so what makes vertical inputs so great

[newking70]

???

[Reckless Abandon]

Re: so what makes vertical inputs so great

Are you talking about old jcm 800's? I have one with vertical imputs. That came up when I was looking for an amp a few years ago. I cannot remmeber what they said. I think it may be that the signal goes through less "stuff" before hitting the preamp. But I am not sure

[newking70]

Re: so what makes vertical inputs so great

Are you talking about old jcm 800's?

yep

[Reckless Abandon]

Re: so what makes vertical inputs so great

81-84 are vertical afterwards are horz.I do know that.

[WhoFan]

Re: so what makes vertical inputs so great

As i understand it the vertical imput ones are pretty much the same amp as the late 70's Marshalls but improved slightly... Later in the 80's they changed the 800 series around...

[Scott_F]

Re: so what makes vertical inputs so great

i sorta remember Robert_S. telling me something about those, maybe that it's they used good input jacks and they were handwired into the amp, not mounted on a circuit board. could be wrong, but I think I'm right.

[Robert S.]

Re: so what makes vertical inputs so great

Scott wins the prize. The 1984 and earlier JCM 800s had handwired pots and jacks. The horizontal jack amps are PC mounted.

Marshall amps are pretty year dependant tonally because Marshall has a history of using whatever parts were available at the time. Many players have a favorite year for plexis, 800s or whatever. Many folks seem to prefer the tone of the vert input 800s.

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: so what makes vertical inputs so great

I've played through and have worked on and modded both...They both sound great....Later models had board mounted pots and earlier had hard wired pots off the board as mentioned...

Recently tweaked and went through a 100 watt horizontal combo JCM 800 for a forum member and it totally rocks!

[shredaholic]

Re: so what makes vertical inputs so great

I can't imagine how PCB mounted pots over wired pots would make any tonal difference - surely it must be something else. It reminds me of the PTP vs PCB debate, whereas people have thought the board makes a difference when its in fact that many companies cut costs when they go to PCB or some other explaination.

Didn't they also reduce the amount of chassis mounted filtering caps when they changed to PCB mounted pots, or something like that?

[Gearjoneser]

Re: so what makes vertical inputs so great

I think the main difference (but not positive) is that when they went from vertical to horizontal inputs, they also cheapened the design of the circuit board......meaning that they went from large tracer boards with bigger components, to smaller ones that were butted up against the front of the chassis with lower wattage components on it.

In theory, you'd think that it wouldn't change the sound much, but every little thing you do to a circuit changes things, especially when you turn up the amp and it amplifies those changes. It's the same thing as comparing pickups, even though the only thing that changed was the wind or polepiece material.

[Scott_F]

Re: so what makes vertical inputs so great

Scott wins the prize. The 1984 and earlier JCM 800s had handwired pots and jacks. The horizontal jack amps are PC mounted.

Marshall amps are pretty year dependant tonally because Marshall has a history of using whatever parts were available at the time. Many players have a favorite year for plexis, 800s or whatever. Many folks seem to prefer the tone of the vert input 800s.

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Scary thing is that you probably told me that about 5 years ago and I actually remembered!