New From Suhr - SL68 & SL67 MK II

[Racerxrated]

What volume were these people playing at? If you're turning things up the bright cap drops out of the circuit and makes zero difference.

These now have a switch to put the bright cap back in and other switches to enable / disable anything people think of as "not stock Marshall". So basically there is zero difference now between this and a "normal" plexi depending on how you set the switches.

They 'say' this, but no bright cap dimed vs a bright cap in place and dimed; the tone is different. Tried this with my 72 SL, when I first got it..took out the 5k lemco, played with the volumes, then restored it back and it was very different even at high volume. Same with a 2203 long ago, before I knew better...totally different with/without no matter where I put the volumes.

 

[Racerxrated]

Yeah, the bright cap out is mostly for people using distortion pedals or want smoother, cleaner tones at low volume. That huge 4700pf cap you see in the 70s Marshalls basically is an on-off switch, unless the volume more or less is off you´re suddenly full Judas Priest and too loud for your gig... and you need to keep going as well to get some low end back. By 7-8 or so the cap is out of the equation, but that is an alarming level on anything resembling a 50 or 100w Super Lead.

Lots of variations in between 4700 and none, of course, but what you need really depends where on the volume dial you spend most of your time. The advent of loadboxes and IRs have really brought those actual cranked Super Leads back into fashion, and with that the big bright caps are more viable again as well.

I use a distortion pedal in front of both of my 72 Marshalls; both with bright caps in place. The volume knob on the pedal works as a master vol, and the bright cap still in place adds some natural gain in so I simply dial the gain back a bit.
No need to mod these vintage amps with a good distortion pedal in front. I use a BE OD clone that Griff made me. Fantastic.

 

[harddriver]

I use a distortion pedal in front of both of my 72 Marshalls; both with bright caps in place. The volume knob on the pedal works as a master vol, and the bright cap still in place adds some natural gain in so I simply dial the gain back a bit.
No need to mod these vintage amps with a good distortion pedal in front. I use a BE OD clone that Griff made me. Fantastic.

On a SL Marshall anything less than 7-8 the 5000pf bright cap allows more gain/frequencies to bypass through the pot kind of like a bypassing a cathode resistor with a bypass cap allowing more gain. That's why alot of people say with the bright cap installed on a SL Marshall it instantly gets loud on the volume versus if the bright cap is clipped the volume taper changes and becomes more gradual. It's not super drastic but you do notice it.

The 4700/5000pf bright cap is integral to the crunchy aggressive nature of Marshall amps especially Plexi's and Superleads IMHO.

Here's my 69 Superlead NOS build amp that had the 5000pf bright cap on a push/pull 1 meg pot, at 3:40 I pull the pot out engaging the bright cap and you can hear the tone tighten up and get more focused and aggressive. I am running the amp bright channel on 7 with a Lar/Mar PPIMV set to 5 then attenuated down about -8 DB with a THD hotplate. I am boosting the amp with an SRB SD-1 overdrive guitar has an old Duncan Custom.

I think the the bright cap off it's more a Jake E Lee darker chewy tone where as it gets brighter tighter more crunchy with the bright cap on. Give the vid a listen and see which you prefer. It's really comes down to what you like really.

Bright cap engaged at 3:40

 

[jsnow90]

Owned an OG SL68 and 67, both were amazing. Super intrigued to try one of these

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

On a SL Marshall anything less than 7-8 the 5000pf bright cap allows more gain/frequencies to bypass through the pot kind of like a bypassing a cathode resistor with a bypass cap allowing more gain. That's why alot of people say with the bright cap installed on a SL Marshall it instantly gets loud on the volume versus if the bright cap is clipped the volume taper changes and becomes more gradual. It's not super drastic but you do notice it.

The 4700/5000pf bright cap is integral to the crunchy aggressive nature of Marshall amps especially Plexi's and Superleads IMHO.

Here's my 69 Superlead NOS build amp that had the 5000pf bright cap on a push/pull 1 meg pot, at 3:40 I pull the pot out engaging the bright cap and you can hear the tone tighten up and get more focused and aggressive. I am running the amp bright channel on 7 with a Lar/Mar PPIMV set to 5 then attenuated down about -8 DB with a THD hotplate. I am boosting the amp with an SRB SD-1 overdrive guitar has an old Duncan Custom.

I think the the bright cap off it's more a Jake E Lee darker chewy tone where as it gets brighter tighter more crunchy with the bright cap on. Give the vid a listen and see which you prefer. It's really comes down to what you like really.

Bright cap engaged at 3:40

The big winner here is a boosted Marshall anything. Mod this, mod that, why do OD pedals still sound the best in front of a Marshall I wonder?.... ( imo of course)

 

[harddriver]

The big winner here is a boosted Marshall anything. Mod this, mod that, why do OD pedals still sound the best in front of a Marshall I wonder?.... ( imo of course)

Yeah sometimes a good SD-1 or OD808 just gets it! I built the amp to Ed specs but it really isn't that far off of stock. In that amp I used all NOS Iskras and NOS Mustards caps, perido correct brown turret board....it rivaled my 68 NOS built plexi without having to variac it and my 68 runs actual Sylvainia 6CA7's.

I do like my jose and Splawn mods though.....each have their place..............

I was running EH6CA7's in that clip, those are as close as you're gonna get to Slyvania's in modern production and they sound very close IMHO and they can handle up to 800 DC volts on the plates so says the technical data sheet.

So far they are holing up in biased at 50% dissipation in my 1978 Musicman HD130!

 

[tallcoolone]

The big winner here is a boosted Marshall anything. Mod this, mod that, why do OD pedals still sound the best in front of a Marshall I wonder?.... ( imo of course)

Yeah, I’m with ya. A grinding Marshall with a boost in front is the tits. Want something more aggressive? Change boosts. That’s where amps like these Suhrs become versatile.

 

[skoora]

As soon as I saw these coming out my first thought was that he added the big 4700-5000pF bright cap and put it on a switch. I’ve hinted several times to both John Suhr and Pete Thorn on TGP that the big ass bright cap is a crucial part of the Super Lead. Shortly thereafter Pete had the big ass bright cap. My take is that no bright cap is better than 500pF which some people try (I think Suhr did it too) but that is the worst of both worlds. You get all the harsh but none of the good stuff the big ass bright cap brings.

Marshall knew exactly what they were doing when they put that cap in. These were ‘high gain’ amps of the day and were never designed to be played at anything other than ear piercing volumes. But now we have a ton of load boxes to choose from so we can play them as intended (cranked) and not go deaf.

lol…when I did my Metro 69 build many years ago I settled on a 500pf as the best choice. Allowed a much better variety of dirt, love me some medium plexi gain but still did full on bright metal with Volume at 7. I never lacked for top end at any setting.
video is ancient and has some awesome apartment, with shitty lamp for light, aesthetics but the sound is there. My lame, not raw sounding 500pF bright cap…lol

 

[tallcoolone]

lol…when I did my Metro 69 build many years ago I settled on a 500pf as the best choice. Allowed a much better variety of dirt, love me some medium plexi gain but still did full on bright metal with Volume at 7. I never lacked for top end at any setting.
video is ancient and has some awesome apartment, with shitty lamp for light, aesthetics but the sound is there. My lame, not raw sounding 500pF bright cap…lol

Cool man, I like it. For me and what I do that tone is too bottom heavy and...yeah not enough top end. But we play different stuff.