JTM45 still practical ?

Re: JTM45 still practical ?

45 watts impratical? . Bull****!
I dont play live, but if you do, and 45 watts NMV is too much , and according to you guys it may well be, then I pity you.

+1 -

I jump my Bassman normal to brite - run it at 9 and 7 and control everything at the guitar. It is the only amp I use any more and it covers every situation. If the situation warrants more volume and it crunches - o.k. - if not - o.k. I count on the guitar not the amp, but that is relative to the style of music I play. That said, you have to have a good amp to be able to count on the guitar.

The Bassman is so responsive it will cleanly replicate at the the same volume level as the guitar. Sometimes while practicing I will turn the volume down on the guitar where the acoustic volume of the guitar and the amplified volume of the amp are matched and I can not differentiate between the two sitting right in front of it, but the amp is cleanly replicating.

Take it to a jam and it is pure confidence because it will go as loud as it needs and I know what I am going to get - just turn up the guitar. The more you turn it up the meaner it get's. It's an obnoxious thing to haul around - anymore that seems a trivial price.

If I played a Marshall, the 45 would be the one because that circuit suits the music I play.
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

Current reissues, yes. Historically not always the case.

I was not aware of this - Tubes aside, I thought the original was a direct copy with respect to component values - no?
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

A JTM-45 is only 30(ish) watts and I'm not saying that they can not be used I'm just saying that in the spirit of what the original poster was asking they are a bit much to crank up to the point of clip in a club these days...

He did after all say crank it to 10...
 
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Re: JTM45 still practical ?

I was not aware of this - Tubes aside, I thought the original was a direct copy with respect to component values - no?

Originals both heads and combos were rated 45-50w,.depending on year of manufacture. Not sure why Marshall has the reissues @30w. God knows most of those old marshalls exceeded their ratings.
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

i did not understand this was about a 30 watt reissue - makes my comments irrelevant.
if you need a 30 watt amp to fill a product void why would you name it after something as iconic as the 45. seems like you would just reissue the original.

a couple of 5881's - an undersized ot?
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

id totally use a jtm45 for live. But i dont turn my amps up to ten. I use a twin on 2.5-3 mostly, so a JTM on 4 would be just lovely...shame they dont have reverb or vibrato tho.
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

I tried gigging with a little amp to get that "toob toan" for crunch, and my cleans, even with the volume on the guitar down, went to sh!t. Completely mushy and unuseable.

In MY opinion, "tone" and "power tube overdrive" are NOT the same thing. And, not all amps sound great and magical when they're cranked...some sound like doo doo. I am a much happier guitarist onstage when I have a delicious clean tone with just a hint of breakup, and then I can put a well thought out ODpedal in there.
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

I tried gigging with a little amp to get that "toob toan" for crunch, and my cleans, even with the volume on the guitar down, went to sh!t. Completely mushy and unuseable.

In MY opinion, "tone" and "power tube overdrive" are NOT the same thing. And, not all amps sound great and magical when they're cranked...some sound like doo doo. I am a much happier guitarist onstage when I have a delicious clean tone with just a hint of breakup, and then I can put a well thought out ODpedal in there.

Too subjective! One needs to find the combination of all things together to get the tones that suit their musical needs...

For some it's plugging straight into an amp,others keep the amp clean(like myself)and use pedals for different tonal shadings..Some guys run straight into a PA through a floor processor first and etc...

I Like an amp with good clean headroom and clean tones as a baseline for my other tones..I can't do all the different types of tunes we do with just 1 clean and 1 overdriven/distorted tone either,plus I need some effects in that mix also..

At home I Love practicing through my Blue series Valvetronix VTH120 head..It has tones and effects that I need already built in,so I just plug into that amp and play..
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

I tried gigging with a little amp to get that "toob toan" for crunch, and my cleans, even with the volume on the guitar down, went to sh!t. Completely mushy and unuseable.

In MY opinion, "tone" and "power tube overdrive" are NOT the same thing. And, not all amps sound great and magical when they're cranked...some sound like doo doo. I am a much happier guitarist onstage when I have a delicious clean tone with just a hint of breakup, and then I can put a well thought out ODpedal in there.

I tend to agree with you to a point !

A LOT of current production amps (maybe even all of them) sound like utter CRAP when the Gain knob is anything past "8".

Now, vintage amps, i.e. most non master volume amps sound better (at least to my ears) the more you crank 'em !

5F1, 5E3, 5F4, Twin Reverb, Bassman, JTM45, Super Bass, and, and, and, sounds sooo perfect when cranked !
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

I tend to agree with you to a point !

A LOT of current production amps (maybe even all of them) sound like utter CRAP when the Gain knob is anything past "8".

Now, vintage amps, i.e. most non master volume amps sound better (at least to my ears) the more you crank 'em !

5F1, 5E3, 5F4, Twin Reverb, Bassman, JTM45, Super Bass, and, and, and, sounds sooo perfect when cranked !

