#1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

[Gearjoneser]

The most coveted, most revered Marshall I've ever seen on Ebay!
VH, Vai, Metallica, and Lynch all owned Jose Arredondo modded plexis. The status of these amps is legendary.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Marshall-Arredondo-plexi-Super-lead-100W-Van-Halen-Vai_W0QQitemZ330086231119QQihZ014QQcategoryZ38075QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[BigAlTheBird]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

You gonna bid Joe? I'm sure you could scarf up $7,000. And no, I'm not being facetious.

[Gearjoneser]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

I had a similar amp for awhile....a 71 Superbass modded by The Amp Shop's Alan Cyr on Ventura Blvd. I still kick myself for selling that one. I sold it to a soldier stationed in Korea for $1700.

$6000 is not anything I can consider......however, I search the local ads daily, looking to stumble on something like this at a giveaway price. I think there's about a 1/million chance of running across one of THESE!

[BigAlTheBird]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

Sell me your Black Beauty, and you can consider it! You can save on shipping, since I only live 20 minutes away.

[tone?]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

Not to rain on your parade Joneser but this is what was written on the VHT site by none other than Steve Fryette, the owner and designer of VHT amps. This is what he has to say about all this because HE had Eddies amp to fix.

Kinda makes me now understand why my VHT sounds quite a bit with Eddie in mind.

Enjoy!

sfryette
Member Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 91


More fun facts!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Having worked on the supposed IT amp on more than one occasion, I can speak first hand on some of this.

First of all, hate to blow anyone’s bubbles, but there’s not a thing especially outstanding or unique about this amp. Matt Bruck brought what he said was Eds main amp to me in 1990/1 to “bring it back to life” He said Ed felt it just wasn’t the same as it once was and thought the output transformer was “getting weak”. I told him OT’s don’t get weak, but went ahead and checked it out from top to bottom and found not a thing wrong with it at all. In fact it was bone stock and rather clean inside. It sounded like a stock Marshall, put out full power and all of the caps were in good shape. I might add, and this is just from memory, but I recall that the circuit was actually closer to a 70 JMP than it was to a plexi, something I attributed to this possibly being a transition model, seeing as how it had a plexi panel, but apparently the newer input and feedback configuration. All that aside, Matt insisted that something needed to be done so I gave it a complete once-over and I then took the liberty of installing a Pittbull Classic output transformer into it to see if anyone would notice. Upon getting it back, Matt told me that they noticed no difference in sound and they still thought it sounded weak. I just presumed that something else was amiss or had changed and thought no more about it. I still have the receipt and copy of the check for the work signed by Ed, in case anyone wants to try to discredit this claim. I don’t usually talk about it, because frankly Scarlett…but since you went to the effort of posting this here, I though it might be fun to respond to some of the idiots history items:

“Eddie would keep it loaded with four Sylvania 6CA7 power tubes (Ed used this American brand because they run slightly cooler than their European counterpart).”

In the mid to late 70’s most available EL34’s were horribly unreliable and the Sylvania 6CA7 was king because it was the only available reliable replacement. It was well known at that time that if you had an EL34 amp you either used the Sylvania 6CA7 or in the case of Marshall, the popular thing to do was swap it over to 6550, which Marshalls US distributor was doing to cut down on warranty claims for failed European EL34s – you know those coveted NOS ones people pay big bucks for now…and by the way, the back was off because tubes got replaced frequently and everybody at that time left the backs off or lost them.

(Although he did crank the Variac up to 140 volts in the studio for Van Halen I)!

Anyone who has ever tried this knows it's BS and the reason you know it’s BS is because after you tried it the guy who replaced your blown power supply capacitors or transformers told you it’s BS. When the first interview where this appeared came out I was a repair tech at Valley Arts Guitars, and I can tell you that article made me a lot of money. But I lost a lot of respect for the big E for being so thoughtless as to say such a thing in print and potentially help people put their lives in danger, or at the very least sacrifice their gear over such a stupid comment.

"Early in Van Halen's career, Ed used to say that his amps were heavily modified by Jose Arrendondo of Arrco Electronics to throw people off that were trying to imitate his sound."

And if it ended there, I would have thought fair enough, but it didn’t end there. He allowed Jose to promote and sell “Eddies Mod” to anyone with cash. As a result, legions of guys got reamed and their amps butchered with a bunch of terrible sounding and horribly executed mods (some now considered desirable as “Cameron Jose mods”) which caused lots of noise, hum, output transformer failures, etc, etc. I had lots of players coming to me wanting to find out why their amps with the blessed Jose/Eddie Grail were giving them so much grief. In most cases it went something like “fix the problem with the amp but don’t touch the mod”. Response: “The mod is the problem, so I either dump the mod or you take it back to Jose”.

