Marshall TSL switching question

[Gino]

A buddy of mine has a TSL and he said that it's got this volume swell problem when he switches between the channels. If he's playing a chord and then switches channels, there's a half second dip in volume. He said it's so annoying that he just uses one channel and hits his Metal Zone for more gain. It pisses him off because he wants to utilize all three channels. I'm not familiar with this amp other than knowing of its existence. Is this common with all TSLs, or is there something wrong with his?

 

[RockStarNick]

I had a TSL, and it did the exact same thing. So did all the ones in the store that I tried out. Utterly ridiculous.

You buy a $1500+ amp, and there's a DELAY/SWELL when switching channels? Unacceptable.

Stupid me though, I didnt' realize this in the store... not until I played it at practice. It drove me absolutely INSANE. I was just hell-bent on getting a 3 channel amp combo, so I hastily ditched my half stack and got one of those. Bad move.

Selling that amp and moving on to REAL botique amps was the best move I made in my life. It was an overhyped, overpriced piece of garbage. That thing sounded DECENT on the crunch channel, but that was it. But was put together with spit and a prayer. Anyone who says Marshall's are built like tanks have no idea what a tank is.

(SOooooo, nick, tell us how you REALLY feel...)

 

[Gino]

Thanks, that's what I figured. He wasn't very happy to hear that though.

 

[RockStarNick]

The worst part is that if you take apart the footswitch, it's a MESS of a circuitboards and nonsense. I'm pretty sure that the switches are momentary, meaning they're sending a signal to a relay in the amp. Which means that it's a pretty crappy relay, and there's nothing you can do about it. That, and it's built like crap, and costs over $150 to replace.

I was in a band at the time, where this one song REQUIRED a really fast switch from clean arpeggios to some heavy power chords, and I just couldn't do it. And it felt really un-natural to step on the switch a nanosecond before you REALLY want to... a big pain in the butt. I wound up doing the same thing... I HAD to use a pedal eventually, because the channel switching drove me nuts.

 

[kannibul]

The worst part is that if you take apart the footswitch, it's a MESS of a circuitboards and nonsense. I'm pretty sure that the switches are momentary, meaning they're sending a signal to a relay in the amp. Which means that it's a pretty crappy relay, and there's nothing you can do about it. That, and it's built like crap, and costs over $150 to replace.

I was in a band at the time, where this one song REQUIRED a really fast switch from clean arpeggios to some heavy power chords, and I just couldn't do it. And it felt really un-natural to step on the switch a nanosecond before you REALLY want to... a big pain in the butt. I wound up doing the same thing... I HAD to use a pedal eventually, because the channel switching drove me nuts.

Uh, it's not in the footswitch, and if you really had taken one apart...it is a PCB, but it's not a mess by any means.

The swell between clean to either gain channel bothered me quite a bit too - but, from what I've heard of my guitarist's TSL 602 combo, it doesn't do it.

That, and I know my JVM 410 doesn't do it...so I'm happy.

 

[RockStarNick]

I'm used to looking inside a foot switch and just seeing some hard-wired Carling DPDT's in there. I guess I was taken aback by all the PCB stuff. but you are correct, the problem is not in the switch.

I guess my biggest peeve is that, whether or not the amp sounds amazing or terrible, why would a company let that fly? Did they think that no one would notice? I dunno... that bothers me. It's good to hear that they corrected that problem on the new series of JVMs.

 

[kannibul]

I'm used to looking inside a foot switch and just seeing some hard-wired Carling DPDT's in there. I guess I was taken aback by all the PCB stuff. but you are correct, the problem is not in the switch.

I guess my biggest peeve is that, whether or not the amp sounds amazing or terrible, why would a company let that fly? Did they think that no one would notice? I dunno... that bothers me. It's good to hear that they corrected that problem on the new series of JVMs.

It probably was an acceptable risk, or a bad series of parts.

Shit happens. Thousands of those amps have been produced, and honest, you're only 1 of maybe a handful that have ever complained about it.

 

[Gino]

I'm used to looking inside a foot switch and just seeing some hard-wired Carling DPDT's in there. I guess I was taken aback by all the PCB stuff. but you are correct, the problem is not in the switch.

I guess my biggest peeve is that, whether or not the amp sounds amazing or terrible, why would a company let that fly? Did they think that no one would notice? I dunno... that bothers me. It's good to hear that they corrected that problem on the new series of JVMs.

No, it's not in the footswitch because my buddy got a different one and the bug/feature persisted. I agree that it's bullshit for this amp to have this, but then again I really don't like amp anyway. A company like Marshall having something like this going on in their flagship amp (at the time) is pretty weak.

It probably was an acceptable risk, or a bad series of parts.

Shit happens. Thousands of those amps have been produced, and honest, you're only 1 of maybe a handful that have ever complained about it.

I agree that it was most likely acceptable risk due to the design. I'm guessing that without the swell they were either blowing tubes or fuses and had to have something to ramp the power when switching channels. However, just giving it the "shit happens" or "nobody else complains" pass is pretty lame. Have some standards, man.

 

[MarcoR]

I agree that it was most likely acceptable risk due to the design. I'm guessing that without the swell they were either blowing tubes or fuses and had to have something to ramp the power when switching channels. However, just giving it the "shit happens" or "nobody else complains" pass is pretty lame. Have some standards, man.

Here is an interesting thread on the topic: http://www.marshallampforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13689

FWIW, on my TSL122 if turn the gain past 3:00 on the clean channel, the volume swell isn't there. Really, the clean channel doesn't break up all that much when the gain is pushed anyway. The problem is the worst if you keep the gain on the clean low and push the master volume.