Marshall 40 combo...appreciate any inputs

[CoolCat]

small medium venues.
distortion 75% the time
clean 20%
flangy space dope heavy reverb surf crazy 5%

looked at a few and its coming down to this or a Blackstar.

the Fender iV modeler didnt swing the tone and others didnt make it (Vox VT120plus) and so looking for a combo tube simple layout no programming complex banks of memory saved needed.

saw a Fender ProReverb but it weighed like 200lbs (70lbs actually)...the Marshall is at 22lbs, the Blackstar 40watt near same.

is anyone gigged with one, repaired one, sold one , bought one, had sex with one, cranked one up until it caught on fire, kept it for years and years and put thousands of hours on it, swapped speakers, tube costs? love it hate it..recommend something better and cheaper...
any thing to add?

 

[Tadpui]

small medium venues.
distortion 75% the time
clean 20%
flangy space dope heavy reverb surf crazy 5%

looked at a few and its coming down to this or a Blackstar.

the Fender iV modeler didnt swing the tone and others didnt make it (Vox VT120plus) and so looking for a combo tube simple layout no programming complex banks of memory saved needed.

saw a Fender ProReverb but it weighed like 200lbs (70lbs actually)...the Marshall is at 22lbs, the Blackstar 40watt near same.

is anyone gigged with one, repaired one, sold one , bought one, had sex with one, cranked one up until it caught on fire, kept it for years and years and put thousands of hours on it, swapped speakers, tube costs? love it hate it..recommend something better and cheaper...
any thing to add?

I had one for about a year, and I really liked it. I had the DSL40CST from Sweetwater, where they put a celestion creamback speaker in it. That was a terrific upgrade, definitely worth seeking out.

It's a good amp. I always just cranked the clean channel way up and put a TS9 in front of it. Great rock and roll tone. Loud as hell. The crunch channel was pretty ok, and the ultra channel was worthless. Reverb wasnt very good either. The shared eq between all channels might be a bad thing if you switch channels on stage. You can't really find a single eq setting that sounds good for more than 1 channel.

 

[Robus]

I own that amp too. What Tadpui said for the most part. It has a nice clean, a convincing crunch, and a useless high gain sound. The shared EQ would be a liability live. Reverb is minimal and won't get you anywhere near surf. There is some rattle in mine. I like the amp all in all but it doesn't get much use. I am totally focused on recording and have other amps to cover the tones I use the most. But I should haul it out again, it has been a while.

 

[CoolCat]

gracias

great input

 

[CoolCat]

Blackstar 40watt very very similar in nearly everything.

 

[Robus]

I've never played a Blackstar, but I'm intrigued. I have heard quite a few tone clips from the 20ish watt combo version. Most of them tended to be dark and boxy, but I could tell there were better tones lurking, just needing the right approach to coax out.

 

[CoolCat]

i was just noticing a warranty on Marshall is 5yrs and 3yr labor.
Fender stopped their awesome warranty of 5yr transferable and lowered it to 2yr non-transferable as of Jan 2017.
Cant find Blackstar's warranty.
(EDIT: GC chat said Blackstar has no warranty only what GC offers)

but Ive been burnt before on used tube amps...I was playing some the other day in GC and a amp went into a 190db squeaelch.... GC sells a lot of junk that doesnt work because the gang doesnt even check it out when its traded in (my own experience several times). Its easy to return....but damn they have a lot of defective crap in their used section.

how mcuh is a warranty brand new worth? hmmm?

 

[CoolCat]

I've never played a Blackstar, but I'm intrigued. I have heard quite a few tone clips from the 20ish watt combo version. Most of them tended to be dark and boxy, but I could tell there were better tones lurking, just needing the right approach to coax out.

yeah Ive been reading the ISF knob and theres versatility there but a person might have to find their tone.
a lot of people have their own taste so the blackstar has that.
I was looking at 22watters too many say thats fine for a gig thats mic'd. seems I assume 40watts-50watts is definite., probably more than needed....with 100w above the call of duty and maybe needing a powersoak...for smaller places.

 

[Robus]

Cat, if you're interested, I hauled out the Marshall combo this afternoon. I was tracking a short part of a song and decided to audition it.

It's on the crunch setting of channel 1, except the last bit that is on the clean setting. Guitar is a strat. I close miked the speaker with an SM57 and a Sennheiser e906, then blended the two. The amp is on the 40 watt setting with master dimed and gain at about 50 percent. I rolled back volume knob on the guitar for the cleaner part.

What do you think? It sounds pretty okay to me. There's just a little graininess to the crunch that I don't like, though it might not matter in a mix.

It was really loud. Yeah, you could gig this amp. Unless your drummer is a madman. I don't subject my ears to that anymore, so I was tracking in my studio monitors while the amp was in another room.


DSL40c_e906 and SM57.mp3 - Google Drive

 

[CoolCat]

it has some growl doesnt it , even on clean. there was a distortion present that isnt mud (means the chords are still intelligible).
i think it would be a good size combo. and not too heavy.

thanks for the clip. no mention of problems or plastic or repairs?

 

[Robus]

No repairs on mine. It hasn't been out of the house in the time I have owned it, so I can't comment on ruggedness. I feels solid. There is a sympathetic rattle somewhere in the cab that I hear when I hit a certain note. From memory it might have been around Bb on the low E string. I haven't bothered to track it down. If I had to do it again I would have bought the head version. I'm kinda done with combos--or would be except for the fact that certain sounds I love just come in combos, like the classic Fenders.

It's a solid amp and should be a good buy used. A speaker upgrade like Tad's creamback would be worthwhile if you like how those sound. I am pretty sure I could get it sounding much better than that clip if I spent some time dialing it in. I guess the reason why I never used it much was that I always had better options for the various sounds it makes--my Fender amps for clean, my Hughes & Kettner and Boogie heads for crunch. As a home studio guy exclusively for many years, I don't have to have one amp that does it all. If I did, the Marshall would be a viable package at its price point.

 

[CoolCat]

your clip made me think of the Fender clean for a bit and theres a used pro reverb used around here, but i picked it up physically and it was extremely heavy !! I bet its a nice house amp, like bulldog stout and solid amp ..on wheels too which would help damn it was heavy.

yeah for this one on the light side and portable is key too.