Marshall MG15MS Micro Stack

Mine is a brand new (2002) black MG15MS. 15 watt solid state head with 2 10" cabs. The build quality seems very good. The head has the usual Marshall interactive controls plus master volume and reverb and several inputs. The controls work nicely. For the price, it has good features. What missing feature do I wish it had? Why, tubes of course! I use this amp to practice around the house. I've heard that the head can be used to power bigger cabs, but I have not tried this.

I use a recent Les Paul Standard and a homemade SRV Strat w/Texas Specials. I play Clapton, Allmans, Doobies, Eagles and more. The amp responds very well to everything, with the Les Paul being much louder (which it is with any amp I use). Thru the stack, sometimes the Strat sounds a bit dark (I know, I know IT'S A MARSHALL). The amp is an absolute kick to use at home but I wouldn't take it out on a live gig, except to rehearse. It is very very portable and easy to set up fast without getting a backache. It tries hard to sound like a bigger Marshall and gets dirty very quickly. The amount of volume is a bit surprising for it's size - it sounds reasonably full and it does not sound like a toy, which was my biggest fear before I heard it. Fender clean fanatics will not be happy but grungers and metalheads will rejoice.

One month of use - no problems. Seems solidly built.

No reason to need customer support so far.

I have been playing about 25 years. This amp is about as much fun as you can buy for $199. The low price prompted my purchase. This amp accompanies my Fender Deluxe 90 - it's neat to switch back and forth between them!It's not a Plexi but it's a great way to have FUN at lower volumes, at a very low price, for those of us who cannot afford tube stuff and need to have a MARSHALL nearby. Did I mention that it looks outrageous and smells good? If you can't get the real stack, at least you can dream!

Incase you're not familiar, it's a 15W Solid State head through 2 10" cabs. Single channel, single input. 2 Preamp gains, 3 band EQ, Master Volume and master reverb. Headphone out, line out, and CD input. 8 ohm speaker outputs. So technically if you wanted to, you could attempt to drive a half stack or something... More than you get on other solid state practice amps. But not powerful enough to be gig worthy unfortunately

I play with a DeArmond M65-C which is a carved top Les Paul clone, I've got a Duncan Invader in the bridge and the stock DeArmond humbucker at the neck. This amp screams! Marshall claims to magically impart 'true marshall tone' into all of their practice amps, and this one really lives up to the claim. Clean sounds are ok...but the distortion is really good for a 15W solid state amp!

I've not had a problem with it, everything seems to be constructed well, the thing looks like a full sized stack that got shrunk in half.

Not had to deal with them.

I actually don't play guitar, I play bass. But I do have guitar stuff in case I want to write a riff on guitar, or if I want to jam to the radio or a CD and act like the lost member of my current favorite band (Oh don't act like you never do it!). In a pinch my band has used the amp for practice and amazingly enough...it cut through the drums, although I wouldn't recomend pushing it hard enough to gig. For $200 this amp is a pretty good deal (I bought mine on Ebay, and imagine my shock when I walk into guitar center and see the LTD red covered ones for $199!). It sounds great, and looks cool. Plus you can tell everyone you own a marshall stack. I wish mine went up to 11 though.....

Made in 2002. Bought from Musician's Friend. Very versatile amp. 15 watts delivered by a head through two 10" speaker cabinets. Single channel with two gains (Gain 1, Gain 2) Bass, Contour, and Treble controls; master volume, and reverb. Line out for recording, headphone jack (sounds great!), and CD input to jam along with Jimi. It would be great if it had stereo capability, I mean, heck, it already has two speakers. stereo chorus would sound great. Only having one channel is not that bad, I thought it would be, but you can dial in anything you need with the twin gains.

