DoctorPaul's Guitar Emporium
Marshall 'Mode Four' MF350, 350W quad-channel hybrid head
(SOLD)
I love my MF350. So much so that I bought another one. No excuses. The guy who owned this was selling it as a package with his (... now my) Mode Four Cabinet (the MF400 below) so I offered to give it a good home ... he was selling the cabinet cheap, and offered me the head for an extra £100 ... I nearly swallowed my tongue and handed over the folding immediately. I ran this with ALL SORTS of valves in it so that I could compare directly how valve choice affects the tone of the head. The results were CRAZY. Valve choice makes a BIG difference to the Mode 4. Extra beef? Tung-Sol. Extra clarity? Mullard.
This was sold as ... well ... I REALY didn't need TWO 350W amps ...
Marshall JCM2000 TSL100, 100W triple-channel Valve head
(SOLD)
I was a little nervous when I bought this (used), as the net is full of stories of how unreliable they are. Circuit boards that begin to conduct when they get hot, bad solder joints, tetchy effects loops and a complex footswitch that dies if you so much as look at it the wrong way. Hardly the bomb-proof road-warrior that Marshall would have hoped for. I ran this as my primary amp for a couple of years (before discovering the MARVELLOUS JVM) and enjoyed my time with it very much. Three fully independent channels, great reverb, and more drive than I ever realistically need. And you know what? It never missed a beat. Perfectly reliable, until I started using the Mode-Four. Then ... nothing. Silence. I worked through a few easy-fix solutions myself before admitting defeat. I'm not much of an amp tech ... not valve amps anyway. I thoughabout getting it fixed for a LONG time, but life's too short, so I sold it. But I shouldn't have HAD to ... you know ... come ON Marshall. Pull it together lads. The internet promises a golden combination of preamp valves for these amps, a combination of a Tung-Sol, a Mullard and 2 Electro-Harmonix. A great amp, when it worked. Lovely chimy cleans, great crunch an scorching gain.
Marshall 'Lead 12' Model 5005 solid state practice combo
(SOLD)
No mess, no fuss, tiny little 1 x 10 solid state practice combo. Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) apparently used one to record some stuff. Although there isn't a valve in sight, when this is cranked it pumps out a reasonable (but fizzy) overdrive. Add the odd overdrive pedal to boost the signal and the results are ... well ... pretty ok really. Embarrasingly, I managed to score this for a whopping £25. Saw it on eBay (locally) with no postage offered, and managed to get the guy to deliver it to my door for free. Seriously, £25 doesn't buy shit these days, so that was a pleasing day. This was sold because I had ABSOLUTELY no use for it, given that the 6101LM is a fountain of awesomeness, and isn't THAT much bigger. In the eternal quest for good karma, I decided not to try to capitalise on my good fortune with the purchase (by selling it on for a profit), but rather decided to let it go for precisely what I paid for it. That seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do. However, Karma kicked me squarely in the balls, as it cost me a bloody fortune to post it, so I might as well have just given it away. Hilarious! Easy come, easy go, right?!
Marshall JCM800 Model 2210, 100W twin-channel Valve head
(SOLD)
If you know about Marshalls, you'll know about the JCM800 series. These are the foundation of the 80's rocky and metal stuff that I like so much, and have been used across the board since then to this day. They're traditionally really simple amps, but this one, the 2210, is less so, given that it has two channels. I know thats hardly advanced by today's standards, but I understand that this model was the first Marshall ever to have a seperate clean channel. That clean channel isn't clean at all ... but so WHAT! You don't but stuff like this for crystal glassy cleans. The drive channel was nice. Not stunning, but nice. Stick a Tube Screamer in front of it however, and it made THAT noise, and lots of it. This one came fitted with the cookie brown grille cloth too ... legend has it that a single roll of grille cloth was used by Marshall in the 80's which wasn't dyed properly, so as soon as they were put in sunlight (or under stage lights) the cloths faded to the brown that you see in the pic. Pretty cool. I'd happily have it back, but it would be entirely overshadowed by the JVM ...
Marshall 'Master Lead Combo' 50W 2x12 (Solid State)
(SOLD)
My first Marshall. In fact, my first amp. I bought this after saving for ages when I was in my early teens. Just the thought of owning a Marshall (a REAL Marshall) in those days was enough to make me get wood. I used to wake up in the middle of the night and just stare at it ... "Check ME out, I've got a MARSHALL"! It was driven by MOS-FETS and sounded pretty nice. With the gain kept down it was perfectly clean, and it maintained the tone of what you put into it, just made it louder. It took pedals really well, so my drive and lead tones back in those days were all from stomp-boxes. I gigged with it a reasonable amount before getting my 2210, and when I finally got the valve head I converted this amp into a switchable speaker cab (I wired it so that you could switch it between being an amp and a speaker cab) so I fed the 2210 into it for a couple of years. I also used it until quite recently as a bass amp, because the response was so neutral it could be EQ'd to respond to bass pretty well. I miss it. It was also EXACTLY the same width as a Marshall half stack, so used to live sandwiched between my 2210 and my 1960A ... producing an "almost full stack". Good memories.
Marshall AVT50H, 50W 'Valvestate' head
(TRADED)
Used this guy as a backup, and for late-night sessions, thanks to its headphone output. This is one of Marshall's "ValveState" heads, with a single 12AX7 preamp tube into a solid state power amp. Sounded pretty ok, but ... you know ...
Maybe if it had another 5 or 6 valves it might have been better.
Marshall AVT150H, 150W 'Valvestate' head
(TRADED)
This was pretty similar to the AVT50H above, only louder. And with more channels. And digital effects built in. I got this in a package deal; the guy that I bought my 1960B cab from was selling this as a job lot and wouldn't let the cab go unless I took this. The way the deal worked out, I got it pretty much for free anyway, as the cab was way underpriced.
I played it once, then struck up a deal with a geezer on eBay to trade it (plus hardly ANY cash) towards my Mode Four. I got the better end of the deal I think ... the Mode Four rules, whereas this certainly didn't.