Marshall Valvestate

Re: Marshall Valvestate

Ashurbanipal said:
I've got one of these, it's been my amp for many years now. For a bedroom amp it's good.

Some issues: switching channels causes a 'whomp' type noise. The clean channel could benefit from a middle control, and it can sound harsh when you whack the strings hard. The o/d channel has an ok amount of gain, but lacks sustain on its own. I fixed this by getting a treble booster, which allows me to dial back the gain on the amp to about 3-4 and still have a fat sustaining sound with less fizz.
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I found I had to dial the treble way back while boosting the mids slightly or it would sear your ears off. Once I did that, I found it had that nice mid range growl I associate with the marshall sound.
 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

I had the 8240, which had the best chorus I heard for a long time (built-in stereo chorus), until I finally rigged up two amps and a stereo chorus. That was when I learned that stereo chorus and mono chorus are very different beasts, and that I love the former and don't much care for the latter.

It had a pretty good clean tone, took effects well (I was using a LOT of fx back then), and was quite loud. I hardly ever used the overdrive or distortion channels because I didn't like the sound much.

In general, when I moved to an Orange AD30R it was an absolutely enormous upgrade and I've never looked back. Since then I've had an AD30TC and now I'm using a tiny terror. Can't beat valves.
 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

Ball&Chain said:
I found I had to dial the treble way back while boosting the mids slightly or it would sear your ears off. Once I did that, I found it had that nice mid range growl I associate with the marshall sound.
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Yeah. I have my controls hovering around noon or 1 o'clock, adjusting the treble to taste; seems to get the best out of the amp.

Taking the rear cover off also makes it sound less boomy. I did this with mine and it suits my tone and the room I play in.

There's a good thread on the Marshall forum about mods for AVTs which some guy did: http://www.marshallforum.com/workbench/859-marshall-avt50-mods.html.
 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

Bottom line, the larger Valvestates were/are great music-making tools. They provide a certain take on the Marshall sound and any Marshall fan would do well to at least check them out.
 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

This is pretty cool. Zakk ripping on a valvestate. Looks like an 8040 to me.

 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

Ashurbanipal said:
I've got one of these, it's been my amp for many years now. For a bedroom amp it's good.

Some issues: switching channels causes a 'whomp' type noise. The clean channel could benefit from a middle control, and it can sound harsh when you whack the strings hard. The o/d channel has an ok amount of gain, but lacks sustain on its own. I fixed this by getting a treble booster, which allows me to dial back the gain on the amp to about 3-4 and still have a fat sustaining sound with less fizz.
Click to expand...

All this is true. I own two valvestate2000 50 watt combos with reverb. so you know I liked the first one. I bought the first one and it sounds good. The clean channel is the star. Sounds really like a good tube combo. The lead channel is voiced similar to a JCM800, but not as good. The sweet spot for tone ends @3 o'clock on the volume of the gain channel. After that it goes frothy like beer on tap. I found the second one in a pawn shop for $200 bucks and bought it as backup.

I replaced a 50w non-master head with these combos. They sound better than any cheap tube amp. They sound better than some tube amps that cost quite a bit more. And my rig became much more reliable.

The best feature of the 2000 series was the feature that allows a 1/4in jack to be inserted in the headphone jack that allows the power amp to continue to operate and affect the tone of the compensated recording output or headphones if you prefer, while the speaker is silenced. The heads do this as well. So you can run the amp full blast without anyone else losing their hearing. It is good for recording and great for practice. It blows away any modeling amp for recording or practice. You get a bit of tube power amp soak without burning up your tubes or transformers and electronics. I often run my recording output into my keyboard amp for practice. ( I am tired of using headphones for anything. My ears ring a lot less than they used to.) And it sounds great at that low volume.

And the reverb is accutronics and extremely good. Not good for surf, but yes for anything else. The clean will get lots of power amp distortion when turned up. And the gain on the clean channel is pretty good for classic rock when turned up. The clean channel plays very well with pedals. The lead channel is not as good with pedals in front. The effects loops are very good though.

