Marshall 1959BJA Billie Joe Armstrong Demo

[FourT6and2]

Still wont sound like a marshall.

Modern Marshalls don't even sound like Marshalls. They use transformers made in Southeaset Asia and modern components that all the other companies use, including Ceriatone. So what makes a "Marshall" sound like a Marshall? The little old lady who solders it together?

My entire point is, $4,000 for a Super Lead clone is absurd when you can get the exact same thing for a fraction of the price. All you're paying for is the logo. And yet, people still claim, "WeLl iT wOnT sOuNd LiKe A mArShAlL dUdE!"

You realize you can buy an original hand-wired 1959 from the early 70s with actual Dagnall or Drake iron for less than $4,000 right?

Which one of these sounds like a Marshall and which one sounds like a clone?

 

[The~Kid]

Modern Marshalls don't even sound like Marshalls. They use transformers made in Southeaset Asia and modern components that all the other companies use, including Ceriatone. So what makes a "Marshall" sound like a Marshall? The little old lady who solders it together?

My entire point is, $4,000 for a Super Lead clone is absurd when you can get the exact same thing for a fraction of the price. All you're paying for is the logo. And yet, people still claim, "WeLl iT wOnT sOuNd LiKe A mArShAlL dUdE!"

You realize you can buy an original hand-wired 1959 from the early 70s with actual Dagnall or Drake iron for less than $4,000 right?

Which one of these sounds like a Marshall and which one sounds like a clone?

I mean pretty much this......


Fender uses real Schumachers on some of their MIM/Reissue amps..... Not just their MIA amps.


Yet Marshall comes out with this atrocity and garbage...... Why would you do this to a 1959 to begin with even if you liked Green Day. That is essentially what they do here production model or limited or whatever..... They take a 1959, modify (rape) it and then upcharge for it along with having you pay up the ass and having customers get fucked up the ass by selling them this crap with Vietnamese transformers.


I mean......... You really don't have to be a American to be an Idiot who buys this.

 

[lespaul6]

You can order the amp without iron. The price is $820. A transformer set from Heyboer or Marstran is about $400. I still don't understand your point here. I'm not talking about rockitt retro.

hey man if you dig ceriatone thats cool with me...buy what you like and I'll do the same!

 

[JonPearson1994]

This thread is really adding fuel to my hypothesis: guitar always sounds bad no matter what

 

[lespaul6]

Ok here is my honest review ... the amp sounds good. Its an idealized 2203 with a touch more gain and expanded eq in the mids and lows. Its not compressed. It has a big toothy overdrive with good bottom and plenty of string zing on the low E- which I like. It can do guns, crue, sporpions and ride the lighting tones with a boost. Like a 2203, preamp starts to get wooly after 3 without a boost to thin out the preamp.

No effects loop.. I never use one anyway.. the amp is not compressed so if you like doing those legato style leads on your friedman, you will not like this. It was fun.. good experience overall. An it didn't turn me into a gay.

With the AFD and my jube I have this tone covered. I wanted to give it a try to cure my curiosity, glad I did. I took a photo of the great sounding shitty transformers so the resident experts can criticize away... looks like the can caps are tube amp doctor, I'm sure someone has something bad to say about those too. Have fun boys

 

[BABMusic]

@lespaul6 Is that a real Armstrong signature on the back?

 

[JonPearson1994]

Ok here is my honest review ... the amp sounds good. Its an idealized 2203 with a touch more gain and expanded eq in the mids and lows. Its not compressed. It has a big toothy overdrive with good bottom and plenty of string zing on the low E- which I like. It can do guns, crue, sporpions and ride the lighting tones with a boost. Like a 2203, preamp starts to get wooly after 3 without a boost to thin out the preamp.

No effects loop.. I never use one anyway.. the amp is not compressed so if you like doing those legato style leads on your friedman, you will not like this. It was fun.. good experience overall. An it didn't turn me into a gay.

With the AFD and my jube I have this tone covered. I wanted to give it a try to cure my curiosity, glad I did. I took a photo of the great sounding shitty transformers so the resident experts can criticize away... looks like the can caps are tube amp doctor, I'm sure someone has something bad to say about those too. Have fun boys

View attachment 454003View attachment 454004

Those tubes look like they could be rebranded TAD as well, red base.

Thanks for the impressions, is it more compressed than the AFD or similar?

 

[lespaul6]

@lespaul6 Is that a real Armstrong signature on the back?

I think it is

 

[lespaul6]

Those tubes look like they could be rebranded TAD as well, red base.

Thanks for the impressions, is it more compressed than the AFD or similar?

I believe youre right about the power tubes. No its not more compressed than the AFD. The AFD has an extra gain stage so you don't need a pedal to get it in the territory of the BJA with a pedal. Similar characteristics in both though.

 

[motorboy1]

Ok here is my honest review ... the amp sounds good. Its an idealized 2203 with a touch more gain and expanded eq in the mids and lows. Its not compressed. It has a big toothy overdrive with good bottom and plenty of string zing on the low E- which I like. It can do guns, crue, sporpions and ride the lighting tones with a boost. Like a 2203, preamp starts to get wooly after 3 without a boost to thin out the preamp.

No effects loop.. I never use one anyway.. the amp is not compressed so if you like doing those legato style leads on your friedman, you will not like this. It was fun.. good experience overall. An it didn't turn me into a gay.