I play an Epipnone Casino hollowbody with Gibson P-100 stacked humbuckers, and this little amp gives me everything from clean jazzy tones to crunchy blues to all out shred. With the two gain knobs you can dial in just about anything. With gain one at about noon and gain two off, you get a nice clean. Not fender clean, but pretty close. With gain one dimed and gain two at about 10 oclock you get a great and I mean really cool sounding blues crunch. I sound like Albert King through this thing. Gain two takes up where gain one leaves off, but you can also turn gain one down and gain two up and you get a good 60s classic rock thing. Both gains dimed=shred metal city. Supra paint peeling overdrive. The only drawback is the sound gets a tad muddy at super high volume. With only 15 watts, it's not going to knock picutures off'n the walls, and you find yourself upping the volume since the distotion sounds so cool. But past about 2 oclock on the master volume and it gets muddy. All the sounds on this amp sound great at lower volumes. They nailed the pure Marshall stack sound even at low volumes.

Built very solid, Marshalls generally are. I love the brushed gold faceplates and smooth rotating metal knobs. No plastic. Should last a long time. Cabinets feel solid.

Haven't had any trouble with any Marshall amps yet (knock wood) but any amp guy should be able to work on them, everyone has one. 5 year warranty. Keep your receipt. Bought from Musician's Friend, which has treated me great. I returned a huge Ibanez amp a while back after a week, wasn't satisfied with the sound, they took it back no questions asked, even emailed me a printable prepaid UPS slip, and my credit card was credited about three days later. So far nothiing but praise for Musician's Freind, I buy all my gear through them. They're lower than the local music store and don't hassle returns

I've been playing acoustic for 25 years, just started playing the blues on electric about 8 months ago. I've played through Marshall, Fender, Ibanez and Crate amps. I love this amp. Besides being the perfect practice amp, it looks cool beyond belief. You couldn't gig with it, it's not that loud, but you can mess around with another guitarist or bassist (probably not a drummer) and you can rock out in your bedroom and your wife can still hear the TV set in the living room. (Couldn't say that with my Fender Princeton 65). If it were stereo, or had a few effects, or even was a tad bit louder, say 25 watts, it would be a 10+++. As it sits its pretty good.

I believe this is a 2001 model. Same features as the rest listed here. Hey, Jim Marshall, put an effects loop on it. This is the only thing missing from this amp. Perfect for small rooms, for big clubs would need to mic if you wanted to gig with it.

I play a Yamaha AES800 that has 2 DiMarzio humbuckers. I play mostly blues from old to newer Texas blues. Great with a little crunch like Gain 1 at 7 and Gain 2 at 3. When set clean the amp isn't nearly as loud as with a little distortion, but I rarely play it all the way clean. You can put both Gains on 10 and the distortion is unbelievable. Death Metal like, would make Rob Zombie cringe.

Only had for 3 days. I'm an electronics tech so I always open up new stuff to check it out and this looks like it will hold up great. Will get back with you in a while.

Havn't talked to them. Just about anyone that repairs amps handles Marshall so wouldn't be a big deal.

Been playing 2 years and this is a great little practice amp. Sounds like the full stacks without the power or price. I would replace it in a heart beat and strangle the person that stole it. For practice, jamming, and maybe small gigs it is perfect. Beats the hell out of anything in its price range(Crate, 20-30w Fenders) and it looks really cool

For practicing at home this amp is perfect. It dose not have footswichable channels but the control pannel is so simple to change to a different set up who cares, after all this is a practice amp

I am using 2 Fender Mexican Fat Strats with Floyd Rose and a Fender Stratacustic. My style is Hard Rock and Heavey Metal. At lower volume levels (set at 3 or lower) it sounds great, when you crank it up it is noisy and hard to listen to. The Cd imput works verry well with CD's or a Dr. Rhythm plugged. I hate to use the headphone output only because i always get tangeled with the wire but it dose sound goodand gets used after the family is in bed and I still wana rock.

I would not use this for a gig or even to go jam with friends because of its limitations. It seems to be reliable. I have had it for 4 months. It is solidly built and the head has been dropped once with no damage done.

