RIP Jim Marshall

[guitar man]

Thanks for the sound of rock!!

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/04/05/jim-marshall-founder-of-marshall-amps-dies/

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

1. I used to have a 100-watt stack

I bought it new in London at the Rose Morris Showroom (official distributor) on Shaftsbury Avenue in 1969. I gave them $600 U.S. I was a Jimi Hendrix fanatic at the time and saw him three times in concert. I also had a Sunn two cabinet stack like Jimi also occasionally used. The combo of the two amps was loud and could give you very deep lows from the Sunn's 15 inch JBLs and crisp highs from the Marshall's eight celestion speakers. The Marshall was a great amp with a warm tube sound and in the regular undriven channel is one I used for jazz when I fell into playing that. Thanks Mr. Marshall and may you RIP.

[kysrsoze]

2. I had an old solid-state Marshall. However, I do love tube amps and...

recognize what Marshall, Vox, Fender, etc. did for rock music... IIRC Marshall's first design was a modification of a Vox, right? Of course, he took it all in a new direction. I really want one of those anniversary JCM1 amps, but $700+ is really steep for a 1-watter. Wish they'd bring it down to the price of the Class 5.

JM will be sorely missed, along with Leo Fender and Les Paul.

[guitar man]

3. The first Marshalls built

The first amps Marshall built were built from a 1959 Fender bassman schematic. The biggest difference was they were built with British components rather than American parts, so they had a unique sound. IIRC , they used 12ax7 tubes in the preamp instead of 12at7s . The 12ax7 is a hotter tube, so that coupled with the lower headroom in the British Drake transformers gave it a dirty growl when you wound up the volume a bit. Coupled to the old Celestion greenback speakers, the sound of a legend was born.