Marshall 2104 212 Combo

this godzilla of an amp was made in 1977 . this rock n roll baby can take me from from clean tele chicken-picken to creamy bluesy slide playin to early zep and on to punk ! one channel and basic controls . this dont need anything else but tubes ....throw a 60's GE12ax7 in V1 and see wha happenns!!!! i use this amp anywhere , it might have to be miked at a outdoor festival . it has all the power anyone could (for a combo) .its allmost a stock amp except it came with 6L6's ??? im gonna put the original GE 6550's that i have...(maybe) , and it has 1982 celestion G12-65's which are'nt original but i would not even complain cause they sound like the ****!even with the 6l6's i still give it the highest praise!

sg,tele,stratocaster sounds a lil funny,gretsch, es335 ....they all sound superior. it works well with all pickups . my styles are punk,garage, blues,country,surf,rockabilly,hippie. it is the best combo amp ever made in the 1970's or 80's maybe 60's too!!! clean sounds through distortion.... all can be had with this baby! with the master volume you can really change sounds easily to chimes to trash truck wood chopping killer brutal distortion!! the sounds that come outta this combo make me turn around and stare at it and then wanna bust open a keg of guinness and jam!!!!

you dont need a backup ever with this king-kong skysrcaper smasher of an amp...why for ? it too f'in heavy,unless your a body builder from venice beach!!!!what a *****!!! it's as dependable as your heart??? as long as you dont really f it up .

why would i need to waste time calling across any ocean ?? this amp dont need customer support it needs musician support. play the damn thing and change tubes once in a while...this amp is a one channel wonder its the superhero of amps!!! any local amp tech can work on it ,unless it was modded by some funny person who wanted it to sound like i dont know what !#@$&%****

i been playing 35 yrs,i own other great amps ...from 50's to 60's combos---fender,gretsch,national,flot a tone,excelsior and this marshall rates right along side of them as one of the best classic amps ever made. i would get another quick as **** if i ever lost it. there is nothing i dont like about this amp,its not that heavy maybe as heavy as a trashcan full of beer bottles....so if you can take out the trash then you can haul this!!!!this combo dont need anything else but tubes and a bath..its a lil easier than lugging a stack ,unless you got roadies . these 70's combos are the best deal around if you can find one , start looking Now .!

I have played english electric blues and rock for 38 years. I have used a 1978 Marshall 50W Combo (original blackback speakers and one of the first rare ones that used that extra preamp circuit leftover from the other channel) for the greater part of this time, although I have modern pieces of kit I like too, like the Pod XT Pro. However, horses for courses the Marshall amp is a design master piece. Simple and effective, it does what it is supposed to and does it every time. For really clean sounds you need to wind back the preamp stage, which would mean wandering over to the amp and fiddling if on stage, so I just tread on a pedal and reroute to another amp (Fender Twin)- but 'clean' is not what this animal is best at. Clean is prissy. This heavy combo (in all senses)plays filth loudly. I love filthy dirty down home in the gutter bluesy guitar sounds and this amp does it with knuckledusters. As Gary Moore is oft quoted 'you can feel a Marshall' I know what he means, it's a quality beyond volume, and this brick of a combo has a greater presence than the mere 50W claimed. Mine is slightly customised in that it has a fan pointed at the two big tubes, just to avoid meltdown from my extended use of high gain and hot sticky gigs, but it is more for beer talk than necessity.
No loops, no multi channels, no great EQ range, no headphone sockets, (mind you I have never looked!!)just gorgeous FILTH! (It's not meant to be versatile, it wasn't built by committee!)

I use old strats and an ancient Les Paul Jnr through it. You get a bit more noise from the single poles but that's not the amp's fault! I prefer the Strat/Marshall blend, it covers a vast timbral spectrum. I am personally not keen on the extra thickness that a gibson brings to a Marshall sound, but some have made it a trademark I know! (Tokai strats sound great through it too by the bye). I have humbuckers on some of my strats and they are definitely the best of the best, not quite as rich as a Gibbo, so you get great distortion but maintain good note clarity. The usual problem of adding fuzz/distortion is that you can sink back into the mix/live sound. This doesn't happen with this amp unless you add a fuzz pedal and also use the preamp gain, But that is ordering a gallon of cream for your blues berries, just too rich! Just plug straight in (put all the EQ somewhere in the middle - to taste)5-8 gain and as much master vol as the band can bear...and sweat with sustained joy!

