy one too…
It's even more puzzling that they don't now make a modern Valvestate, when Blackstar have taken a lot of this market with the HTs - I know they're not exactly comparable since the HT has a valve power amp too, and is marketed as a valve amp. It wouldn't actually be difficult for Marshall to go down the same route though.
"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
Also every valve amp they make regardless of power should have the power scaling from AFD in it.
They've thankfully ditched all that power-IC crap now, except for the smallest models of the MG series.
"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
The yard is nothing but a fence, the sun just hurts my eyes...
A great little amp - not quite the classic Marshall sound, since as Marshall always seem to have to, they couldn't just put a classic Marshall preamp circuit in a box with a 15W power section and save themselves a lot of hassle, they had to bugger around with it… the tone stack is different, there's no cathode-follower section and no presence control either.
It's actually not too far away from the clean channel of a Jubilee in some ways. Not that much gain, but very dynamic and astonishingly loud for a 15W amp, even allowing for the (first ever amp to use it, and slightly different from later versions) Vintage 30 speaker.
They have a weakness - the power transformer is a bit under-spec and is known to fail. I *didn't* know this when I fitted mine with EL34s to see what it would sound like! If I'd realised I would also have known that it's a seriously bad idea, since they draw more than double the filament current of 6V6s… but mine survived. It did sound more 'Marshally' with them, so if I was doing it again I might pre-emptively replace the PT with an upgraded version (I think TAD sell them) and run it like that.
The 'studio' aspect of it - the XLR DI output on the back - was actually pretty much pointless at the time since it isn't speaker-emulated… but actually nowadays it would be very useful, since with software IRs it could be used as a very 'clean' source - it's driven by a separate winding on the OT.
Does that help?
"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
I started googling about low wattage Marshalls after this thread started and read about them. Seems they are as rare as hens teeth though which is an issue, will keep looking. Cheers again!
The yard is nothing but a fence, the sun just hurts my eyes...