OK, So What Is So Special About Old Plexis?

[Rick Lee]

Those boutiques will be tough to get for under $3k unless you pick one up used. I have about $900 into my '68 12000 Metro clone (my labor is free and I had a lot of leftover parts from my last two builds) and it's my favorite amp now. I haven't had occasion to A/B it with a real Marshall Plexi other than the 1959SLP RI I used to have. But that clone absolutely slays and at a very affordable price point. I'm even running the cheapest power tubes you can get - Valve Art. I love it. There's a cleaner one than my build on Reverb now for $1750ish and another purple Metro clone on eBay for $1349. Both would be killer amps, but then I already have them.

 

[LP Freak]

Here's my '74 JMP. It's magical to my ears anyways

 

[SavageRiffer]

Here's my '74 JMP. It's magical to my ears anyways

Yep that did sound pretty good. What were the settings?

 

[LP Freak]

Presence 6
Bass 2
Mid 8
Treble 6
Volume 1 (gain) 5

And it's not only the tone, it's got such a great feel with the perfect amount of sag.

 

[FourT6and2]

Here's my '74 JMP. It's magical to my ears anyways

I digs it

I like how the pedal adds that upper-mid snarl.

 

[Rick Lee]

Ok, it's not a Plexi, but I recently snagged a '79 2203 on Reverb and just got it back from a pro tune up today. Geezus, does this thing have the mojo. It's uneffingreal. I don't have proper recording gear beyond my iPhone, but rest assured, there is nothing else like this. I ran it hard for an hour today with earplugs in and no one else home. It is an infectious sound and feel. If I had been wearing long pants, the pant legs would have been fluttering.

This commentary is all in German, but he captures it very well and, if you understand German, it's pretty funny too.

 

[SQUAREHEAD]

Here's my '74 JMP. It's magical to my ears anyways

Stunning tone! Great job! Wow...

 

[SavageRiffer]

Ok, it's not a Plexi, but I recently snagged a '79 2203 on Reverb and just got it back from a pro tune up today. Geezus, does this thing have the mojo. It's uneffingreal. I don't have proper recording gear beyond my iPhone, but rest assured, there is nothing else like this. I ran it hard for an hour today with earplugs in and no one else home. It is an infectious sound and feel. If I had been wearing long pants, the pant legs would have been fluttering.

This commentary is all in German, but he captures it very well and, if you understand German, it's pretty funny too.

Man I had a 1959 plexi and I couldn't get that kind of breakup with single coils unless it was full blast, but that dude looks like he's sitting right in front of the cab!

 

[Racerxrated]

Once you get a good Marshall, you get why they are THE sound of Rock for the last 50 years.

 

[codyjarret]

.

 

[godgrinder]

Oh yeah, I saw that one. Good comparison, and the 2555x is a great amp on its own, probably the best bang for the buck amp new or used to come out in the last few years. And unless you are gigging out and can open them up, the differences between vintage and reissue is pretty small.
But, like many here I get nitpicky about ANY difference, and I do have a blast cranking my amps when I can...and the vintage iron in Marshalls IMO set themselves apart from the reissues. I've had waay too many vintage and reissue Marshalls to count, and I really do believe the vintage Iron superiority.

Apparently the OG Silver ones, the black ones, the Slash sig ones and the new reissues all sound slightly different. Considering that all the distortion in these amps come from LEDs I'd guess it has a lot to do with LED selections. LEDs aren't exactly audio parts and in most situations as long as they light up it's all good. So I wouldn't be surprised that different batches of the same model LED would sound very different in an audio circuit.

 

[lespaul6]

Oh yeah, I saw that one. Good comparison, and the 2555x is a great amp on its own, probably the best bang for the buck amp new or used to come out in the last few years. And unless you are gigging out and can open them up, the differences between vintage and reissue is pretty small.
But, like many here I get nitpicky about ANY difference, and I do have a blast cranking my amps when I can...and the vintage iron in Marshalls IMO set themselves apart from the reissues. I've had waay too many vintage and reissue Marshalls to count, and I really do believe the vintage Iron superiority.

Apparently the OG Silver ones, the black ones, the Slash sig ones and the new reissues all sound slightly different. Considering that all the distortion in these amps come from LEDs I'd guess it has a lot to do with LED selections. LEDs aren't exactly audio parts and in most situations as long as they light up it's all good. So I wouldn't be surprised that different batches of the same model LED would sound very different in an audio circuit.

