So what is considered the ULTIMATE MARSHALL??

[Heritage Softail]

I've always known that the current crop of Marshall amps is supposed to be crap compared to the vintage Holy Grails of Marshall from years ago.

I know Plexi's are cool.
We've all heard that the JCM800's were great.
JCM900's considered mostly negative.
and so on.
Current Marshall's come out, and quickly have their prices plummet to scary low numbers.

But...

When people are talking about the holy grail of Marshall tones...

just what is it they are talking about?
Is there a specific model that exemplifies all that is MARSHALL tone?

or is it the culmination of years of amplifier history?

If I was looking for the perfect amp, say, to take to Dave Friedman and have it modded to make it even better...which should it be?

Be Specific...

Since you said it would be modded at the very end....

Get a Bogner XTC EL34 and be done with needing any Marshall type amps.

 

[charveldan]

Dave's got one of my JMP's now, can't wait to get it back, a Friedman JMP with KS, fat, sat, & gain-cut is the ultimate for me.

 

[stephen sawall]

I would get a Friedman amp and not mess with modifications if was interested in Dave's work.

As far as Marshall's go the old ones are the best and most of them do not sound all that great. Some sound incredible .... about as good as it gets actually.

 

[Greazygeo]

I think it may sound good since it was never really used. When I got it, it had the original GE 6550 that had full getters and no burn marks. I gave them to a friend to put in his Marshall Major. I was going to change some of the pots to make it like the earlier 70's amps, but all pots were early 70's correct . I did leave the .68 on the presence. I wasnt going to tinker with it, but I figured it was too loud as well, so I did a few mods

I never tinkered with the NFB on the jacks. I always end up going to 8ohm tap...as I do with all of my Marshalls. I also tend to set the amps on 8 ohms... and use 8 or 16 ohm cabs. I hate tinkering with the crappy ohm selector do-hicky.

I checked out your vids.

My 67 plexi sounds killer, but I prefer my 71 SL over everything. It has that certain "tone" in it that is killer... it is super smooth with the right amount of rip. In the early 90's I blew an output transformer in it and I was crushed. The amp was 100% Zeppelin Heart Breaker tone, which is why I bought it. I ended up putting in a Mercury Magnetics OPT and the amp sounded like shit. A few years later a friend of mine who is an amp tech got a hold of a 71 SL OPT. His exact words were... "its a good one." Some idiot brought in his 71 SL and wanted to change out the original iron for Mercury Magnetics iron since MM was "better." Once I put in the "new" original OPT, the amp was back to that signature sound... but better. Till death do us part

I just remembered I have a few old sound clips of my 74... god the playing is bad.

https://www.soundclick.com/player/single ... i&newref=1

The original transformers are where its at with these amps. I've never played thru anything older than '68's...how would you compare the 67 to the 71? My amps are always set at 8 ohms with 16 ohm cabs, sounds best to me.

I'll have to check out the 74 clips here in a bit....

 

[Greazygeo]

Since you said it would be modded at the very end....

Get a Bogner XTC EL34 and be done with needing any Marshall type amps.

Had one side by side with my '69.....still have the '69.

 

[noob_pwn]

funny someone mentioned the JVM because I had one for two years until i flipped it and thought it was horrible.

I personally love the 2203, especially with 6550's or KT88's.
MY persona favorite sounding off-the-shelf marshall is the KK2203 but in the right hands a 68-74 plexi is just magical

 

[JakeAC5253]

The same people who don't like the JCM900 because of an opamp clipping stage are the same people who love the Jose Modded JCM800's with diode clipping. They just don't know it yet.

the 900 dual reverbs have diode gain stages, not just clippers
all the distortion is solid state
pretty close to a marshall valvestate, by the way, but with a tube power amp
that's why you can't get the usual mods done on the 800's
the mk3 and SL-X have real tube stages, though

the jose mod involves adding two diodes to the master volume control, and that adds some saturation and fizz, but that's not an actual gain stage
the gain circuit is still 100% tube driven

Ok. I thought the José mod had something to do with adding a diode to one of the tube gain stages to increase the gain at low volumes. This is not true?