N/A Never serviced, never broke. More reliable than a smoke detector.

My backup plan was the 'clean' amp with an overdrive pedal. I wonder if I'll ever know what it sounds like?

Marshall people are friendly and other than being based too close to Milton Keynes can be forgiven anything. They have been very helpful with tech questions indeed.

I have been playing since my early teens. My music master came to watch me headline Saturday night at Windsor Free Festival 1973 with a band called Profusion, I was 17!

http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/windsor-menu.html

Anyway the 50W combo - I have played every amp in my time in most situations (from small studios to large outdoor concerts) and did have a brief love affair with the Mesa's in studios but always came back to the raw English sound. If I could improve anything about this Marshall combo - I would make it lighter, but then again......naw!

Mine is a 1979 which I bought new in Japan in 1981 so I have owned this amp 26 years. For the music I play it's excellent...classic rock/Blues. single channel high side and low side.I like it nice and simple.I'ved used this amp from the studio to 8000 seat hall.plenty of power.

Roll back your guitar volume and you can get clean sound and still not lose your highs,then crank your guitar and get real nice crunch.I use a graphic EQ pedal with the output cranked for extra boost.I use a '76 Strat with a Jeff Beck Seymore Duncan in the bridge and a Bill Lawrence single coil in the neck.Also I use a SG with p-90's both sound great.suits me just fine.

This amp has never let me down and I've used at Hundreds of shows.Once a full beer spilled in at practice while I was playing, it faded out, I thought that did it for sure.Well, I took a hairdryer to it crossed my fingers and it fired right back up.I replace the tubes every couple of years.

Only had to the shop for mod to use EL34's big diffrence in the sound much warmer. and new tubes and a quick bias

been playing 29 years if was stolen I would cry and then hunt the thief down and drop the thing on his head (it weighs a Ton!!!). Love the sound hate the weight.My band mate has a 1982 jcm 800 stack and my amp kills his.

I bought my 1978(?) 2104 from a recording/practice studio in 1985 for 100 GB Pounds. I wanted it initially just for the brand, price and mobility and I dragged it along with me to 100's of gigs with a punky-rock band. I played an '82 Strat with Seymour Duncan Hotrail bridge pickup. The sound was glorious for the first 30-40 minutes of a set but seemed to fade off. I thought that this was due to the booze and the assault on my own ears. The only modification that I have made is to add some castors. They don't seem to work very well on stairs though.

I moved to Australia in 2000 and decided to sell it to make space. I took it for a service for the first time in 20+ years and it turned out there was a loose solder joint and a dodgy crapaciratator thingy. Now it sounds like heaven for hard rock or bluesy riffs and I just can't part with it. Why didn't I get it sorted when I was a young, thrusting gun? I could have been famous by now!!

I forced my 14 year-old son to take guitar lessons just so that I could buy him a Les Paul (Epiphone - I'm not made of money) for Xmas for me to play through my amp. My wife hates the amplifier. I keep it at the bottom of our bed. The fender is nice and bluesy if you turn down the guitar tone pot and the sound from the LP is very Steve Jones. I avoid using any effects now as I've become a bit of a purist in my old age.

This amp has no notable features apart from a carrying handle and space in the back to store leads, etc. The best way to operate it is to turn all of the pots to the mid position, increase the gain to full, or thereabouts, and adjust the volume to suit other band members, neighbours, wives, etc.. What more do you need?

I have dropped it and spilt things in it which probably didn't do it any good. Don't neglect servicing.

Got a full service in Australia, by Roland! for about 100 quid.