The leds are the same type and the overdrive does not "all" come from the leds, check the schem again, its only shaped after the clipping is already started by the tubes.. you're thinking of the 4100 JCM 900, not the Jubilee.
The reason for the difference with the reissues is that they didnt carry over the power section of the original 2555 amps which all used the JCM 800 filtering and power design.
My slash marshalls have a deeper bigger punch to them then the reissue due to the power section. The preamp is identical

 

[Racerxrated]

Oh yeah, I saw that one. Good comparison, and the 2555x is a great amp on its own, probably the best bang for the buck amp new or used to come out in the last few years. And unless you are gigging out and can open them up, the differences between vintage and reissue is pretty small.
But, like many here I get nitpicky about ANY difference, and I do have a blast cranking my amps when I can...and the vintage iron in Marshalls IMO set themselves apart from the reissues. I've had waay too many vintage and reissue Marshalls to count, and I really do believe the vintage Iron superiority.

Apparently the OG Silver ones, the black ones, the Slash sig ones and the new reissues all sound slightly different. Considering that all the distortion in these amps come from LEDs I'd guess it has a lot to do with LED selections. LEDs aren't exactly audio parts and in most situations as long as they light up it's all good. So I wouldn't be surprised that different batches of the same model LED would sound very different in an audio circuit.

The leds are the same type and the overdrive does not "all" come from the leds, check the schem again, its only shaped after the clipping is already started by the tubes.. you're thinking of the 4100 JCM 900, not the Jubilee.
The reason for the difference with the reissues is that they didnt carry over the power section of the original 2555 amps which all used the JCM 800 filtering and power design.
My slash marshalls have a deeper bigger punch to them then the reissue due to the power section. The preamp is identical

The only documented difference that I'm aware of in the 87-90 Jubilee series are 2..the first being the preamp changes that occurred early on in the silver 87's, that was ironed out by serial number 3000 or so according to what I've read. The preamp was changed 2 or 3 times before Marshall settled on the final circuit. The other difference is the 2554 had a resistor in place of a choke, the size of the chassis did not allow for a choke. I did own serial 6xx 2555 and the only difference I could tell from my 1990 is the low end was much less abundant than my later version.
Great amps!

 

[lespaul6]

Oh yeah, I saw that one. Good comparison, and the 2555x is a great amp on its own, probably the best bang for the buck amp new or used to come out in the last few years. And unless you are gigging out and can open them up, the differences between vintage and reissue is pretty small.
But, like many here I get nitpicky about ANY difference, and I do have a blast cranking my amps when I can...and the vintage iron in Marshalls IMO set themselves apart from the reissues. I've had waay too many vintage and reissue Marshalls to count, and I really do believe the vintage Iron superiority.

Apparently the OG Silver ones, the black ones, the Slash sig ones and the new reissues all sound slightly different. Considering that all the distortion in these amps come from LEDs I'd guess it has a lot to do with LED selections. LEDs aren't exactly audio parts and in most situations as long as they light up it's all good. So I wouldn't be surprised that different batches of the same model LED would sound very different in an audio circuit.

The leds are the same type and the overdrive does not "all" come from the leds, check the schem again, its only shaped after the clipping is already started by the tubes.. you're thinking of the 4100 JCM 900, not the Jubilee.
The reason for the difference with the reissues is that they didnt carry over the power section of the original 2555 amps which all used the JCM 800 filtering and power design.
My slash marshalls have a deeper bigger punch to them then the reissue due to the power section. The preamp is identical

The only documented difference that I'm aware of in the 87-90 Jubilee series are 2..the first being the preamp changes that occurred early on in the silver 87's, that was ironed out by serial number 3000 or so according to what I've read. The preamp was changed 2 or 3 times before Marshall settled on the final circuit. The other difference is the 2554 had a resistor in place of a choke, the size of the chassis did not allow for a choke. I did own serial 6xx 2555 and the only difference I could tell from my 1990 is the low end was much less abundant than my later version.
Great amps!

They are great amps..