 

[rupe]

My amps are always set at 8 ohms with 16 ohm cabs, sounds best to me.

George, do you mean you run 8 ohms into a pair of 16 ohm cabs (impedance match) or into a single cab (mismatch)? If the latter, what difference do you hear from running 16/16?

 

[Greazygeo]

My amps are always set at 8 ohms with 16 ohm cabs, sounds best to me.

George, do you mean you run 8 ohms into a pair of 16 ohm cabs (impedance match) or into a single cab (mismatch)? If the latter, what difference do you hear from running 16/16?

Into a single cab, mismatch....when I got my first marshall cab, it was a basketweave deal with no marking on it....had no idea about anything at that point....just tried each position of the imp selector and left it where it sounded best. Ended up being 8 ohms...it's a tiny bit thicker/solid sounding to me. I don't think I've ever run two cabs with a Marshall head.

I also have 8 and 16 ohm Hotplates.....seem to always use the 8 ohm.

 

[charveldan]

My amps are always set at 8 ohms with 16 ohm cabs, sounds best to me.

George, do you mean you run 8 ohms into a pair of 16 ohm cabs (impedance match) or into a single cab (mismatch)? If the latter, what difference do you hear from running 16/16?

Into a single cab, mismatch....when I got my first marshall cab, it was a basketweave deal with no marking on it....had no idea about anything at that point....just tried each position of the imp selector and left it where it sounded best. Ended up being 8 ohms...it's a tiny bit thicker/solid sounding to me. I don't think I've ever run two cabs with a Marshall head.

I also have 8 and 16 ohm Hotplates.....seem to always use the 8 ohm.

Not to insult you, but this sounds like impedance matching for dummies.

 

[ratter]

Like Fender, Marshall got it right the first(ish) time....

 

[Meathead]

1968-1973 is the "golden era" to me.

Marshall was hit or miss back then, but hold on to your hat if you got a good one.

Remember Aspen Pittman's purple '71, or Warren DiMartini's '68?

If we are talking modded Marshalls, then it would have to be Dave Friedman.

The best Marshall years.

It's not just having 'the' great old Marshall, the player's hands have to coax the tone out.
Amp's like these, with less preamp gain, let the player really shine through.

 

[JakeAC5253]

Don't think anyone's brought this up yet. Back in the era where Marshall 'got it right' the components used to make those amps didn't have the same tolerance standards as we do today. In fact it's likely tolerance wasn't even a word applicable to electrical components back then. The component values printed on the components themselves were more of just a ballpark figure and could have swayed far from its printed value. Given that the early Marshall circuits were so simple, this can lead to quite large variances in amp sounds due to a single component, but we're not talking about one component, we're talking about all of them. By this logic, not all of the older models can sound great. Just try to stay out of the 'they don't make em like they used to' mindset and keep an objectified head about you. It's one of those situations where you have to either play the amp firsthand, or close your eyes and push the button. If you are planning on having it modified (which you are) then having low tolerance caps and resistors put in will help the amp to sound more like it should from the get go, even if you don't have Friedman install any "mods." Don't let anyone tell you that old parts have 'mojo' and shouldn't be replaced because they should. One older part may sound different than a newer part because of the premise that the printed values on the older parts were likely inaccurate as I previously stated, no mojo involved. Once you swap the components out for higher quality ones you are hearing differences in transformer if there are any (some of the very older models had handwired transformers) and if you don't like the sound at this point you can easily swap trannies for something that fits you personally. Then if that doesn't suit you, you can always have it 'modified' from the standard Marshall circuit, but I would give the typical Marshall circuit a straight shot first, there's not really much wrong with it in all actuality.

My opinion, some fact, lots of coffee

 

[rupe]

My amps are always set at 8 ohms with 16 ohm cabs, sounds best to me.

