the answer is........
yes, you will be able to push a 4x12 cab with it. Each speaker will get 10W, which really isn't that bad, but it will work and sound much better than the open back 1x12. A 2x12 is a good option.
my review.................
First of all, this amp has some great potential. The first thing you need to know if that there are lots of people who have cmplained about cooling problems, which can cause the circuits to get real hot and the components to desolder themselves. Not too bad too fix, but luckily I picked mine up for $500 used off of Ebay and the guy that I bought it from had a fan put in to cool the power tubes. This may be becuase EL84 tubes are supposed to put out 12-15W each and somehow Marshall is getting 20W out them. Probally due to its class AB, push-pull configuration with negative feedback.
The stock speaker on this amp sounds beautiful on the clean channel!! Overdrive is another story - it gets REALLY buzzy especially on OD2. The stock speaker is really thin on low end probally due to the open back and the speaker itlsedf. I bought a custom 2x12 with a celestion greeback and vintage 30 in it, these speakers MUCH improve the sound. I have it wired so i can use either on or the other or both. So I can "A/B" the speakers and they both sound great (even though you have to really change the EQ to get them to sound "similar")
The stock tubes are some yugoslovian "EI" brand, and not very desirable from what I here. Luckily mine was retubed by the guy I bought it from. He put in some Groove tubes and I was glad that I wasn;t gonna have to spend $100 more on tubes!! I pulled the Groove Tubes EL84's and put in two Mesa Boogie tubes to run the amp at 20W so I woudn't blow my greenback, and I've run this conifguration for quite a while now wiht no problems and it sounds great. If you want some nre tubes, I hear JJ tubes are excellent - Eurotubes.com sells a complete retube kit for the DSL401 for $80 or something if you want to swap yours..............
Now for the amp itself. The clean channel is Beautiful, some have said that it is the best clean channel they have heard in a marshall. Come to think of it I just recorded a song that has lots of chimey cleans using this amp with a greenback speaker and you can find it here -
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The OD channel has two settings on it. First you dial in your desired tone for the OD1 channel and when you push the footswitch it gives your gain setting a 20db (10X) boost. That is a lot. I really want to add a knob to my amp to tone this down a bit, to a more manageable setting - not an easy task!! The OD1 channel give a great classic tone, and OD2 give a nice harder/metalish sound.
The EL84 tubes are lower power than its EL34 cousins that are in all the BIG marshalls. They are gonna be a little raunchier and distort faster (think Vox AC30 distortion wise)
One of the great features of this amp is the combonation of "master volume" and "cannel volume" swtiches. Using these setting you can realyl get a diverse sound. If you want "preamp" distotion" you can CRANK up the channel volume and move the master volume to a setting that won'y kill you. This will give you a gritty type distortion to the saturation of the preamp tubes and the "clean" sound of the power tubes.
TO get "Power tube" distortion you do the opposite. CRANK the master volume and set the channel volume to a managable setting. You'll get a smoother distrotion that will sound more like a cranked stack. You can of course mix these settings to get whatever sound you want, and it its very handy. I pulled the two tubes on mine so that I can get "Power Tube" distrotion earlier and at "lower volumes" - they're really not THAT much lower. but he tubes have to work twice as hard and that pushes them really nice.
The bottom-line its a nice amp - very verstalile - needs a little work to get it really nice - a new speaker(s) (recommend vintage 30 if your gonna swap out the one in your combo), some new tubes, and having a fan installed (or some other kind of cooling system) after $200 is put into its great......
At this point it may be easier to get a Marshall Head, but then again, you would have to carry that 4x12 eveywhere!!!