My amp is a 2104 master volume, 50 watts combo from 1977. It uses two EL34 power amp tubes and three 12AX7 (ECC83) pre amp tubes. Mine is curently loaded with Phillips tubes and they work fine. The amp has two 12'' speakers, mine has two Rola Celestion G12 M Greenbacks and think those are one of the best speakers for british overdrive sound. It`s a single channel, two input amp, it has vertical high and low inputs. Basicaly, this is the same amp like the 1981. JCM800, with slight changes in EQ section, and major change in outlook design. I have done a modification to this amp, so there it is:
1) Originally, this amp uses one preamp tube for it EQ section, so I made my EQ passive, like on the JCM800, and used that preamp tube for gain stage, which increased the gain, and made a lot more tighter and less fuzzy. Since I don`t use low input, I used that slot for a footswitch which when kicked disengage one preamp tube make the signal crystal clean. I did this on insist from my amp tech, but I do not use this switch, cause I actually don`t play crystal clean, I like to roll down volume knob on my guitar to get that kind a crunchy, dirty clean. That`s the only part of the mod that I don`t like.
2) Second part of the mod was to remove some resistors, and change some resistors value to make it sound more that I like. There is a resistor that Marshall puts in the signal to boost treble, but actually by removing it you get a major boost in low end so it makes sound tighter and little towards american sound.
About versatility, this amp is not versatile, cause it is not suppose to be, it is a one trick pony, that gives you outstanding overdrive and lead sound, and I personnaly don`t need no channel switcing or effect loops in it...

I`m using Gibson Les Paul Studio from 1997. It is loaded with EMG 81 in the bridge, and all other features are stock. I use Ernie Ball 10 - 52 gauge strings. I play in metal hardcore band.
This amp have a very weak and bad sound on low volume settings, especially on high pre amp settings. Whetever you put overdrive, distortion pedal or play clean through the amp, you won`t be happy with it. Best choise is to put good overdrive pedal in front of it like Tube Screamer, Boss OD1, SD1 etc. because the amp gain is not enough by it self on low master volume.
However, by cranking the master volume knob above five... BLAST!!! With a fine mahagony guitar, a hot pick up, straight in the amp and playing harder, you`ll get briliant, thight, focused, full, distortion sound. The best way to describe it is the cliche sentance: balls to the walls! It is not ultra high gain, but with that rumbling low end, cutting trough midrange, and razor sharp high end, the sound will be brutall as it can get. Sweet spot for me is master at 8-9, preamp at 10, treble at 5.5, middle at 6, bass at 8, presence at 4.There is enough power for modern metal, metalcore, hardcore riffs, for craziest leads, so every thing from classic rock to hard rock to metal is covered. This is the ultimate downtuned hard drive guitar sound.
The noise on this amp is not high and althogh I have active electronics on my guitar, I don`t think anybody with humbucking guitar will mind the slight noise, it probably will get noisy with single coils, but it`s old so it has to be like that...
Clean sound on this amp is nowhere near Fender or Vox amps, but who needs clean with kind of drive :)

This amp, as every old tube amp is not much reliable. It can make you crazy at times to times. I had to change my power tubes twice, and change transformator in just a year! And it bailed on me one time in the sound check for a gig, luckily there was an old Marshall Plexi but it was so *&^%$# up it was horrible... However, time makes you relaxed about this kind of stuff, you get used to it and it just stops bugging you.

I live in Serbia, so there is no way of dealing with the company in normal way.

I`ve been playing guitar for 11 years, and I always liked heavy music. Despite that, I played very diffirent kinds of music, but mostly rock guitar music. If it were stolen or lost, I don`t think I would be able to find another one, cause they are very rare. I hate that I can`t get good sound on low settings, but cranking tube amp is the only way to get good overdrive, so when I finally crank it, it pays of... If you like that classic Gibson + Marshall sound, get this one, or JCM800 and it will make your dream of rock sound come true...

This is a 1978 2x12 with black back marshall speakers combo. It has the old style toggle switches and a square pilot light like on the older Marshall models.This model is a master volume with high and low vertical imputs. With the master volume you can get great sounds at low levels with ALL the crunchy distortion.This amp comes with an extra gain stage and was only manufactured between 1976 and 1981 I belive.If you come across one of these for sale, by it.If you dont buy it, it's because you did'nt plug a guitar in to it. You can cover the 60's 70's 80's etc, back off on the guitars volume and it cleans up rather nicely.