NO OPINION

I have used manny prctice amps over the years and this is the best I have found. It looks cool, the reverb sounds good, it is a fine practice amp. But that is all it is. It dode not sound good loud, it is not as easily moved around as a combo amp because it is a three piece unit. Put this amp in your living room and enjoy it. Buy somthing else to gig with. I would like to get a second one to keep at work for breaks, and if anything happens to this one I will buy another for home.

i think it is a 99'.It has two gain knobs,treble,contour,bass,master vol,and reverb.one input,headphone out,line out(two more in back),and a cd input.It sounds awesome,but it gets muddy at any level loud enough to play in a band.I bought it thinking it could be used to gig because it is pretty big,and my 15 watt combo works well,but when i put it on full volume i can barely play with the drums.I use it for everything, its all i have right now.My parents got it for me for christmas and im afraid to tell them i need a new one already(i just joined a band that plays in much bigger areas than i have ever played before).I always have to mic it or play it through our bassists amp.

I have 7 guitars, 5 are electric.i have a Danelectro hodad,a Kramer Striker,a JB Player, an Electra, and a stratocaster that i made out of plywood in my garage.They all sound great out of it.i love its sound.

When i first got it, it would shut off for a couple seconds at a time whenever it felt like it.I didnt want to tell my parents because they would have gotten pissed.When they finally found out we took it back to where we bought it but the warranty was up. i hate it.

Marshall was cool though.we called them up and told them about how musicians friend wouldnt repair or replace it, so we sent it to marshall and they fixed it for free,even after the warranty was up.

I hate this amp with a passion.I love marshall and the sound of it, but the weakness, and how much it breaks down makes me sick.If anyone wants to buy it, im selling cheap.

This is a 2001 model. Marshall has always been considered a "rock-n-roll" amplifier and this one's no exception. I can't really say it's not versatile, though, mainly because I'm not that versatile myself (metal/hard rock/neo-classical = all christian). This amp has one input channel and two output channels for the two 1x10 cabs and a line out jack. There's no effects loop, but there is a CD input and headphone jack. I haven't used either and probably won't. This amp is obviously intended for your living room or bed room as a practice amp, but I actually use it for live work. Since this is the case, it would be nice if they decided to do away with the headphone/CD jacks and include a clean/crunch footswitch. Regardless, for a 15-watt amp, this thing rocks! I replaced an 80-watt combo with it, which is the first of two that I intend to buy.

I mainly use a Fender Strat with this amp. I've always drooled over a Malmsteen model, never could afford one, so I've been building one as close as I can. It's got a scalloped fretboard (major pain to do), DiMarzio YJM in the neck and HS-3 in the bridge, with a standard single coil in the middle. I run this through a ZOOM GFX-8 into the MicroStack. I couldn't be happier. It works great for the crunchier stuff, but it also smooths out pretty well with the Zoom's acoustic sim patches. I run Gain 1 around 5 with Gain 2 all the way down. I've tried both gains maxed, along with the JCM 900 patch for a Zakk Wylde attempt, but it's just too much. Nobody will believe that, but no kidding. This is the first time I've dealt with a contour knob, which works just the opposite of a mid frequency knob. If you want to sweep the mids, turn the contour all the way up. If you want to max them, turn it down.

I just got this one, so I don't know if it's going to break or not. It's not a U.K. Marshall, so I'm not going to hold it to the same standard, but I sure hope it stands the test of time.

I've never talked to Marshall before.

Again, this is the first of two. I'm definitely hooked on stereo, so this is only natural. If this amp came up missing, I would absolutely get another one or pair, as it were. I've owned Polytone, Kustom, and a few unknowns that I can barely remember, and I'm happier with this one than any of the others. I've also never owned one less than 80 watts and, even though this is no 80-watter, I'm completely confident to carry it anywhere I play. I play in public usually three to four days a week, indoors and outdoors, and I get all the sound I need. With two, I'll never need another 100-watt combo or less again.

Not much but what do you expect for $270

I am going to respond to the chap that gave this a one: You probably got a bad individual model. Did you try to exchange it?!?. Mine does hum ...but only a little, at high gain settings. The sound quality is surprisingly good for a $270 amp.

A couple things to note: 1) when I first set it up, I didn't have any guitar cords with me to test it, so I used one of the cables that came with the package as a guitar cord, playing with only one speaker. The standing hum was LOUD. I then brought in one of my real guitar cables, and tried it with that; the hum mostly went away. Moral: The guitar input jack is apparantly very sensitive to any feedback produced in the guitar cable itself; use good cables. I would recommend replacing the cables to the two cabenet speakers as well. Those cables are crap.