That's always been the other side of tone debate...Preamp type gain or output tube stage gain...In other words,getting most of the gain from the preamp first vs cleaner preamp and driving the output tubes/PI harder...I Like both and it depends on the amp.
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

The trick to using non master volume amps is simple .... you need to own three amps ... one small, one medium, and one high wattage unit. Then you select the amp for the gig at hand, or maybe take two.

I worked this out as a teenager in the early '70s before there were any master volume amps, and the theory still holds up for me today as i don't use amps with master volume controls. I figured if an amp sounded great with the volume somewhere between 4 and 7, i had a limited useable volume range to get a good sound, and of course that volume could be too much or too little for certain gigs or applications. It was only a small step to realising that i needed a few amps of different sizes so that I would always be able to get a good and useable sound regardless of the venue size, provided i picked the right amp for the job.

Amen. I use a Deluxe Reverb mostly(due to the size of the clubs) but outside gigs or larger rooms I have a Marshall 900 which works well (this has a master) I also have a Bogner Shiva & a Komet 60. I have not used the Komet at a gig yet (too loud) but I am dying to! Its the most articulate amp I have ever plugged into
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

Amen. I use a Deluxe Reverb mostly(due to the size of the clubs) but outside gigs or larger rooms I have a Marshall 900 which works well (this has a master) I also have a Bogner Shiva & a Komet 60. I have not used the Komet at a gig yet (too loud) but I am dying to! Its the most articulate amp I have ever plugged into

The Komet is just nothing shy of an awesome amp Dave!
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

With all the great P.A. stuff available,guess alot of us don't need 100 watts and 2 stacks behind us! Sure looks cool though! ;o)

There are still plenty of people who need a high wattage amp. I am one of them. I gig in small-ish rooms with a Mark V half stack. Channels 1 and 3 are set to 90W mode, channel 2 is at 45W.

As TGWIF and others have said again and again and again, wattage has more to do with headroom than volume. If you want a pure, sparkly clean tone at gig volume, you want a high wattage amp. That's how it's done.

High wattage is also a must if you want a heavy tone that tracks cleanly. Low frequencies eat up a lot more headroom than highs. If you have a lot of preamp gain in the low end, you need a high wattage power amp if you don't want your tight riffs to sound like oatmeal.

Every time I give this info in a thread like this, the "more than 18 watts is too much" crowd almost always assumes that guys like me are killing people in the front row and/or have crap tone. I can assure you that's not the case at all.

To the point of this thread, however, the JTM45 is neither a loud clean amp, nor a high gain monster. As with most NMV Marshalls it excels at roaring crunch at painfully high volume.
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

There are still plenty of people who need a high wattage amp. I am one of them. I gig in small-ish rooms with a Mark V half stack. Channels 1 and 3 are set to 90W mode, channel 2 is at 45W.

As TGWIF and others have said again and again and again, wattage has more to do with headroom than volume. If you want a pure, sparkly clean tone at gig volume, you want a high wattage amp. That's how it's done.

High wattage is also a must if you want a heavy tone that tracks cleanly. Low frequencies eat up a lot more headroom than highs. If you have a lot of preamp gain in the low end, you need a high wattage power amp if you don't want your tight riffs to sound like oatmeal.

Every time I give this info in a thread like this, the "more than 18 watts is too much" crowd almost always assumes that guys like me are killing people in the front row and/or have crap tone. I can assure you that's not the case at all.

To the point of this thread, however, the JTM45 is neither a loud clean amp, nor a high gain monster. As with most NMV Marshalls it excels at roaring crunch at painfully high volume.

I still use my own 50 watt JMP Marshall,My 40 watt Pro Reverb combo,or a 60 watt per side blue Valvetronix Vox head...The amps get loud and I actually do get clean headroom...My point in that post you responded to was more about the full stack setup of earlier loud volume venues...I still own the Marshall 4x12 cab pictured in my avatar,but prefer 2x12s at most of our indoor gigs...Anyway...I do know about power,wattage,and headroom...
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

Originals both heads and combos were rated 45-50w,.depending on year of manufacture. Not sure why Marshall has the reissues @30w. God knows most of those old marshalls exceeded their ratings.

I'm sure part of it is tube availability. Tubes today aren't made to the same standard as the early 60s. Also the reissues ship with 5881s while the majority of original JTM-45s had KT66s.
 
Re: JTM45 still practical ?

JTM-45's were always 30ish watts and when folks talk about a Marshall exceeding rated wattage that's not RMS wattage...all amps when cranked to the point of clip will exceed RMS wattage, not just Marshalls.

As for the reissues being close to the originals, they share completely different construction and part types but the values are the same or similar and all in all the reissues sounds pretty good.

As for the 5881 vs KT66 issue, the oldest JTM-45's have 5881's but thats an American tube and when the production of the JTM-45 too0k off like a rocket (and it did) it became too much in terms of cost and wait time to buy American 5881's so the switch the KT-66's was made.
 
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