I play this with a 61 SG all the way up to the high end Ibanez's with the floyd rose and jeff beck hot rails. It rocks. AC/DC, ZEP, Skynard, ZZ TOP, Van Halen, I dont find it lacking in any way. I play heartbreaker the roll back the gtrs volume and play the the rain song. I really love this amp. And if this amp is only 50 watts then I the friging pope.

I owned this same model in 1977 and sold it to get a full stack, not because it gave me any problems. The full stack gave back problems and made me wish that I had kept the combo. The one I have now has been problem free. Im older now and can afford what ever I want. I own my home and now when I buy a stack I only have get it into my house and never move it again. This amp is very heavy for its size but when I play out I dont have to make three or four trips to my blazer to get my rig into the place. I keep a fender M-80 head in the truck just in case. You can store you pedals inside the back of the amp, one less trip.

I have owned many marshalls in my life, some I got new some I got used. With the new ones I never had to use the warranty. These things are tanks.

I have been playing for 34 years. My current marshall's are, 1971 super tremolo with matching 1971 1960a green backs, 1978 2104 combo, 1981 JMC 2203 with matching 1981 1960a 4x75 watt cabinet. All I can say is I am a very happy camper/picker.If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else? YES! what do you love about it? Everthing. What do you hate? NOTHING! Did you compare it to other products? Yea the mesa's were getting 8.3/8.4's. Anything you wish it had? Yea a built in ash tray and beer holder.

This is a 1977 Canadian export model. It differs from the US and UK versions because it doesn't have the lighted rocker style mains and standby switches. It has the old style toggle switches and a square pilot light like on the older Marshall models, such as the SLP. I guess Canada had some electronics safety rule at the time, and required the change. Otherwise the same, one channel, Plexi style front end with a master volume and the old second channel's pre-amp tube added on to give one more gain stage to the single remaining channel. That was a dumb way to say it, but I understand that this was a common mod that the Marshall factory special ordered for 10 years before they put it into production in '76 or '77. It has a shallow (9") open back cabinet, and two 25 watt Celestion G12M "Blackback" speakers. No reverb, no effects loop, it only does one thing, but it does it well.

Simply put: Simply wonderful. Great Marshall tone, thick and penetrating, but each guitar's personality shows through. Gibsons sound great, of course, but Strats do too. Lots of crunch, roar, sparkle and shimmer, no mud or woof. This is a classic amp, like a Tweed Bassman or an AC30, and it's as loud as you really need, too, in today's world. Historically, I think this (with it's head and 100 watt cousins) was the Last New Real Marshall line ever introduced (without transistors, not a re-issue)! Sad, but true.

Perfect record. PCB, but pots are attached to the chassis, not to the board. Plywood Cab, not MDF.

The is a well kept secret, and a bargain, because of that. I guess, because everybody famous had a wall of stacks in his day, no one today figures that the same huge sound will come out of one of these. Suprise.

According to the Serial number it was made in 1981 and this is confirmed by the inspection sticker as well.

Ths is a basic amp, 1 channel with two inserts Low and High, Master Volume, Pre-amp Volume and basic Bass, Middle and Teble Tone controls and a Presence control.

There are no effects loops, reverbs, channel switching or anything modern about it whatsoever.

I play predominently rock/blues but some gigs need a bit of clean twangy country stuff..it's not too good for that.

Gigs I do tend not to need all the power it can push out, it is WAY louder than the 50 watts rating.

It won't do anything other than give you a simple basic sound.........but WHAT a sound!

I play 2 guitars with this amp, an Epiphone Les Paul Studio and A Squier Strat.

The effects chain is as follows:- Guitar>CryBaby Wah-Wah>Marshall Blues Breaker> EH Little Big Muff Fuzz> Behringer V-Amp 2.

With the Strat you have to back off the gain a little as it gets very noisy indeed. You can do all the Hendrixy SRV Dave Gilmour stuff with ease but back off the pre amp gain for that.

Things are quieter with the Les Paul's humbuckers as you would expect.