They are really good amps. You will never regret getting one.
 
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Re: Marshall Valvestate

Ive been doing some reading on these. Most of what Ive found points to concensus being the first wave of them were the best. 8100's being the one mentioned. Ive seen a lot of opinion leaning toward the AVT's not being near as good. The only one ive played was a 50 watt AVT.
 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

DankStar said:
what's a 4 cable system?
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I checked. I'm not actually using the 4-cable thing, just two. Basically, I'm using the POD as the front end, and feeding the output into the effects loop return on the Valvestate and just using the power section. The pre- part of the amp isn't doing anything at all.
 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

Chris of Arabia said:
Nope, not a one. They have a tube in the pre-amp section of the dirty channel, but both the clean pre-amp and power section are solid-state - hence the name Valve/State...
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Yeah i get that.... my question is at Atreidsheir who said you can get "tube power amp soak" from them. how can you do this when there are no power tubes is the mystery to me..
 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

It is simulated. and fairly convincing.

I was expecting edgecrusher to find something wrong with my attempt to answer a question and help someone.

That is what these amps were designed to do, sound like a tube power amp.
 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

atreidesheir said:
It is simulated. and fairly convincing.
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So long as we all agree on what 'simulated' means in this instance, that's fine. If we are meaning that the design of the Valvestate 'simulates' the sound of a real valve amp, then I think we'd agree. If however, you mean 'simulated' in the same way as something like a POD is, then I'm not sure a Valvestate is anything like as sophisticated as that - at least not in my 8080...

atreidesheir said:
I was expecting edgecrusher to find something wrong with my attempt to answer a question and help someone.
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OK

atreidesheir said:
That is what these amps were designed to do, sound like a tube power amp.
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I can agree with that.
 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

I bought a cheap used 50w combo several years ago. 2005 or so. Dont recall which model, but it was first or second gen, not the most recent which is still on the marshall site. Previous owner had put an ev speaker in it and made a closed back for it. Ok at best on its own. Sounded much better with a
GuvnorII doing all the work on the gain channel.

Ran up against my actual tube amps and PODXTL/Atomic it sounded pretty anemic, especially as volume increased.
 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

I mean simulated so that the output is designed to simulate tube push pull, and transformer soak and sag. It is the best solid state attempt at it I have heard.

There are others with good reps I have not heard.

It is more convincing than the processors in a pod. I have pod farm platinum (or whatever it is called now) and amplitube 3, and I use the the avt 50 to record and practice still. Used it 7 or 8 hours per week. I do sometimes use the microphone and cabinet modeling for this amp or my THD Univalve.

Yeah if you put it against real tube power section it will fall short. The mids and lows are not pushed forward as much as with tube power. HIghs are there though. I have to dial that back sometimes.
But I have been playing mine since 2001 with no failures or breakdowns. I have never had a true tube amp I could say that about, except my silverface champ. I do music electronics on the side (amps, effects, and guitar and bass) and I have never had to work on one. Tube amps and pedals make my car payment every month.
 
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Re: Marshall Valvestate

I liked the old VS's better than the newer AVT line.
Had both. Loads better than the MG...which is awful.

Still not as good as all tube cousins, but totally usable tones.

Know that they are known to blow their power sections if exposed to too much heat/self heat. Many have diagnosed that if the fans go out for even 3 seconds, power board is fried. Of course you could socket them and upgrade the fans...but cmon.

A good all tube marshall is easy to find on the used.
 
Re: Marshall Valvestate

One of my setups is either an old POD Pro rack preamp or Marshall JMP-1 preamp into a rack Marshall 120/120 VS (120 solid state watts per side) -----> Marshall 4X12 with Celestion Vintage 30's. It's very solid sounding and will rip your face off. You turn up to 1 or 2 on the master volume and it's well over 100 dB on a decibel meter LOL.
 
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