Detailed Review: 2005 Marshall Limited Edition Silver JCM 2000 DSL

[Briman24]

Thanks...Well that makes me feel even better about what I paid for mine.

It's in canadian but still way too much.

 

[RaceU4her]

But seriously play any DSL vs a Naylor, Steavens Poundcake, Cameron, or a good stock late ‘70’s JMP2203/4 or many other good ‘70’s, ‘80’s Marshall’s and try to justify how this amp sounds in anyway worthwhile vs any of them. What does it bring to the table soundwise that they don’t have? The only thing I can see is bang for the buck and that’s just not that inspiring

i play my lowly DSL against my iic+, cameron, hermansson, monomyth and others every day, and to me it hangs just fine if anything, it takes all of my boosts better than those amps, which is great for me because i love tons of different flavors. i get no thrill or excitement saying a boring run of the mill $500 amp can hang with my collection ive spent years gathering, but im just calling it as i hear it. Im in no rush to find a "better" marshall.

 

[RaceU4her]

Yeah...When I was researching this amp I was surprised how many guys with stellar taste in tone made the DSL part of their arsenal and live rigs...Lynch included. Below is a video that (for me) is a pretty accurate reflection on how this amp sounds in the room.



I'm not saying this is the greatest Mashall flavored amp this side of the Mississippi...But if this demo doesn't sound like very solid Marshall tone to your ears, then we just would have to agree to disagree.

i saw Nile back in the mid 00s when they were the kings of death metal and they used DSL full stacks sounding better than the CD, then the next night i had a friend on bon jovi's crew so i got to go scope that out, Sambora had a racks full of DSL's, i thought hmmm maybe i should try one of these but never did till 15 years later, that was probably dumb lol. guys of all genres who can play whatever they want use them

edit, found a picture of his rig

 

[angelspade]

i saw Nile back in the mid 00s when they were the kings of death metal and they used DSL full stacks sounding better than the CD, then the next night i had a friend on bon jovi's crew so i got to go scope that out, Sambora had a racks full of DSL's, i thought hmmm maybe i should try one of these but never did till 15 years later, that was probably dumb lol. guys of all genres who can play whatever they want use them

edit, found a picture of his rig

Very cool, thanks brother. Not a Bon Jovi fan, but Sambora has always had very good tones for that style of music. The Nile thing definitely surprises me...I would have to assume they were boosting the Lead One channel.

 

[braintheory]

I’ll never have a Cameron and I’ve never heard of a pound cake but I did have a Naylor while I had a DSL. Again, different, not better. Vintage Marshalls—COMPLETELY different. I liked the DSL more than the SLX…a lot more. I actually picked up another SLX b/c I kept reading how great they were on forums and thought I had a lemon. Nope. Just people on forums reading that “all tube signal path” is “better” and regurgitating it.

Now maybe the newer DSLs sound different—all the ones I had were 95-05 JCM2k versions. One I did need to have the amp guy fix cause it had the bias issue but other than that I beat the crap out of it for a decade. I truly think it would shock a lot of people how many mistakes would be made if you did true blind tests straight from a sm57 in front of a cab. I know you don’t care what other people use but you have to admit an artist like Jeff Beck is not going to tour for years and years with an amp that lacks “overall richness/complexity in tone, clarity, detail”

I didn’t like the SLX’s either or any JCM900’s. I should clarify I ran EL34’s in the Naylor I had, which I much preferred and made it a lot more Marshall-y. Still not quite apples to apples in flavor, but maybe oranges vs clementines at that point lol

I said before DSL’s sound to me good overall, just not anything exceptional or amazing. It totally makes sense why those guys would use them on tour. If I hypothetically were in the same position there’s a good chance I would too, except for maybe some gigs where I’d wanna try extra hard here and there. It’s hard to explain many sound things in words, but the dsl is one of those amps you can play just one long held chord and to me at least it’s immediately obvious that there’s just not the same level of those qualities you quoted above from me vs any top tier amp (regardless of flavor difference) be it a mark iic+, Rev C, Cameron, Wizard, etc. There’s just so much more going on in those amps that you can almost get lost in the sound sometimes. I understand a lot of that stuff may get lost in translation often times mic’d in a recording, but even then we can often hear some of it. Even in Blake’s IR clip posted above it captures that. It basically sounds in many ways like a more filtered/choked/less detailed jcm800 with more compression and gain on tap and darker, more low mids too I think. JMO

 

[braintheory]

No apologies required brother...I think many of us are here to be honest, opinionated and passionate about gear and I always enjoy your posts. I'll be honest myself, what originally attracted me to this particular halfstack was its cosmetic appearance and that it was a very limited edition. In researching before purchase, I surprised to discover that many guitarists found this amp to be very underrated and it was used by some well known players that are known to be particular about tone. I have owned, and currently own a few expensive, boutique amps and I agree that the JCM 2000 does not hold up to them in terms of depth, richness, sonic detail and that super "hi-fi" quality many of us seek. But it does have "that sound"...that familiar, meat and potatoes Marshall high-gain grind. It does this very, very well in my opinion. A similar comparison might be a Diezel Herbert, by comparison to a stock Peavey 5150 for modern metal applications. The Herbert is going to look, feel and sound very rich, polished, deep and....well, expensive. That said, the 5150 that you pick up used on Craigslist for $800 is going to do "that thing" that we have heard on many records. And the Herbert may not do "that thing" as well as the 5150. For me this amp scratched my 70's, 80's and 90's Marshall tone itch. Am I making any sense at all?

Yeah I totally understand all that. I’m always on the hunt for trying lots of amps and I love when I also find better than what I thought were the best amps I’ve had. It’s part of the journey/discovery. The Herbert and 5150 of course are totally different flavors, but I found also in my AB’ed contexts amps I personally would choose over those for where I feel those amp’s inherent strengths mainly lie (again jmo) and I’ve done with all versions mark 1,2, and 3 of Herbert’s, but the Herbert's of course are really good amps. The DSL’s I think also are underrated or at least we can say very underpriced for what you get

 

[braintheory]

i play my lowly DSL against my iic+, cameron, hermansson, monomyth and others every day, and to me it hangs just fine if anything, it takes all of my boosts better than those amps, which is great for me because i love tons of different flavors. i get no thrill or excitement saying a boring run of the mill $500 amp can hang with my collection ive spent years gathering, but im just calling it as i hear it. Im in no rush to find a "better" marshall.

I agree on the boost part, but most of those other amps you mentioned are the kind of amps that I find usually sound worse boosted as they already by default are quite tight and compressed, so they tend to get choked boosted and none of those cover the flavor a dsl would occupy, so I understand its place there, I just simply from my experience feel that niche can be done better if desired. It’s just different approaches. Some guys are good with what they have and aren’t curious to explore further (nothing wrong with that), but I’m always on the hunt and would love to find amps better than my current favorites that are hard for me to imagine getting dethroned, but I would love to hear it. That’s where the fun part is for me exploring gear, not just having amps get the job done

I was, for example, very happy when last fall I brought over one of my older version 5GS Hermansson’s and my friend’s Hell Razor KT150 killed it (I ordered one after trying it lol). Of course I said damn you at the time lol, but it was exciting in a way to see an amp I thought was hard to beat for what it was going for get beat in punch and power. Not quite as tight or sharp in attack, but the more recent Herm’s I had were tighter and sharper, so I sold it