I tend to use the V-amp without the Amp modelling on so it's purely for effects and the Noise Gate, if you mix the modelled Distortion with the Marshall's natural distortion it gets too muddy.

When played clean this amp gives a warm rounded "tubey" sound rich and full like a good red wine. You can run the Amp Modelling through the Low Input with some success but once the valves start to distort it gets a bit "busy" sounding. The tone controls do give quite a bit of variety to the sound, it can be quite trebley so I back that off.

I have just had this repaired after a long period sitting gathering dust so when I first tried it I didnt expct to get such a great tone at very low volume. But with the Pre-amp set on 8 and the Master on just about 1, WOW.. rich, harmonically full crunch perfect for ZZ Top style playing. Back off the guitar and it cleans up no end. Hit the strings hard and it responds beautifully. Max the pre-amp volume and you get that creamy Parisienne Walkways Gary Moore sound. Ramp up the volume on the Master and You can feel the air moving. Thick warm, classic Marshall tone, no fizziness just pure valve response. The down-side is it gets very noisy so a good noise gate is imperative. You don't get that Dual rectifier thrash sound but if you like Thin Lizzy(Scot Gorham recorded Live and Dangerous through 5 of these) you have the sound right there.

Back off the Pre-amp to 5 Master on about 8 and Paul Kossoff/Peter Green Oh Well/Wishing Well.

The other thing is the sustain..it literally is like Spinal Tap, move a couple of feet and you can introduce 3rd's and 5th's to the root note with ease.

With the Blues Breaker it just gets more distorted and thicker sounding.

Add the Little Big Muff and "HOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWLLLLLLL" loads of gain thick distortion and you want to hold that high E in Parisienne Walkways..... just for god's sake hit the pedal off or you can hear Air traffic control through the crackle and fuzz.

You can back the volume right off and play clean(ish)too. Don't expect to sound like U2 though. In the low input with the V-amp set to Message in a bottle pre-set you can sound like The Police but I'd mike it up at a gig or else it would distort too much.

It does what it says on the front...Marshall

This amp has seen some gigs in it's day. It's been thrown in and out of vans with no flight case so it looks a bit battered.

It has died on me the once but it was due to me neglecting it not that it wasn't reliable..kids pouring water down it!!!

It has just had a service, new mains switch, capacitor, new pre-amp valve all for #60. Sounds like new.

I'd always have a back up but its built like a tank, just remember to let it cool down before you move it.

Only dealt with Marshall once about 20 years ago they were excellent, helpful and solved the problem quickly (valves needed rebiasing and speaker lead was duff)

Been playing 30 years now.

Have owned Marshall Hiwatt Fender (Hiwatt great for clean sounds but won't distort to save it's life).

If it were stolen I would simply kill the thief.

It isn't versatile at all, a boost or switchable second channel would make it far more useful if you play different styles. (I tend to play at my Lodge/Golf club and they don't like it too loud) But when I am playing a rock gig....Waillllllllllll....

This amp was built somewhere in the late 70's. I bought it in 1984 for approx. 300?. It has one channel with hi/lo input jacks and no effect loop or reverb and seems to get heavier from year to year (or am I just getting weaker?). The are no wheels at the bottom, but round rolls ease shoving the amp around on the floor. A footswitchable boost control wouldn't have been bad since you always need some kind of preamp to get some serious gain.

I started using the amp with an Ibanez SG copy + Ibanez TubeScreamer and the clean and crunch sound was out of this world. Since I use hi gain EMG Humbuckers with my Hondo ZX-1 and Hohner ST Lead guitars I've learned that a guitar also produces lots of hi frequency tones, too (the Ibanez was very muddy). Unfortunately the clean sound is now always a bit distorted I have to turn the treble and presence controls all the way down (3/10) to get a useable tone. The breakthrough came with a Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor preamp. This is the meanest combination you can think of and no amp I've tried so far, H&K Tube50, Engl Screamer 50 or the newer (crapier) Marshalls do not even come close. It definitively deserves a 10 for sound.

I've never had a problem so far, only once a fuse blew when I tried some lo-tech power soak. I've recently replaced the tubes only once after 20 years!

