Just bought a Marshall DSL40c

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rabies

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arriving Friday (brand new from sweetwater as these are hard to find on eBay). sold the Peavey 6534 locally and the Schecter SLS blackjack c-7 is available as well (I'm trying to sell that to buy a tele/strat).

anybody played one of these? from the demos on youtube sounds like it has a lot of gain on tap (can tell from the pinched harmonics generated). I had the impression it was EL84 as it's rated at 40 watts but it's 2xEL34 (so why not 50 watts??? wtf). open back cab. made in vietnam, decent price, we'll see. I had a made in UK TSL 100 head when I played in a hard rock band but this one is for quieter house jamming (has a pentode/triode switch and efx loop). thinking about buying a TC nova system as well, i have a g major and like it.
 
From what I have seen from reviews so far, the DSL40c gets decent reviews. Nice to see that Marshall at least got one thing right with the DSL40c, the EL34 power tubes. :)
 
I liked the VM2266 head, very dynamic from the KT66 tubes I guess, but a Marshall ain't a Marshall w/o EL34's.
 
So I jammed it at home and at studio this weekend. I was surprised that it had some excellent lead tones in OD1 w/ the MaxonOD808 pedal engaged. Pentode mode only at the studio with master volume at 6/10 or so. Gets a bit noisy with gain at 7/10 and loses some tone definition (gets flubby, etc.) in OD2. Sounded great playing along with RHCP BSSM and had great singing sustain for lead notes. Nice crunch too (unlike my Rivera which is a totally different monster). I had the g major on in the efx loop the whole time and had to turn the "IN" to max, i usually don't do this with the 100watt heads I've had.

Doesn't seem to have the balls that the 100watt heads have but it's a 50 watt 1x12 combo. I need to plug it into a 2x12 or 4x12 next time but like marshalls with el34's it's very upper-mids focused and cuts thru very well (I had it sitting on an angled stand).

The treble is way too bright on this amp even around noon, i had to turn the presence all the way down and treble below noon. Anybody else noticed this?

How's the DSL100 head? Have more balls I imagine (headroom and bass)?

Also, the resonance control is not as noticeable as the same control on the peavey 65xx series.

i'd like to run this amp along with the rivera s120 simultaneously. I tried a a/b/c pedal a while back and didn't like the tones. Is the voodoo labs pedal a good one? I forgot which one I bought....

anyways, not sure how reliable/dependable this amp is but it's definitely a steal if you can find one used...
 
and yes, this DSL40c has the same upper-mids (too much treble/presence) problem that my ex-Mesa Stiletto had...
 
rabies":8h3x7hay said:
Doesn't seem to have the balls that the 100watt heads have but it's a 50 watt 1x12 combo. I need to plug it into a 2x12 or 4x12 next time but like marshalls with el34's it's very upper-mids focused and cuts thru very well (I had it sitting on an angled stand).

The treble is way too bright on this amp even around noon, i had to turn the presence all the way down and treble below noon. Anybody else noticed this?
Click to expand...

Definitely try it into an external cab. The speaker is a majority of the problem with the DSL40C.

I plug my DSL40C into a '79 Marshall 1960A with blackbacks and an Avatar 2x12 Vintage with a V30/Emi GB128 mix. I like the amp just as much as my '79 JMP 100w head into these cabs. The DSL40C gets really really close to the tone of the JMP on the Classic Gain channel's Crunch setting, but then adds a couple of killer hotrodded tones with the Ultra Gain channel.

In fact, I kind of spoiled myself for the combo speaker after trying this, I can't really play it as a combo anymore. I believe they should have charged an extra $50 and put a better speaker in these amps, they would have a slam dunk if they did.
 
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