With the AFD and my jube I have this tone covered. I wanted to give it a try to cure my curiosity, glad I did. I took a photo of the great sounding shitty transformers so the resident experts can criticize away... looks like the can caps are tube amp doctor, I'm sure someone has something bad to say about those too. Have fun boys

View attachment 454003View attachment 454004

took a photo of the great sounding shitty transformers so the resident experts can criticize away...

Hahaha good for you. Nobody gives a shit the supposedly resident experts think…

 

[FourT6and2]

took a photo of the great sounding shitty transformers so the resident experts can criticize away...

Hahaha good for you. Nobody gives a shit the supposedly resident experts think…

You two can't have it both ways. Y'all claim the amp is a "real Marshall" and clones are somehow less than. But when it's pointed out that even "real Marshalls" of today are just clones, using the same components that other companies/cloners use, suddenly the made-in-Vietnam transformers are "great". But the clones are still bad?

Talk about moving the goal posts and doubling down on stupidity. You're literally making my point for me. All you care about is the logo on the headshell.

There's nothing wrong with this amp's build quality, the 1959HW, the 1959 Modified, or the 800 Modified... other than they're overpriced for some super basic mods that have been around for 40+ years and someone at Marshall finally found the SLO Clone Forum, Amp Garage, and Metro Forum and decided to capitalize.

 

[motorboy1]

You two can't have it both ways. Y'all claim the amp is a "real Marshall" and clones are somehow less than. But when it's pointed out that even "real Marshalls" of today are just clones, using the same components that other companies/cloners use, suddenly the made-in-Vietnam transformers are "great". But the clones are still bad?

Talk about moving the goal posts and doubling down on stupidity. You're literally making my point for me. All you care about is the logo on the headshell.

There's nothing wrong with this amp's build quality, the 1959HW, the 1959 Modified, or the 800 Modified... other than they're overpriced for some super basic mods that have been around for 40+ years and someone at Marshall finally found the SLO Clone Forum, Amp Garage, and Metro Forum and decided to capitalize.

Nobody cares. People buy what they want, don’t care what’s under the hood and are
happy. Thats all that matters..

 

[LP Freak]

Apparently, they cost $4,000?

The same exact circuit with mostly the same parts and, arguably, even better transformers (Marstran, Merren, Heyboer) can be had for about $1,500 if you know where to look.

The R&D for this mod has already been done. It's on the SLO Clone Forum, Amp Garage, Ceriatone's layouts, etc. And all of the parts Marshall is using are fairly pedestrian: Alpha pots, Belton tube sockets, Cliff jacks, Vishay/ERO MKT1813 signal caps, generic carbon film resistors, and whatever electrolytics they're using (ARS, Ruby, F&T, TAD, JJ, etc.). None of that stuff adds up to $4,000. It's the labor and the branding. And labor can be had much cheaper. So all you're paying for is the Marshall logo and the Green Day association.

It's nice to have it all in an "official" package, though. I get that. It's probably perfect for that die-hard Green Day fan. But under the hood, it's nothing all that special.

But neither are most amps

 

[angelspade]

I don't know if it counts as a "real" Marshall, but I recently acquired a Vietnamese made Marshall DSL100HR for under $500, and it outperforms about 75% of the amps I have owned...And I've owned a lot of amps by most standards. So whatever it is...it rips.

 

[skoora]

For me it’s not whether the Vietnamese transformers sound better or worse. It’s that they should be a lot cheaper than made in the UK. So I expect the amp to be cheaper. Even just talking about the regular reissues. But they didn’t get cheaper, the prices even went up. So they can take their shrinkflation and shove it up their ass.
I would think for any high dollar flagship amp they would want to pay up for the complete Made In England package. It just exposes them for the crap company they are and they couldn’t really care about the heritage of Marshall and what a Marshall was meant to be. I know there’s employees there who care but It’s basically private equity just calculating how to milk the most, for the least cost, out of nostalgia driven market.
@lespaul6 you said it satisfied your curiosity but you had the sound covered. I take it you’re returning it and it was basically a buy to try?

 

[skoora]

You two can't have it both ways. Y'all claim the amp is a "real Marshall" and clones are somehow less than. But when it's pointed out that even "real Marshalls" of today are just clones, using the same components that other companies/cloners use, suddenly the made-in-Vietnam transformers are "great". But the clones are still bad?

Talk about moving the goal posts and doubling down on stupidity. You're literally making my point for me. All you care about is the logo on the headshell.

There's nothing wrong with this amp's build quality, the 1959HW, the 1959 Modified, or the 800 Modified... other than they're overpriced for some super basic mods that have been around for 40+ years and someone at Marshall finally found the SLO Clone Forum, Amp Garage, and Metro Forum and decided to capitalize.

In 2009 or so I built one of the Metro 1959 kits, using Heyboer and I can easily say it sounded every bit as great and wild as the few OG’s I’ve owned or played. It actually surprised me how good it was.

 

[* velcro-fly *]

Cool to get a breakdown on how it was recorded and also that they felt the rack gear in the signal chain saved the sound (but true for most of our beloved recordings).
Also Pierce trying to make hay out of the “great” edge of breakup sound from the low input that didn’t sound any better than any number of amps with the gain turned down. He spent more time there than actually playing the amp as intended.
Also them saying the new one sounded better was pretty funny when the original had a more defined midrange and would probably mix better.
The YT folks definitely trying to glow up this thing.

Yeah, there's a whole lotta comedy going on there, need to be able to turn the talking off and just hear the amps