I played a bunch of amps today....

Greg_L said:
And there's also the Class 5 which is very reasonably priced. They sound okay. I like them but they don't compare to their original big watt counterparts. The Class 5 sounds much better through an extension cab than the combo version IMO.
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I've got a Class 5 and it is a totally different amp plugged into greenback.
The stock combo speaker doesn't do it justice at all.
I agree that it is a limited representation of the tone potential of a larger Marshall,
but for an average player like me it is still very satisfying.
 
I have a chance to pick up a used DSL100 JCM2000 series head and an M412 4x12 cab (not the better, more expensive 1960 series cabs) for $600 for both. I think the head alone is worth that price, so I'm planning to buy it if it sounds good and works well when I try it out.

I recently picked up a used Class 5 combo...I love the tone, but it's definitely got some issues and limitations in my opinion. For what it is, it can be great...it does that thick, beautiful, broken up JTM 45 type sound really well, and without pissing off the neighbors, but it doesn't have any clean headroom, and it has a propensity to rattle. Granted, for a single channel non-master volume 5 watt amp, clean headroom probably shouldn't be an expected feature :) I'm sure the head/cab version would have been a better bet, but the combo was really cheap and I couldn't resist! The only other comment I have about it is that damn, it's loud!!! This is the first 5 watt amp I've ever owned, and for some reason I didn't expect it to be so freaking loud...lol.
 
moresound said:
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise. :thumbs up:
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As per another thread I hijacked earlier, I tried a couple of the 1W Marshalls the other day and they were incredibly loud as well. I couldn't crank them in the shop at the full 1W setting, but they have a power reduction switch (0.25W, I believe) which is pretty quiet.
 
jonny deep said:
As per another thread I hijacked earlier, I tried a couple of the 1W Marshalls the other day and they were incredibly loud as well. I couldn't crank them in the shop at the full 1W setting, but they have a power reduction switch (0.25W, I believe) which is pretty quiet.
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the thing is that to double the percieved volume takes ten times the power!
So the opposite is true too ....
That means to get the volume down to half of what a 100 watt amp puts out, you have to reduce the power to only 10 watts. And half as loud as a 100 watter is still pretty damned loud.
So let's half it again and now we're down to 1 watt which is only 1/4 as loud as a hundred watter.
So really ....... a 5 watt amp is only half as loud as a 50 watt amp but that's still pretty loud.
 
jonny deep said:
As per another thread I hijacked earlier, I tried a couple of the 1W Marshalls the other day and they were incredibly loud as well. I couldn't crank them in the shop at the full 1W setting, but they have a power reduction switch (0.25W, I believe) which is pretty quiet.
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I think they go down .01 watt! With this feature I've heard that some guys are inserting it into the effects loop of their larger amps.
 
Keep it in perspective though. 1w seems loud sitting right in front of it at a music store. It will never keep up with a drummer and other amps in a rock band setting though. That's my big gripe with the cost of the Marshall one watters. 800 bucks for a bedroom toy.
 
Greg_L said:
Keep it in perspective though. 1w seems loud sitting right in front of it at a music store. It will never keep up with a drummer and other amps in a rock band setting though. That's my big gripe with the cost of the Marshall one watters. 800 bucks for a bedroom toy.
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It was much louder than my 15W solid state Marshall, which is loud enough to go against an unmiked drum kit in a practice setting. The little JCM800 I used did sound great, but as you say, it's no use for gigging and is probably way overkill for practice (at least in terms of price), so they're kind of useless. If I didn't have any amp at all, I might consider it for my bedroom recording, but it doesn't do a great clean, which the DSL 15W does pretty well.
 
Yeah I think the JCM-1 sounds the best of the one watt Marshalls. But for a few hundred more you can get the real thing. I think there's way better, and cheaper, low watt alternatives.
 
Greg_L said:
Keep it in perspective though. 1w seems loud sitting right in front of it at a music store. It will never keep up with a drummer and other amps in a rock band setting though. That's my big gripe with the cost of the Marshall one watters. 800 bucks for a bedroom toy.
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absolutely ....... I've found that for most gigs around 15 watts is a minimum.
On some gigs though with a loud drummer my Mesa Blue Angel (38 watts) has had to be pushed pretty hard to keep up.
 
Lt. Bob said:
absolutely ....... I've found that for most gigs around 15 watts is a minimum.
On some gigs though with a loud drummer my Mesa Blue Angel (38 watts) has had to be pushed pretty hard to keep up.
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yeah, and if you want clean(ish) sounds, 15 may not be enough. that's why I was a tiny terror owner for just about one week
 
antichef said:
yeah, and if you want clean(ish) sounds, 15 may not be enough. that's why I was a tiny terror owner for just about one week
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I agree ........ 15 watts doesn't have enough headroom if you like clean.
And when I want clean I want it CLEAN ..... no breakup at all ... like a pedal steel.

