Marshall Valvestate 8040

This amp is a solid state that has 1 tube for the distortion. There is a line in, preamp in, footswitch, and line out. There is a volume bass, mid, & treble knob for the clean channel, and gian, contour, bass, mid, & treble knob for the dirty channel. It put 40 watts through a 12" celestion speaker. There is no heaphone jack, no effects loop, and only one input jack no headphone jack.

It sounds a bit hollow at lower volumes with an anoying hum. Turn it up a bit and it's a screamer. I can get everything from surf music to blusey tones on the clean channel. My acoustic sounds great through it. I don't play the heavy distortion much but my head banging friend thinks its great.

Bought it used a year ago and play it 4-6 hours a week. No problems yet.

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I wish I could afford a Boogie but for the money I can live with the shortcommings of the valvestate.

Just bought two (brother+me). Great amp. My style varies according to my mood. On this one I can play the music of the Shadows, Robert Cray or Black Sabbath with equal ease. Very versatile. Specs are, two channels. Clean and boost. Footswitchable. Reverb (Non-switchable). No headphone jack (wouldn't mind having one on a 40Watter). Valve pre-amp in boost-channel. Solid-state P.A. . Effects loop in the form pre-amp out/P.A. in. I play mostly in a small garage or at my home studio. Too loud for my needs but you never know when your first small gig comes around. Oh, and Celestion 12" speaker (don't remember the model).

Suits all my musical styles/moods (up to now). I can have anything between clean, bluesy or dirty 'n' damaging sounds with a few knob twiddles and footswitching. Relatively quiet up to Vol. 5 on clean and 3 on boost with the gain knob on 5 but I haven't tried it beyond these settings. With the gain full on and the boost volume on 3 you can distort your brains out (not forgetting the contour knob if you really want to thrash it out). The reverb's o.k. by MY standards but probably a little inflexible by other's. Not for electro-acoustics I think. And don't stand near it at full gain/boost with a semi-solid. You'll get defeaning feedback if you do. But this applies to all amps.

Haven't had it long enough to comment on this one. But it will probably hold out for a good while judging from the build.

I've only dealt with the local supplier. Service was shitty. No manual supplied. No written warranty. Had to pay extra for the footswitch when the catalogue says it's supplied with the amp. Manual clean/boost switch came defective. I've been looking for an official Marshall web-page for days to complain. Hope they're more helpful than my supplier.

I'd buy another 8040 without hesitation but from a different supplier. I love everything that's on board, especially the clean channel, but would have welcomed a headphone jack. I compared it to several other well-known brand's (even 100Watters) solid-state amps. This one came out tops. It was love at first sound.

It's got Two channels, Clean and overdrive, the clean channel's got Bass, Middle and Treble frequecies and a gain knob (Volume), the overdrive channel's got bass, treble and a contour knob varies the middle frequencies of the distortion. and it's got reverb. Ufortunately it's non switchable. In the preamp section it's got a (12X7 or something like that) tube, the power amp section is solid state.

My favorite playing style is 80's heavy metal and 70's hard rock, and this amp gives me the perfect sound, I'm not a gigging or a profesional musician so 40 Watts will do for me, it's loud, the distortion is very cool (I just recently added the footswitch) and I don't need a stomp box for the distortion. The cool thing is the distortion is usable in all of the knob's range (a big plus), the contour knob gives it a lot of versatility and the other knobs do their jobs. The clean channel is good, but it can be better, I have not played it in volumes above 4, but everybody says that the clean channel begins to distort at higher volumes. The Reverb is ok for me, I don't need it that much, but many people say it sucks.

Yeah, it's reliable, mine sounded way better than the one I tested at the store, no problems, altough I'd advise anyone to play this amp in properly grounded areas like it says in the manual.

No, I have never dealt with them.

I would buy it again since is perfect for me, or if I made good money in the future I'd buy the 8080 combo, (80W)

Everything noted above is quite accurate. However, the reverb (yes, it is quite lame) is NOT switchable--a real pain for some. Also, the tone controls for the clean channel vary from those of the dirty channel. One has tone controls as frequency volume knobs, whereas the other has them as +/- boost/cut knobs. I've seen amps of this model that have the tone controls the same (as volumes) for each channel, maybe mine is old. It's not a huge deal, but make settings for switched songs a pain to set up.

Classic Marshall sound. What more can you say?!

It was bought used, and is approximately three or four years old. There have been no problems as of yet. The pots are all clean and smooth, and the jacks and switches likewise. The only concern I have is regarding the footswitch. Unlike Fender's, Marshall's footswitch has the cord hard- wired to the switch (not plugable), which MAY lead to broken wires. Also, the length of cord for the footswitch is not variable.

Wonderful value for the near-priceless Marshall sound. Plenty loud enough to gig with when miked. It's loud enough to stand alone for a medium- sized bar, but gets overdriven at high volume settings of the clean channel. Well worth the cash as an intermediate purchase (or final!).

The only bad thing about this amp is that the reverb is lame. But this 40 watt solid state with a valve preamp and a single 10" or 12" celestion has a dirty channel that imitates stack tones (if not stack punch) really well, and a full sounding clean channel. You can run an effects loop out the front panel (there is no rear panel) by going out through "line out" and back in through "power amp in". I play out in largish bars a few times a month and I'm really happy with it, miked to the p.a. On its own it wouldn't be loud enough for too many gigs. For the price though, you get a hell of a sound.

It sounds like a Marshall. There's tremendous range of distortion on the dirty channel with the gain knob, and the clean channel gets distorted above halfway on it's gain. So you can change channels with the footswitch (included) from slightly dirty to filthy. As I said above,if you like reverb, this is not your amp. My tastes and music, across much of the spectrum of rock, don't need it.

I've had it six months, I never think of bringing a back up, haven't had a problem, and don't anticipate anything beyond dusty pots. It has a five year transferable warranty anyway.

Haven't needed it yet, but there is the 5 year warranty

I think the retail price (at a good shop) is around $370-400 U.S. I'd buy this again in a second, but would go with the 80 watt if I had the the extra cash.