NAD: Marshall 2555x in the black.

Rick Lee

Well-known member
This is my fifth and final one. I don't know why I keep buying and flipping them, then missing them, then getting another, but this is it. It's a keeper.



I recall these all take a lot of dialing in, which I won't get to do before Sat. I worked from home today to wait for FedEx and they came at 6pm. Now I have to cook and then help Mrs. Lee with the car when she gets home. Tomorrow I'm working from home, but so it Mrs. Lee, so I'll be playing through my GK 250ML. As always, these come biased pretty cold from the factory. I bumped it up to 70% and will begin the preamp tube rolling on Sat. when I can pull the chassis and access those. If you have one of these, you know the power tubes make it very hard to reach the preamp tubes without pulling the chassis. No matter. I will run this at full tilt for hours on Sat.

For those who know how to bias these, I'm getting vastly different readings with the external bias points vs. my EuroTubes bias probe. The EuroTubes has never failed me, so I just set it based on that on one side, check the external bias points with a DMM and then match the other side to the one I set with the EuroTubes.
 
Nice congratulations! I've never heard one in person and would love to the Clips online sound great. Enjoy🤘🤘
 
The online clips are a total siren song. Yeah, they're so awesome, but again, these amps take some dialing in. I'm really lazy from running mostly old NMVs and JMP Marshalls. I don't play well with push/pull pots and small script on a mirror panel. So, once I get this dialed in, I might as well glue the knobs in place. I won't be touching them much.
 
The online clips are a total siren song. Yeah, they're so awesome, but again, these amps take some dialing in. I'm really lazy from running mostly old NMVs and JMP Marshalls. I don't play well with push/pull pots and small script on a mirror panel. So, once I get this dialed in, I might as well glue the knobs in place. I won't be touching them much.
I love these . I need one someday. Congrats looks so cool
 
Actually, everything around noon is where I started as soon as I had checked the bias. Sounded pretty good right there. But that was through a 4x12 and I usually play through a 2x12, which I'll be dialing in tomorrow.
 
Just threw the EuroTubes bias probe onto the other side. I decided I'm going with its reading, as I've used it for all my tube amps for years and they always sound great. So I biased it right at 70%, which was 37mA per tube. That shows around 83 per side (or 41.5mA per tube) on the amp's external bias points with my DMM. But I trust the EuroTubes unit more. Tomorrow the tube rolling commences.

 
Congrats, they are great amps. Very spot on to an original; only difference being the vintage iron winning by a small margin when I had them side by side.
My settings were output master maxed, lead to taste. That way your clean if you need it will match your lead vol. Bass 6, mids 4-6, treb 4-6 presence maxed. Rhythm clip I left alone. V30s or 65s, GBs. It loves them all. Boosted for heavy stuff.
 
I got the first run that came cheap about 6-7 yrs ago when SW or MF ordered some ungodly number of them and they had to blow them out rather than ship them back. Got that first one NIB for $999 shipped and that was before there was sales tax on Internet purchases. Kept it a year, flipped it on CL for a good profit.

Then I came across the smallbox 2553 version on the local FB Marketplace. Snagged it for $1600. I recapped it and tried everything I could, but just didn't bond with it. Sold it for a good profit.

Found another like new 2555x on eBay, made a deal outside of eBay for it, drove to CA, paid cash and ran it hard for a while. Sold it again for a good profit.

Then, last Xmas I found a 2525C on eBay while visiting my folks in NJ for Xmas. Made a deal outside of eBay, drove up to north NJ, met in a McD's parking lot, paid cash. I really liked that amp, but fell out of love with it when it couldn't keep up at an outdoor gig. It was dimed and, yeah, maybe I should have brought a head and cab, but I thought it had more gas in the tank than it did. Broke even on that one.

Anyway, with the profits I've made on the first three, this latest one is just about free.
 
Man....I thought there was something wrong with me for having bought a couple of the same amp....but 5 times?

Then again, I've gotten the same amp again a few times now, so I'm just as mad! Apparently there are quite a few of us like that so all good.

Hey....I say, if it makes you happy and inspired then so be it. Hope this one does it for you.
 
So far it's an old 12AU7 in V1, new 12AX7 in V2 and 12AT7 in V3. But I'm still rolling. I know should not buy this amp just for the purpose of trying to make it sound like my others. But I want to get it al set for band practice in a week.
 
I recently grabbed one of these and it's a unique amp indeed. I can get it to feel and sound very similar to the MCIIs I've owned but more low mid roar/growl vs. upper mid grind and bite with the Wizard, but both just so open and aggressive sounding if set that way; like a redlined engine about to come apart at the seems with this gnarly low mids thing going on.

Very cool amp. A darker tone for sure even with treble & presence cranked up, but still very cutting and articulate as hell. TBH, It's kind of what I expected the FB100 to sound like way back in the day when I drooled at the arrival of that amp, but that amp was soooo much more polite than descriptions led me to believe where as the 2555x can just sound plain ugly, but in such a good way if that makes sense. With a boost it's a thrash/death metal machine. But then the Jub can sound so sweet when ripping bluesy stuff or classic rock straight in with an LP.
 
Ok, if I wanted to knock this down to a 50/25w head, could I remove the outermost two power tubes, halve the impedance and then it would be ok? Just spitballing here, wanted to see if that would sound different when cranked and want to be sure it's safe. Pretty sure I did that with my SLO long ago and it was fine.
 
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