But I have a Tiny Terror ..... it kinda doesn't do clean that well even at lower volumes.
 
I've got a 4W Vox "stack" and it dials down to 1W and 1/4 W.... I was thinking, "Great, I can crank and record 4W worth of tube amb goodness in the apartment without pissing the neighbours off" ..... no way, way too freakin' loud. Normally I'm recording it on 1W and 1/4W and not up past about half way anyway....
 
My issue with low watt amps, and this is just my own observation YMMV, is that they don't get the cab and speakers working in their sweet zones to my satisfaction. Some people plug their low watt amps into big cabs looking for big power and sound. To me, that doesn't get the speakers moving enough. A 5w head cranked into a 300w cab doesn't even tickle the speakers. I've tried it, and it just sounds thin to me. Loud, pretty much, but not a good loud IMO. I admittedly don't quite understand the electrical engineering behind it, but my ears tell me that I don't like it. It almost sounds solid state to me. Kind of flat and lifeless. One solution is to use a 1x12 and to match the amps output to the speaker wattage as closely as you can. That seems to get the speaker working efficiently, but then my problem with that is that a 1x12 box simply isn't that big and I don't hear the bass response that I like to hear from a big enclosure full of air. I suppose a 4x12 sized box with one speaker in it could be a good idea, but who's gonna do that? One of my bandmates has an 18w head and a 1x12 with a 25w Greenback in it. Seems like it should be a good combo, and it sounds decent, but it still sounds small to me. You don't "feel" it. It's all highs and midrange no matter how you tweak the amp. Run it next to a higher wattage head with a 4x12 and the difference is astounding. I know people get good recording results with small rigs and that's awesome. I wanted to go the low watt route, I really did, but wasn't satisfied with what I heard. So to my ears, for me, for the sound I want, it's gotta be big heads, big cabs, big wattage, big volume, so that's what I do. I know it's overkill and mostly impractical, but that's the sound I like. I'm very fortunate and blessed that I can live in a place that allows me to blast a 100w amp and bang my drums and no one cares but my poor deaf wiener dogs. :D
 
I was listening to old Guns N Roses the other day, paying particular attention to the guitar tone. It sounds different to what I'm getting with high gain and low volume playing. I would describe my sound as more distorted but kind of less vibrant. I think that difference is because I'm pushing the preamp stage, but the power tubes are barely working, whereas, I'm guessing, on the classic Marshalls they use, the preamp stage is relatively low distortion and more of the saturation comes from the power amp stage. (I also think that it's the mismatch in gain at the preamp and power tube stages that's causing the rattly sound I've described elsewhere in the forum.)

So, my plan (once we move to our new place next month) is to build an isolation box for my little 1x12 cab so I can crank the volume on the amp some and see what results I get. If it goes well, I can start to think about higher powered amps and speakers. I just hope it doesn't come to my having to build an iso box for a 4x12 in the future - that would be huge.
 
jonny deep said:
I was listening to old Guns N Roses the other day, paying particular attention to the guitar tone. It sounds different to what I'm getting with high gain and low volume playing. I would describe my sound as more distorted but kind of less vibrant. I think that difference is because I'm pushing the preamp stage, but the power tubes are barely working, whereas, I'm guessing, on the classic Marshalls they use, the preamp stage is relatively low distortion and more of the saturation comes from the power amp stage. (I also think that it's the mismatch in gain at the preamp and power tube stages that's causing the rattly sound I've described elsewhere in the forum.)

So, my plan (once we move to our new place next month) is to build an isolation box for my little 1x12 cab so I can crank the volume on the amp some and see what results I get. If it goes well, I can start to think about higher powered amps and speakers. I just hope it doesn't come to my having to build an iso box for a 4x12 in the future - that would be huge.
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The GnR "Appetite" tones, for some people, is like holy grail shit. So much so that Marshall made an "AFD" amp for all the sycophants and they're gobbling it up. Slash tone worship rivals, or is maybe even more prevalent, than past greats like Hendrix, Page, and EVH. That sound was the result of time, place, setup, and whatever was going on at the time. He hasn't duplicated it since, and his true live sound is nothing like AFD or even anything really special.

Getting the power section working is pretty important IMO. I think I'm old school in the sense that I like the sound of moderate gain and lots of power section. I want powerchord crunch, but I still want to hear the notes in an open chord. My amp has 2 pre amp gains and a master vol. I can get a lot of gain with the pre amp knob, but it sounds best to me with the preamp vol around 4 or 5, the secondary gain on 0, and the master turned up between 5-8. It's loud. That's for recording. When I use it at band practice, I have to run the master lower, so I use more preamp gain in that situation.
 
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