I did not need the service guys till now, but almost every serious guitar shop knows how to fix old Marshalls which speaks for excellent customer support. I bet if I contacted Marshall directly I would get a quick and competent reply.

I've been playing more or less seriously for 26 years now and had a lot of amps (Peavey Deuce, Roland Bolt60, Roland Bolt30, Marshall JTM 60, H&K Tube 50 and at last Engl Screamer 50) but I will never get rid of this baby, because it is perfect for blues sessions and I've never heard this kind of distortion except on professional recodings.

My amp is a JMP Lead MKII that was made in 1978. I bought it when I was in high school in the early nineties. Paid the equivalent of about 450$/euro for it.

The main problem with this thing is WEIGHT. It weighs a ton and comes with ONE HANDLE??? What was Marshall thinking? All guitar players are bodybuilders? Wheels would've been nice.

Features? Well, you get a 3-band EQ, gain, master and presence, as well as hi/lo sensitivity inputs. What more do you need :-), if you want versatility, get a TSL or ModeFour. I mostly play loud garage rock so with my Marshall Shredmaster pedal I've got all the channels I need (not-so-clean and full-on-shred, that is)

There is also some switches on the back panel I'm afraid to touch... and off course an extra speaker output.

The EQ hardly has any effect at all in my amp so I tune my sound using Gain and Presence and use the tone knobs of my pedal.

And oh yeah, it's LOUD. 50 watts my behind: if you don't mind some power-amp distortion, this thing beats any 100-watt amp in volume.

I use this amp with my Epi LP with the standard pickups. Soon as the money pot fills up I'll replace them by SD Invaders or Distortions as this amp needs hot pickups if you want it to scream.
The amp really suits my kind of music: loud and simple. It also handles dropped tunings pretty well.
In the 10+ years I've owned it, it has gotten noisier and noisier, even with no instrument attached, it also feeds back quite a lot in small rehearsal rooms. The solution is usually to dial back on the Mid knob on my pedal.
Variety in sounds, as said before, is limited: marshall crunch. But with a good distortion pedal, the sound really smoothes out and soloing is no small pleasure, especially if the power tubes start to distort.

Abused and neglected for over ten years, never changed tubes, carried it in the rain. Never broke down. Only, the knobs seem to be coming off now. Marshall sells those new so shouldn't be a problem.

No experiences

I've been playing electric guitar for 15 years now and this is the only amp I've ever owned. I've played various cheapskate guitars through it, as well as a strat with a DiMarzio humbucker, I've used it with a MetalZone, an original series Guv'nor and my Shredmaster, as well as digital FX boxes (booh!). The only thing that ever came close was playing a Mesa Boogie V1 preamp through a Fender Twin. Both of which are WAY above my budget.

To summarize: once you get it in position without straining anything, it is a cool amp to play some old fashioned rock or blues (w/o a distortion pedal) or punk/garage rock (with a distortion pedal).

Me, I wouldn't trade it for the world. If anyone ever steals it, I hope they break their backs lugging it around because another one would be hard to find. I'd probably go for a 2204ZW with a 4*12 cab.

It?s hard to rate the features of this 50-watt amp. My memory tells me I bought this in 1979 but acording to a serial # matrix it says 1981 no matter as the amp did not go through any changes in that period. If you are looking for loads of whiz bang dials and switches and buttons to push than you would have to give this a low rating. If you realize that all those things detract from a clean and powerful signal path than the lack of them is it?s most important feature. In that case you would have to give it a 9. Why not ten you ask? Well, the Master Volume feature does make it a bit less tonefull than a non Master Volume Marshall hence the 9. In my case this feature is a welcome trade off since I can?t always crank it to get THE sound.
The layout is High and Low Sensitivity inputs, Master Volume, Bass, Mid, Treble, Presence, Volume, Standby switch, and On/Off switch (ohhh its lighted!). It has a voltage switch so you can set it for different voltages in different countries. You can also set it for the proper ohms for your speakers. It comes with 2 65 watt 12? Celestions, G12-65 to be exact. They are 15 ohm speakers wired to run at 8 ohms? well perhaps it?s actually 7.5 ohms but who?s counting? Two output jacks to connect speaker cabs (one is used for the internal speakers). That?s it, the whole feature set except for? TONE! It?s got that in spades, you cannot beat the sound this amp gets but that?s for the next section.