Note number 2: This little unit sounds best when used with the speakers that come with it. I plugged just the head into my Line 6 2x12 cabinet as a little experiment, and it actually sounded worse, heh.

The hum and equipment sensitivity issues give it marks down here, unfortunately. If you use good cables and don't get a lemon, you will have a surprisingly good sounding amp for it's price range.

No experience with customer support

My sound rating of 7 was an 'overall' sound rating that would include much more expensive tube amps which of course are going to sound better. In it's *price range* I would actually rate the sound an 9. The only issues I can see is to make sure you try it out in the store before you buy it...make sure you get a good one.

This would be a good amp to buy Junior, if you want Junior to be the talk of the neighborhood kids ;^). I bought it to drag around with me in my pickup, plug into a special emergency battery (ie: quiet) generator I picked up at a camping shop, and have jam sessions out in the middle of the woods, miles from civilization >:-)

Mine is a 1999 model that I just purchased tonight. I feel the need to impose my will ...after having read the positive and negative reviews on this mini stack before going to get it tonight....and now after 5 hours of playing it with various guitars. This amp firstly is the best practise amp I have heard and I am very pleased I purchased it. It's features are well mentioned in all the other reviews so I will try to be colorful in my description of it's character and tone etc...
This amp will be used for basement and garage / bedroom practise and even for jamming. For 15 watts rating it seems just right. My Fender Frontman 15 R (same wattage) is louder but definetely noisier with any sort of gain "on" from anywhere past 3 on the dial. The Marshall however ( albeit a noisy amp when the gains are turned past the middle to 3/4 mark) is not as noisy as the Fender Frontman and is capable of so many styles wherein the Fender 15 R seems to just get all grungy distortion on its second "dirt" channel. As far as comparing the clean channels of the two...the Fender is cleaner indeed , but the Marshall has a lovely rock and roll tone to it. The others that are expounding on the rockin' sound of this cool looking package are not exaggerating....it is very diverse and ooozes rock n roll and blues....not too shabby at metal / thrash and who knows what all else. The review that runs it into the ground heavily...well he may be right in some ways...it is a noisy amp when full out with both gains past three quarters BUT it isn't all that bad actually....ot sounds great. Yes... I know it is missing an effects loop////cd/ tape player input is a cool feature and very useablefor beginner players like myself.

I am using a 1997 Mexican strat ( sounds great) a Yamaha SGV 800 and a 68 re-issue Hendrix strat ( the upside down Olympic White jobbie) tuned to E flat with 11-48's (aftermarket strings...it came with 10-46's .... anywhoo.... I like to play blues...rock..Van Halen...Hendrix....that sort of thing...no nonsense straight ahead rock....and this amp fulfills !!!!!! As one other reviewer has said..........with gain 1 turned up fully , gain 2 off it starts crunching beautifully....or overdriving or whatever....it sounds very full and nasty like a hot car straining at the lights. Gain 2 just picks up where gain 1 leaves off and things start to burn from there. With the master volume past half and the gains clocked wide open she is noisy at stand still....but who cares....it sounds like the real item. Noisiness is seemingly not dependant on the coils used...as both my strats were the same and they are always different as far as hum on any other amp....so bottom line is dont worry about which pick ups you have...the amp is gonna hum no matter what....at high settings but no more so because you have a 200 dollar pickup or a 10 dollar pickup....I dont know for sure what humbuckers would sound like as i dont have any to test with....I know my Hendrix re-issue is a brute as far as pick up noise...and it made the same "live-able" amount as my Mexican Strat ( which is always meek. warm and quiet) So my call is dont worry about your pickups. At low to mid gain and volumes you can get many sound settings and none are noisy...and this is primarily what I will be using the amp for ( low to reasonable volume practise) and WHAT A LOVELY SOUND I mean it just has "the" sound !!!!!!

