Product: Marshall 1978 Major Bass 200 Watt
Price Paid: 2,500,000 (Italian Lira) used
Submitted
04/14/2001
at
05:13am
by
Federico Mreule
Email: rico dot mreule<at>tin dot it
Features
:
7
Mine was built in 1971.
No channel switching, no effects loop, no reverb, just pure Marshall tube tone.
It only has a presence, bass, middle e treble tone control and 2 volume pot (Input 1 and Input 2). That's all.
The Power tubes are 4 KT88s (the only tubes that can handle the power). Well you can also use 6550, but the tone will suffer.
Luckily KT88 are easy to find today. Sovtek, Tesla and Svetlana produce these tubes.
Sound Quality
:
10
Man, this baby is REALLY LOUD!!!!
200W of pure valve tone. It is also fairly clean at high volumes, due to the Superlinear output transformer. Mine is a 1978 Major model (that's a bass amp). The lead model is the 1967.
I play mainly Fender Stratocasters and I own also a Les Paul Standard.
The Major heads were used mainly by bass players, Jack Bruce of Cream and John Entwhistle of Who, along with Roger Glover of Deep Purple used these high power Marshall heads.
Ritchie Blackmmore used the Major Heads with Deep Purple and Rainbow, but his amps were slightly modified, because the amp does not really distort at high volumes.
Mine is in really good shape, it is very quiet but I Never use it live. I use a 1959 SLP modified reissue head for live concerts.
I play hard rock, 70s stuff and Marshall is the only choice for me.
Reliability
:
7
This amp is 30 years old. It has been recently serviced (the electrolitics capacitors were substituted). All the other components are original and in perfect shape.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Never really had any problems with Marshall equipment. Since they are the only amps I use (well I own also a Vox AC30) and they all work and sound great.
Overall Rating
:
10
I've been playing for may years. I have owned lots of amplifiers (Mesa, Soldano, VHT, Bogner) but the Marshall tone is really unbeatable. I own 3 Marshall heads, The 200W Marshall Major, A 1968 100W Super Lead and a Super Lead reissue (this one was modified, with an extra preamp stage and master volume, and a Vox AC30.
I play these heads through a Marshall stack (1960A and 1960B cabs) with Celestion Greenbacks. The tone is BIG!
Marshall will always be my first choice amplifiers.