You have heard the sound of this amp I guarantee it. Just listen to most of the heavier sounds of the 70?s and 80?s and you get the picture. It actually cops late 60?s stuff too like Cream and Hendrix. Allman Bros. Live at the Fillmore is a good example too. This is the sound of Marshall, that unmistakable knock. Even though it is an open back cabinet it still gets that classic tone. Of course you can hook it up to one or two 4x12 cabinets and get that directional in-your-face sound as well. I personally feel that the 50-watt version of any old Marshall amp is preferable to its 100-watt brother. Doubling the wattage only gives you 3 decibels more volume. You do get more clean headroom on the 100-watt version but that?s not what I use

I should mention that this combo came with 6550 power tubes. You HAVE to change them to EL34?s if you want the true British Marshall sound. The 6550?s have a load of more clean headroom. It?s not as easy to get it go into power tube grind and compression. This is an inexpensive mod that any amp tech worth anything at all should be able to do.

I retubed this amp recently with Electro Harmonix EL34EH power tubes. They sound excellent and although I never had original Mullard EL34?s I understand these come pretty close. Experiment with the preamp tubes to tweak the sound to what you want. They are cheap and loads of choices to be made. Even though the Russian 12AX7WB?s are not the best they sound excellent here. Try some quality ECC84?s as well. No rebias needed just pop ?em in and have some fun. Chinese tubes have come a long way and the 12AX7C from Groove Tubes are very nice with good output.

It sounds great with any pedal you put in front of it. Goose it with a TS-9 if you like. The pure tone you get is a great building block to build YOUR sound. It is not like the JCM stuff, especially the JCM 2000 junk. I hate that fizzy sound. They sound like a fuzz box and if I wanted that I would buy a Fuzz Face. It wont do the scooped mid thing that is popular today but I imagine if you got a decent equalizer like an MXR 10 band thing it would do it. The point is that this produces a tone that you can shape anyway you want. I personally just love the way this thing sounds with only my Strat and a quality guitar cord. Boutique amps try to sound like this one. There are a few basic, classic amp sounds, Fender, Vox, Boogie (hot wired Fender), and Marshall. Everything else is just a take on one or more of these. Do yourself a favor and if you like the real Marshall sound than buy a Marshall but not just any Marshall. Get one that is the sound that made rock history.

I have owned this amp for over 20 years and all I ever had to do was change tubes and rebias. Marshall is built like a tank; at least they were when this one was made. Even though the newer Marshall?s are not to my liking I am sure they are well built too. I also must point out that there is less to go wrong with this amp over one that offers 3 channels with reverb and multiple cascading gain stages and effects loops and who knows what else that you don?t need. Carry some extra tubes and perhaps an extra fuse and you won?t need a backup amp when you gig. Well you may want one anyway but I never did in the 20 + years I have used it.

Never needed to call them and since it is way over warranty I don?t think I will be any time soon. Besides what amp tech does not know how to fix a Marshall in the rare case something went wrong. This is, as I?ve said before, a simple circuit that just sounds great. Go to any amp forum on line and ask a question on this amp and you will get loads of help.

If you haven?t guessed it already this amp is more essential than ruby slippers in OZ. It is one of the essential ingredients of Rock. You need this amp. Put it together with a nice Fender for that sparkly clean sound and you can cover just about any base. Put a stomp box in front of it for your desired flavor of the month? scooped mids, fizzy high gain, fuzzy 60?s, 80?s shred, whatever?. this amp has the basic solid building block of tone you need to shape your sound. It is NOT a Fender. You need a Fender for that sound.

Buy this one now if you see one. Prices are going up as players are starting to realize that you need a great foundation to build a great sound. Starting with this amp you are well on your way.

I've been playing for 40 years! Wow, I should be good by now. I would not hesitate to buy a replacement if I could find one