it was a bit cold from being on the shipping truck) so I let it warm to room for about 3 hours...then when turning it on for the first time....the power light came on...but no sound... it was like it was warming up.....( which I know seems ridicluous with a solid state amp....but it seems to pause for a few seconds and then suddenly...magically that sound starts to come alive. I dont think it will break very easily...the box looked well travelled and the amp is built like tank and was packaged well enough.
I am just at about the 4 or 5 month stage of playing each day... I am a drummer actually that has taken to guitar. I have quite a lot of gear...<said modestly a lot of miniature amps ( you know those tiny 1 watt jobbies ...the best of those being the Vox AC-1 by far...and the worst ... the Marshall MS2 or MS4 ...but this Marshall G15MS mini stack setup is just the cat's you know what. Same name on it...but just from a completely different planet. Terrific...those miniature Marshall amps ( the MS2 and MS4)are terribly poor and are not to be symbolic of what this stack is all about in any way imaginable. I had feared that I was in for a bit of a disappointment because I had just purchased the Marshall miniatures the week before and yuk....they are crap. So here I was ////thinking ////Oh no I have this MG15MS on special order from the other side of the continent <yikes BUT HEH.... IT IS FABULOUS !!!!!!!!!!!

I have no experience with Marshall warranty work and there is no mention of it in the small , but handy manual that I can see.

I have been in bands for 20 years but never as a guitarist. I love rock n roll and have always been a drummer. This past summer ( 5 months ago) I took up electric guitar and have three decent but similar guitars ( pickups are somewhat similar= no humbuckers to date)
I would buy this MG15MS again if I could get another one. It is just what I was looking for...and you will love it as long as you arent used to exquisite tube amps...and are playing live all the time. For what it was built for ( practice...and sounding and looking cool amundo .....I cannot imagine a better package....well maybe a tube in there somewhere....but she wails and screams and whines without tubes... so as another fellow said she's a tubeless screamin' bitch...who needs the complications ....this one is low maintenance and still gives you great wailing action...nuff said ?

The features on this amp are adequate for what it is and the price of it.

Everyone is raving about this amp and I don't no why. The sound of it can be summed up in 3 words; HUM, HUM, and more HUM. I went to purchase this amp because of all the great reviews, but from the moment I plugged it in, there was a lot of A/C hum going on. This must be due to the small size of the head and trying to cram all the circuits in a tight space. I thought maybe it was pickup hum but no matter where I stood it hummed. And I was using an SG with a humbucker. I can't imagine trying to use a strat. And the more you overdrived the amp, the more noise it made. In my opinion the noise makes this amp totally unusable. This is from someone who currently uses a Fender amp, and we all know how noisy they are.

As far as the tone goes (if you can manage to here it), it was very weak. THIS IS NOT THE "MARSHALL" SOUND AS SOME CLAIM. Maybe if your ideal of the "Marshall" sound is the modern valvestate amp, but not the good old tube sound Marshall is famous for. I've been playing for 20 years, and I play classic rock, 80's rock, soft rock, and heavy metal. The clean sound of this amp was fair, metal sounds would have been adequate without the hum, and classic rock sound was almost non-exsistent. Sure, no amp can do it all. Sometimes it's a trade-off, awesome at one sound and fair at another, But this amp had trouble with any sound. Maybe grunge would fair better.

Not applicable to this review but in the past Marshall has built them to last.

Never had to deal with warranty on any of the Marshall products I've owned.

The only reason I see someone buying this product is for the novelty/conversation piece. "Hey, I've got a Marshall stack". Everyone loves to take a picture of their 3 year old future rock star child standing in front of the mini stack playing a mini guitar.

Sometimes I think people give high product reviews just so their Ebay auction bid will increase. Another thing always mentioned is "endorsed and used by Billy Gibbons" Beware of this because endorsements is big business. Yes Billy may have used it on a few songs many years ago, but he probably owns hundreds of amps of which this one sees very little action. I've heard about several amps he used including the Vibochamp like mine. When you can afford to buy hundreds of amps (or have them given them to you), you can afford to tinker with special one take sounds then move to the next amp.

In conclusion I decide to save my 300 dollars and buy the Marshall DSL201 20 watt tube amp with 1 12". Much more quietier and able to produce all the sounds I need to above satisfactory standards. Cost A few hundred dollars more but worth the wait.