Re: when will Marshall offer new gear?
mitch colby said:
In the last year, Marshall introduced the hand wired series which includes the 18 watt combo, 20 watt head and 100 watt plexi (with assorted cabs). Eventually there will be more hand wired amps and not all of them reissues.
All well and good but as you know those amps are very expensive and I don't think most players are able to afford them.
I think what people REALLY want, more than amps that are handwired, are amps that sound REALLY good, bear the Marshall sound and fly the flag well, and are affordable. It doesn't have to be handwired to sound great. Boogie and Bogner make some of the best-sounding amps out there right now and they're PC-board based.
All the same it's good to see Marshall doing this again. I tried out the HW Plexi at NAMM and didn't really care for it (tone and feel seemed too hard) but the low-wattage combos were a treat. If we could get this kind of sound for under $2000 I think that'd be great.
mitch colby said:
The analogy isn't quite the same. PRSs are five to ten times the price (or more) of a Squire. The Mode Four is 25% less than a new 2203.
I think this is a bit of an odd comparison as you're not just comparing amps, but you're also comparing two different economies... people's buying habits today are not the same as they were 20 years ago and it's a very different market now. How much did the JCM800 heads retail for brand new in the year that they were discontinued? It would be interesting to plug the price information into a money conversion table on the US Dept. of Labor website to see what the "real" price comes out to me.
The Mode Four IS less expensive and I don't think it's a bad amp at all... but the fact is that a lower cost will make it available to a wider range of people and thus increase sales. Good business strategy but does it make a better amp? Not in my opinion. Plus comparing an amp based on Valvestate technology to an all-tube amp is kind of comparing apples to oranges.
As far as solid-state and valvestate stuff goes... I think the 2nd generation valvestate line (VS series) was
far superior to the AVT line. Every AVT I've ever tried or used (and I've seen a lot of them) has been rather lacking compared to what I was used to with my VS265R (WONDERFUL stereo chorus on that thing) and VS100R heads. A lot of them seemed to have this irritating clicking noise going on whenever the digital effects were engaged and two of them that belonged to friends of mine actually
caught fire at one point.
Solid-state amps... I'd really prefer a Line 6 but kids seem to like them. If I had to make any suggestions I'd say try to beef up the tonal intergrity a bit... fatten up the mids, add a touch more gain to make the tone more present... just a slight revoice and gain tweak.
Regarding new products... I'd really like to see a revamped DSL and TSL line with higher-grade parts and circuit components. The amps themselves are nice but there's some issues that need fixing in order to keep up with the times. PC-mounted pots for example... if you manages to crunch in a pot and fracture the circuit board then it's new amp time if you're warranty's out. With pots that are mounted on the chassis and then "fly-wired" to the PC board by PTP wiring on the pots ONLY this wouldn't happen.
All in all, I like the pure sound and bulletproof reliability of an old Marshall, and I think the DSLs and TSLs are good amps but need some work... i think a revamp to create a "best of both worlds" line is in order, but it sounds as if it may already be in the works.