 

[codyjarret]

I think one of the things people over look is the very high plate voltages these old 60's Marshall Plexi's have across the power tubes, 650v in my 1968 which is unheard of these days.
It just gives them a sound and mojo that these reproductions just don't have. IMHO it's just not the same feel.

 

[lespaul6]

I think one of the things people over look is the very high plate voltages these old 60's Marshall Plexi's have across the power tubes, 650v in my 1968 which is unheard of these days.
It just gives them a sound and mojo that these reproductions just don't have. IMHO it's just not the same feel.

that's true.. I dont know where you would buy tubes for that beast. Its hard enough for me to find a tube for my wizards at 510+

 

[psychodave]

I think one of the things people over look is the very high plate voltages these old 60's Marshall Plexi's have across the power tubes, 650v in my 1968 which is unheard of these days.
It just gives them a sound and mojo that these reproductions just don't have. IMHO it's just not the same feel.

Good point. My 67 plexi has 560+ pv.

Interesting point, my Cameron CCV has 565 pv on high power and around 460 on low power.

 

[codyjarret]

I think one of the things people over look is the very high plate voltages these old 60's Marshall Plexi's have across the power tubes, 650v in my 1968 which is unheard of these days.
It just gives them a sound and mojo that these reproductions just don't have. IMHO it's just not the same feel.

that's true.. I dont know where you would buy tubes for that beast. Its hard enough for me to find a tube for my wizards at 510+

I'm using KT88's in this beast and they last a little longer but this amp head eats power tubes like crazy. Sometime they just pop really loud and start making a humming noise. That's when it's time to change them out.
I love these Wizard amps and the high plate voltages is one of the reasons.
Listen to this sound clip I made of one of them that was brought to me not long ago.

 

[codyjarret]

I think one of the things people over look is the very high plate voltages these old 60's Marshall Plexi's have across the power tubes, 650v in my 1968 which is unheard of these days.
It just gives them a sound and mojo that these reproductions just don't have. IMHO it's just not the same feel.

Good point. My 67 plexi has 560+ pv.

Interesting point, my Cameron CCV has 565 pv on high power and around 460 on low power.

I truly believe, the higher the plate voltages, the better the sound and feel of the amp.
However, power tube life is the sacrifice, not many tubes can handle the higher voltages.

 

[DET1973]

I'm glad when people don't find anything special about them...leaves me with a chance of scoring one. Last chance I got to fire up a 69 at volume was fucking religious. Anyone who thinks you can get close with any Master volume Marshall, especially what they make now...well...that's cool...more old, worn out stuff for me! C'mon it's old! It's too loud. I'll take it and give it s good home. You can rock that Vietnamese DSL, it sounds killer Bro!

Come on man, I didn't say that I didn't find anything special about them. I said I find something special about all of them. I just haven't heard the difference or been stricken by any particular nuance the vintage Marshalls I've tried have to offer. Maybe the ones I tried didn't have the mojo. I don't know, so that's why I'm asking. I'm not naysaying or trying to say it's all bullshit, I just want to know from the guys who are into that kind of thing.

Like most or even all of you, I've had a shit ton of amps. Mostly Marshalls/modded Marshalls. And after all the vintage and reissue Marshalls I've had here, I can say that my version of the truth on this rests solely on the vintage Drakes/Dagnalls. Whether it's from aging or the way they made them then compared to now, IMO once you get ANY vintage Marshall up to a roaring volume the newer ones just fall short in THAT tone. Not by a lot, but still fall short.
Case in point..Jubilees are my favorite Marshall, with a boost. They've chased even the Camerons away.
I had a 2555x and then scored a 1990 black tolex 2555. The reissue is spot on, and killer...but when I compared them at 5-7 on the master the vintage 2555 just sounded better. Not a ton, but better nonetheless. And I've had reissue 2203s, 1959s, 1987s, etc.

Ah yes the 2555x compared to the old Jubilee is a bit different. I don't know about the volume thing because I never got my 2555x that loud. At 2 it's pretty damned loud. It was bit dark and rubbery at very low volume, but really opened up nicely. I saw a video which I think does a good job of showing the difference. Have you seen this one?

Not sure if this has been mentioned but there are 3 different revisions of the circuit for the jubilee series. The Black 1990 Version is Revision 3 which is what the Slash Jubilee signature models were based off as well. I used to have 2 of the Slash ones.