Marshall VM 2266

M

madsschaarup

New member
I bought one of these recently. Took it to the rehearsal room yesterday, put it through two 16 ohms 412 cabinets and plugged my guitar. Not very much sound. With the master vol sitting around 2-3 o'clock and the preamps around 12 o'clock, I completely disappeared behind the drummer and the bass player... I've owned 50 watt heads before and never had the master past 9 or 10 o'clock.

After a while I took off one of the cabs and put the impedance selector back to 16 ohm. It got a little better, not much but better. It still didn't have any chunk or oomph and had absolutely no headroom. I previously owned a Laney Cub 12r, a 15 watt combo, that when connected to a 412 cab easily hung on to the rest of the band.

Any known issues with these amps or other Marshall diseases?

Best, Mads.


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Re: Marshall VM 2266

The only known issue with tube amps is usually faulty tubes. Unless I'm sure a used amp has new tubes properly biased, I go ahead and replace them all. Make sure someone didn't put EL-34's in it, in place of the
KT-66's.

I find a lot of Marshalls are biased cold from the factory, in order to avoid tube warranty issues. Before replacing any, it's a good idea to make sure it's biased properly.
 
Re: Marshall VM 2266

How was the amp EQ'd and what type of speakers were in the cabinets? Scooping mids is a great way to disappear in a band mix.

Also many budget cabs are loaded with speakers that aren't terribly sensitive. The original Marshall Valvestate cabs (and many others from the period) were loaded with Celestion G12L-35s that have these tiny little magnets on the back and are surprisingly quiet. My bro had one of those cabs and we used it a few times with his JMP 2203 before reloading it with Vintage 30s. By itself it was decently loud, but a lot less than you'd expect from a 4x12. The few times we stacked it on top of my straight 4x12 with G12H30s my cabinet was much louder.
 
Re: Marshall VM 2266

The cabs are Lab Series 412. They work just fine and usually play loud.
I'm taking it to a tech next week, then we'll see. I'm fully aware of differences in speakers. Never had any issues with these cabs.
I simply just can't justify a 15 watt Laney amp playing much louder and with more guts than a 50 watt Marshall VM head. Something definitely is wrong.


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Re: Marshall VM 2266

Kinda sounds like a bad output transformer. Get it to a tech. Another thing to consider might be the post PI master volume being messed up/bad.
 
Re: Marshall VM 2266

I've read a lot about these amps being quieter than your average Marshall. They don't tend to be preferred by dudes who've owned other common Marshalls. It might not be a problem, it might just be the nature of this model amp.
 
Re: Marshall VM 2266

I've also heard that a 50 watts VM isn't as loud as a 50 watts DSL. But this one still is quieter and less dominant than a 15 watts Laney :-/


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Re: Marshall VM 2266

One thing you can do yourself is to go through and replace each preamp tube one at a time with a known good one. That would eliminate if it was just a bad 12AX7, which is possible. Something's wrong here though.
 
Re: Marshall VM 2266

Lake Placid Blues said:
One thing you can do yourself is to go through and replace each preamp tube one at a time with a known good one. That would eliminate if it was just a bad 12AX7, which is possible. Something's wrong here though.
Click to expand...
This is where the OP wants to start.....^^^^^^^^^
 
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