George, do you mean you run 8 ohms into a pair of 16 ohm cabs (impedance match) or into a single cab (mismatch)? If the latter, what difference do you hear from running 16/16?

Into a single cab, mismatch....when I got my first marshall cab, it was a basketweave deal with no marking on it....had no idea about anything at that point....just tried each position of the imp selector and left it where it sounded best. Ended up being 8 ohms...it's a tiny bit thicker/solid sounding to me. I don't think I've ever run two cabs with a Marshall head.

I also have 8 and 16 ohm Hotplates.....seem to always use the 8 ohm.

Not to insult you, but this sounds like impedance matching for dummies.

How so?

 

[charveldan]

My amps are always set at 8 ohms with 16 ohm cabs, sounds best to me.

George, do you mean you run 8 ohms into a pair of 16 ohm cabs (impedance match) or into a single cab (mismatch)? If the latter, what difference do you hear from running 16/16?

Into a single cab, mismatch....when I got my first marshall cab, it was a basketweave deal with no marking on it....had no idea about anything at that point....just tried each position of the imp selector and left it where it sounded best. Ended up being 8 ohms...it's a tiny bit thicker/solid sounding to me. I don't think I've ever run two cabs with a Marshall head.

I also have 8 and 16 ohm Hotplates.....seem to always use the 8 ohm.

Not to insult you, but this sounds like impedance matching for dummies.

How so?

So your saying it's OK to set your ohms to whatever position "sounds" the best regardless of what the cabs rated for???

All you have to do is put a meter on a cab to check ohmage.

 

[rupe]

My amps are always set at 8 ohms with 16 ohm cabs, sounds best to me.

George, do you mean you run 8 ohms into a pair of 16 ohm cabs (impedance match) or into a single cab (mismatch)? If the latter, what difference do you hear from running 16/16?

Into a single cab, mismatch....when I got my first marshall cab, it was a basketweave deal with no marking on it....had no idea about anything at that point....just tried each position of the imp selector and left it where it sounded best. Ended up being 8 ohms...it's a tiny bit thicker/solid sounding to me. I don't think I've ever run two cabs with a Marshall head.

I also have 8 and 16 ohm Hotplates.....seem to always use the 8 ohm.

Not to insult you, but this sounds like impedance matching for dummies.

How so?

So your saying it's OK to set your ohms to whatever position "sounds" the best regardless of what the cabs rated for???

All you have to do is put a meter on a cab to check ohmage.

As long as the speaker impedance is higher than the amps impedance setting, absolutely.
In fact one of my old amps (Fender Tonemaster) encouraged mismatching in either direction according to taste (not a good idea for most transformers but the Fender was built for it).

 

[nitro]

Just buy a VHT/Fryette D60H or the 120 heads and be done with it,these are what good marshalls should sound like..........

 

[Greazygeo]

So your saying it's OK to set your ohms to whatever position "sounds" the best regardless of what the cabs rated for???

All you have to do is put a meter on a cab to check ohmage.

You tell me....been doing this since 1986 and its now 2011....amps are still going strong. Only killed one OT in all these years and it was due to a tube failure.

Fender amps don't even have imp selectors.....they don't care one way or another as long as you don't go below 4 ohms (unless its a Super Reverb)....

 

[Greazygeo]

Just buy a VHT/Fryette D60H or the 120 heads and be done with it,these are what good marshalls should sound like..........

Good sounding amps, but not Marshall sounding imo....

 

[ConcreteVampire]

Post question has "mod" variable in the post which messes with the answer....

Imo, a holy grail oldy will be pre 74, unmodified, and played by the new owner before purchase. Could be a 68-71, whatever.... point being, the 12 or 30! ( who knows Haha!) Plexi's that Page owns, and has kept, are all different, but sound killer enough to keep. I'm sure theres a 68 plexi out their that sounds crappy, somebody has a a shrine built in there house for!
They are all differrent.......

Re: Friedman, Id just ask! He can mod almost anything, but I'm sure has preferences for that. Maybe new iron, a particular board, etc......

2 questions to me, messir Warlock