Re: Any love for the Marshall dsl5 or dsl1?
I'll preface this by saying it's my first/only tube amp, so take what I say with a grain of salt. My previous amps were a Marshall Code50 (which I loved) and a Peavey Rage 158 (which is meh to the extreme).
I absolutely love my DSL1HR. I'm just a hobbyist that plays mostly by myself and occasionally with a friend. But it does everything I need.
My best advice is to play them if you can, and decide if they meet your needs/wants.
I play 80's metal, classic rock, blues and whatever else I feel like (country, rock, grunge). I can get most of the sounds I want by turning the knobs on the amp. I do use a TS9 to tighten it up for metal, or on the clean channel to drive my blues sound. But mostly the amp itself does whatever I want.
The clean channel can be a little bright/thin as Rex_rocker said, but I've found it depends on the individual guitar/pickups.
The low end can be a little lacking, but honestly I think it's pretty good for the wattage.
If you're playing in a band or with a drummer, this amp probably won't work for you. But as a versatile amp for jamming and playing around the house, I think it works wonderfully. I use it just to have fun, and to occasionally record a video for Instagram or whatever.
For me, the 1 watt was perfect, The 5 watt would have been too loud. I've been playing this for around 7 months now, and have never once regretted my purchase. (but I did find the head/cab used for $350)
-Matt
ETA: to answer the original post, the only hiss/hum I have is with my Jackson RR5 (super distortion and SD Jazz) on the ultra gain channel. (appears to be a grounding or shielding issue with that guitar, as my others don't do it, and if my fingers are touching the strings/bridge it stops. I've rewired the guitar with new pots once, and it still does it, which leaves me scratching my head. But that's another topic)
