Re: What are your thoughts on the Peavey Windsor
Heres my round up of cheaper (bargain) marshalls:
MAs just dont sound good to me...dont know why - maybe its the speaker cab? Id rather have a windsor with an old marshall cab filled with g12t75s.
DSLs have a great modern sounding dirty channel and a useful clean. Good amps for a working musician. Reverb and eq flexibility.
JCM 900s dual reverbs are total workhorses too (i had one for 10 years). The two reveb levels is a useful feature when channel switching. Eq is shared for both channels. I think i prefer the DSL, but ive never actually played them side by side. With the right tubes (and overdrive pedal) these things work great.
JCM 900 Master Volumes only really go from overdrive to really crunchy, but for what they do they are just superb. Very harmonically rich amps with a classic sound. It does have a really fat dirt on its own, but pair it with a good overdrive and you can play all day and have a surprising amount of versatility with the 2 volumes. No reverb, but its my fave of the bunch - its essentially a jcm 800 master volume with an extra dirt circuit thrown in. Its the least featured of the bunch but it has the best tone.
All of the above need to be set at least 5 on the master to get the best from them, so bear that in mind. Its probably the point where the inbuilt diode clipping blends in with the powertubes beginning to saturate so they just get fatter and groovier. However that point is pretty loud so bear that in mind. Same really goes for a windsor. The good news is most of the old (easy to find and cheap) 1960 cabinets from marshall came with g12t75s rather than vintage 30s, so they are a lot easier on the ears. V30s are epic but they have such presence and edge, its hard to get your amp running warm enough before they kill you with their blistering cut and burn. This is something to bear in mind these days when taking into account the stage volume and the demands from the front of house guy etc. Having the amp running at the same level with G12ts is not quite so loud or present, but you will definitley get a big chunky sound.
With all of these, a nice overdrive is the key and keep the gain levels on the amp a little lower. I dont dig the ds1 because its too compressed and buzzy, but a ts style works (sd1, ts, mxr gt, fulldrive) like a charm. Best by a mile for cheap is the MXR.