Soooo Marshall... who would have thought?

i mean its not my favorite amp or anything, but thats honestly probably more to do with it being run of the mill and not being the sexiest choice rather than a tone thing, it hangs right there with any of my "better" amps. i have a 12at7 or whatever thats supposed to go into v1 to taper the gain a little more i havent tried yet.

Same, it’s also not my favorite amp, but I do really like mine a lot. I think the trick is that it is honestly pretty easy to make them sound bad. Turn up the gain? Mud city. Turn up the Presence just a bit too much? Ice picks and weird sandy gain texture all day long. Basically all the controls have to be set in a delicate balance or else things can go south fast.

But if you hit it with a bass cut at the input and know how to use its tone stack, and maybe throw some general tone shaping EQ in the loop, it’s all there.

To me it’s always sounded like slightly smoother and more balanced JCM 800 with an extra gain stage or so.
 
Any time I doubt DSLs can sound good, I have to think back to 2010 when I was in Minneapolis to see Dokken. Got there in time for the sound check (outdoor concert), and Jon Levin's tone through rental DSL half stacks was some of the best live tone I've ever heard.

Like most amps, but especially DSLs, they need to really be pushed and then they sound damn good.
 
Kinda miss my DSL. Was under a grand 2 years ago new. I thought the Clean ch. was weak, the Crunch mode of the Clean ch. was pretty pathetic, but the (vintage) mode of the Lead channel was ok boosted w/ an SD-1

 
A few weeks ago, I got a Marshall JCM 2000 DSL 50... wow wow wow. It has pretty good cleans, but I the dirty tones are just great. I can go from a Black Crowes type gain to a super saturated lead tone with a boost up front.

I'm so happy with it. I've spent the last 20 years looking for a hot rodded Marshall tone, but I never bought an actual Marshall. So glad I did. I know this isn't the top of the line, but there are some damn fine tones in this amp!

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These things ( especially early ones) are usually the back line for a lot of artists from Extreme to other 80's cock rocking bands because they don't have the cash to haul their gear everywhere. Yngwie is probably the only guy who still insists on hauling all his gear around. Anyway, they sound great and when boosted, you wouldn't really think you are missing anything. Given the prices of amps these days, these are still sleepers.
 
Kinda miss my DSL. Was under a grand 2 years ago new. I thought the Clean ch. was weak, the Crunch mode of the Clean ch. was pretty pathetic, but the (vintage) mode of the Lead channel was ok boosted w/ an SD-1



The gain is there but man do these have any body to them at volume? Like does it sound like a Marshall MG cranked? To my ears they sound great but the tone is very 1D and thinned out?
 
I’ve never owned a DSL and I’m not a fan of the JVM410H, but I am a fan of the JVM210H. The tonestack(s) are in a different location in the 210H compared to a 410H. The 210H is more classic Marshall arrangement. I’ve always wanted to get a 210H to mod to see what I could do to it to make it insane.
 
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The gain is there but man do these have any body to them at volume? Like does it sound like a Marshall MG cranked? To my ears they sound great but the tone is very 1D and thinned out?
I'm known to roll off bass. I hate too much bass in the sound. That was low volume. Ultimately I didn't like the character of the gain ch, whether set to Vintage or Modern. That, plus the Clean and Crunch were anemic, IMO, so I shit-canned it.
 
I think if someone wants to try a Marshall, but isn’t really a Marshall guy at heart they are a nice inexpensive way to try out a decent Marshall tone. I have known of a few modded DSLs that really rip….but that involved different transformers and a bit of circuit tweaking. In the end, you could buy a 2203 instead. Not so anymore…..5-700 for a DSL, another 500 in PT/OT + tweaking and your saving $ over a used 2203/4 which are north of 2K these days.
 

Ah yes haha. Good old days with Mike Fortin, man that guy was awesome and always so helpful to me, really got me interested in modding my own amps and building them. I sold that amp to a friend that toured with it for a while and he really enjoyed it, that thing ripped. Now I just run a stock DSL and boost it on the green channel. What maybe some people don't understand is that the red channel to be on par with a lot of newer high gain amps with depth control you have to run the deep in and then bass at like 1-3 to kind of get that depth out of the amp yet still not over bearing. Unfortunately the green channel has a little more bass then the red channel so it's hard to balance the channels without modding it, really needs to either, up the coupling cap on the first stage on the red channel or lower it for the green channel much like the TSL does.
 
I think if someone wants to try a Marshall, but isn’t really a Marshall guy at heart they are a nice inexpensive way to try out a decent Marshall tone. I have known of a few modded DSLs that really rip….but that involved different transformers and a bit of circuit tweaking. In the end, you could buy a 2203 instead. Not so anymore…..5-700 for a DSL, another 500 in PT/OT + tweaking and your saving $ over a used 2203/4 which are north of 2K these days.

I've found honestly the stock transformers work pretty good. I tried a MM OT and it made the amp a brighter, cleaner voice and a little stiffer mid range, where the marstan heybour was a little better and gave it a warmer mid range that sounded a lot more natural. The changes I'm describing sound huge but honestly changed maybe 3% of the tone.
I forgot how much that fortin mod smokes. Really makes me want to grab another one.

What I like about a lot of marshalls and the DSL is you can really turn the mids up and it doesn't seem to get harsh or sound honky.
 
Kinda miss my DSL. Was under a grand 2 years ago new. I thought the Clean ch. was weak, the Crunch mode of the Clean ch. was pretty pathetic, but the (vintage) mode of the Lead channel was ok boosted w/ an SD-1


Nice clip! Great playing....
 
JCM2000 DSL'S are great amps. They had bias drift issues from years 98 to 2003. If you get 2004 to 2007 you have nothing to worry about.
The secret of these amps is to boost the clean channel. (green)

I think some are confusing the new dsl's with the jcm2000's in this thread.
 
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@skoora 💯My buddy and I each bought a JCM 900 4100 w/ 5881's new back in the day. I used to think it was a cool amp until I stepped up into a Boogie. A couple months back, my buddy needed me to re-tube/bias his 900. I got to play with it for a few hours.

The clean channel was good, the distortion was meh. It lacked the low end guttural punch that my Mark IV rev A delivers in spades. At the current used prices, I'd steer anyone away from a 900 and tell them to seek out a Mark IV around the $1k price range. It's well worth it.
I bought a JCM 900 new back in the day from Manny's in NYC . Sold it a few months later , I much prefer the JCM 800 .
 
Nice congrats! It doesn't matter if it's not the top of the line if you're happy that's the bottom line! Enjoy🤘
I wish I was easy to satisfy but I'm not , it has to sound perfect for me to be satisfied so as you can guess I'm currently ampless . Well I have a small Boogie but I rarely ever play it .
 
I’ve had a great time with 900s, DSLs, JVMs… people always shit on all those series, but the handful of newschool Marshalls I’ve owned have all delivered.
 
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