Let the flames begin!

smf

Here is the whole thread

http://www.vhtusers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1040&highlight=transformer+jose

tell me what you think

[stevie_bees]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

What were the mods done to that amp?

[Gearjoneser]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

That's interesting info. Since I've never plugged into one, I have no real opinion.
There's about 5 guys in LA that were famous in the late 80's for modding amps, and Jose's name always comes up.

I know that Jim Marshall has always scoffed at a lot of them, claiming that they're opening up a can of worms by changing it from stock.....mostly because of noise, burned tubes, and stressed components.

So, most of those modded amps are the thing of legends, but ironically not many famous guitar players still use them. Most have moved onto new amps that are specifically designed for the hotrodded Marshall sound. I wish I still had my Alan Cyr modded Superbass, but it was one of the amps I sold to raise money for the Ecstasy. The Ecstasy is a way better amp, but there was something about that Marshall that was cool. Ya can't own'em all.

[Gearjoneser]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

What were the mods done to that amp?

Look at the picture of the guts. Arredondo sure added a lot of spaghetti to that amp! It's basically a plexi that's made to have Lynch/Metallica type gain, and probably a fuller sounding EQ.

[tone?]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

Yeah man,

i totally stumbled across that article and freaked out myself.

After hearing a few guys do Halen on Stock plexis it seemed more logical to me. Of course you have heard of Vholic ( or something like that) that gets a total Halen sound from his Plexi?

[Lespaul1981]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

GJ how does the modded plexi compare to the bogner?
VHT makes some fine amps...the pitbull classic is a beast
I can see why jim marshall says that but at the same time its a bummer to buy marshall thinking that all the "marshall" guys may have had work done to theirs to get the tone you thought was stock.

[shaka]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

Here is the whole thread

http://www.vhtusers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1040&highlight=transformer+jose

tell me what you think

That thread was thoroughly entertaining!

Eric

[Gearjoneser]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

GJ how does the modded plexi compare to the bogner?

Actually, it was Reinhold Bogner who did the best work for VH, among others.
Bogner was and still is the expert on the modded Marshall sound, and before he started his company, that's all he did. The competition he had was Mike Soldano and Lee Jackson. Soldano succeeded like Bogner, but Lee Jackson amps fizzled.
Most other modders never even had an amp company. Tim Caswell who did the SIR studios amp from Dokken/Slash fame.....he did some stuff with Soldano for the Caswell/Soldano motorized preamp.

Heavily modded Marshalls for highgain usually fall into two camps.....JMP modded and JCM 800 modded. The Bogner sounds more like a highgain JMP/plexi. The Splawn Quickrod sounds more like a hotrodded JCM 800.

[Lespaul1981]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

GJ you and I both own xtc's and jubilees. How do you think they compare (blue channel xtc)? I do love the tone of the xtc 101B right through the bogner V30 4x12 cab but I am really wanting a splawn QR 'cause I don't have any heads worth modding, if the mod goes wrong.

[Gearjoneser]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

GJ you and I both own xtc's and jubilees. How do you think they compare (blue channel xtc)? I do love the tone of the xtc 101B right through the bogner V30 4x12 cab but I am really wanting a splawn QR 'cause I don't have any heads worth modding, if the mod goes wrong.

As you know, they're just voiced a little different. The Bogner always has the dense chewy mids and smooth top end. The Jubilee has a little less low end, the mids aren't as wide, and the top is crunchier and more present.

The good thing about both amps is that you can get a nice sound out of them at all volume levels.

I've never played a Splawn, but all the clips tell me they're more like the Jubilee than the Bogner. Something like a David Bray modded plexi would be closer to the Bogner blue channel.

If you want a Splawn, I'd say get one by cashing out of one of your lesser amps. Don't sell the Bogner. And if you have a silver Jubilee in good condition, just hang onto it. Someday the prices will be obscene for clean Jubilees.

[Lespaul1981]

Re: #1 Holy Grail Marshall on Ebay!!!

GJ you are right, I just could not sell the bogner, plus I've had it for over a decade...
I have a PRS mccarty that just doesnt do it for me anymore which I may have to move but I need more than one guitar for a back-up at gigs.
I think i might just have to save up for the splawn QR because at the price its almost unbeatable!
I usually run guitar straight to the jubilee but i wish I could get just a bit more bit out of her, any ideas?
I usually just use an mxr 10 band eq for some bit but its never subtle enough and the effects loop can be troublesome for some reason on that amp.
The reason I love the splawn, like the bogner, would be to just plug in and have my rhythm and lead tones all right there w/o any pedals coloring the tone.