Marshall JCM 2000 DSL50 Opinions?

[iplayloudly]

I have had a couple of them. It is a VERY bright amp, but can sound great when tamed down. When using the red channel, I typically keep the presence at 0, treble about 9:00, mids about 2:00, and bass about 9:00.

Most other amps I've had would sound like poo with those settings.

 

[Heritage Softail]

I bought an old UK built DSL100 as a wet amp primarily. After playing around with it a bit and getting the right tubes in it for my liking, =C= power and a few particular 12AX's, I really like the amp. It covers tons of ground and the clean channel takes boost pedals very well.

I have taken mine out to play 4 or 5 times. Never had any issues with it. Always there great crunchy Marshall tone. Very user friendly amp. I use an EQ in the loop to get a wider variety of more Mesa type scooped sounds.

It is pretty hard to fuck up your sound with this amp. Your plug and play Rick an roll metal sound over a few decades. Aside of bad tubes maybe, not being able to dial in a DSL 100 is probably a sign to take up drums.

 

[PRS_Axeman]

I found it to a be a great amp....I often was told by touring musicians I had the best sounding DSL50 rig they had ever heard. This was from both musicians and back end techs and I was often asked how I got the nearly perfect classic rock sound out of such a cheap and available amp.....

It was pretty simple...
I used only the green channel as I thought it sounded better less harsh highs and more bottom end but lacked gain and I hate gain/overdrive pedals for the most part....So what I found thru testing many setup & pedals was to slam the front end of the amp with pure clean boost. I used a Super Chili Picoso - set that about 70% and turned that amp into a classic rock monster with singing mids, thunderous lows and crisp highs. I often had the bass set at 2-3 and could shake the stage with a 2x12 bogner open backed Bogner cab...!!! Great clubbing amp - I never had to crank it to unreasonable levels. The only mod to that amp head was putting in KT77 tubes.

I put a GE7 in the loop with boosted mids for lead solos and it was a great amp that allowed me to control everything from the stage.

I would use one again in a heartbeat if I toured or played in bigger clubs.

 

[Dave Simpson]

For my amp at least, I found it best to dial in the amps tone using the gain channel first. The Clean/Crunch channel is a lot more forgiving EQ wise.

 

[Toni RedGrave]

Was shopping for a cheap tube head a few years ago and they had one at GC for $500. Grabbed an ESP Eclipse and headed off to the loud room to jam a bit.

Fell in love with it. For me, it sounded great. Bout 2 years later, had it retubed and looked over and it sounded that much better to me.

Traded it for a 5150 sig cause I always wanted one and then my friend who I traded with asked if I wanted it back because he needed to get rid of it for an out of state move. I jumped at the chance to get it back...

I dig this amp. Very happy to have it and my 5150.