Chubtone
Well-known member
I heard all three new, big Marshalls today. I stayed through the demo of all three amps twice! I think that Marshall has decided it wants to be top dog in the amplifier world again. I can't believe they finally stopped living off of their past and that famous logo and built some amps that just are killer again.
The 2203KK is a bigger, badder, meaner JCM800. I'm not a Slayer fan at all, but that amp is mean. I have an original 1983 2204. It sounds very wimpy in comparison to this new amp.
The Vintage Modern really knocked my socks off. I heard it through a cab that has the same speakers as the Hendrix stack does. The speakers are a Celestion G12 something, not a G12M, not a G12H, not a Heritage but a speaker that was copied off some great old original 25 watters Marshall had. This Vintage Modern amp sounded great. I own a '70 Super Trem, a '72 Super Lead, a Mojave Peacemaker and a Splawn Quickrod. The new Marshall can hang. I can't believe I'm saying this!
The JVM is a 28 knob 4 channel beast. It floored me. It had a beautiful clean tone. It had a killer modded Plexi tone, JCM 800, boosted and/or modded JCM800, and then it went into modern super high gain and then super high gain with the way boosted low end like modern bands use. The 28 knobs were nowhere near as confusing as I initially thought. A single channel Marshall has 6 knobs. A 4 channel Marshall has those same 6 knobs x 4. Then there are two knobs for Reverb and a Master Presence and Resonance knob.
I went in there on the insistence of a friend (Gainfreak). I was very skeptical. I don't think Marshall has built a good production amp in 20+ years. I left that room blown away. I think alot of boutique amp builders and modern high gain amp companies are going to be in trouble. Many of these companies only existed because Marshall got fat and lazy. Marshall did what it needed to do in order to make a return to the top of the amp heap. I think these new amps are going to be unbelievably popular.
The 2203KK is a bigger, badder, meaner JCM800. I'm not a Slayer fan at all, but that amp is mean. I have an original 1983 2204. It sounds very wimpy in comparison to this new amp.
The Vintage Modern really knocked my socks off. I heard it through a cab that has the same speakers as the Hendrix stack does. The speakers are a Celestion G12 something, not a G12M, not a G12H, not a Heritage but a speaker that was copied off some great old original 25 watters Marshall had. This Vintage Modern amp sounded great. I own a '70 Super Trem, a '72 Super Lead, a Mojave Peacemaker and a Splawn Quickrod. The new Marshall can hang. I can't believe I'm saying this!
The JVM is a 28 knob 4 channel beast. It floored me. It had a beautiful clean tone. It had a killer modded Plexi tone, JCM 800, boosted and/or modded JCM800, and then it went into modern super high gain and then super high gain with the way boosted low end like modern bands use. The 28 knobs were nowhere near as confusing as I initially thought. A single channel Marshall has 6 knobs. A 4 channel Marshall has those same 6 knobs x 4. Then there are two knobs for Reverb and a Master Presence and Resonance knob.
I went in there on the insistence of a friend (Gainfreak). I was very skeptical. I don't think Marshall has built a good production amp in 20+ years. I left that room blown away. I think alot of boutique amp builders and modern high gain amp companies are going to be in trouble. Many of these companies only existed because Marshall got fat and lazy. Marshall did what it needed to do in order to make a return to the top of the amp heap. I think these new amps are going to be unbelievably popular.