Marshall G30RCD

Purchased from Bailey Brothers Music in Birmingham, AL after a long, determined search for a decently priced, but good quality practice amp. Paid $140 for a slightly dinged, but new floor model. I like to play rock and blues on my Fender Nashville Telecaster and on my modified (Tex-Mex pickups) Fender Powerhouse Stratocaster. I wanted an smallish amp with either a classic Fender or Marshall sound.

Smooth as Formica clean channel, classic Marshall distotion (Albeit non-valve in quality). Adequate volume for home practice or small room gigs without a skin banging drummer present. You could spend a fortune on a solid state amp with jillions of cab models and effects, but the amplification will not be a bit better than what you get with the Marshall G30RCD. The CD input and headphone jack are also nice features for practice sessions and the foot switch input is nice to have.

It seems that 30-Watts could be a bit louder, but this is one of the inherent limitations of all solid state amps. Perhaps a 12-inch speaker might be a nice touch to enhance the audio dynamics of this unit.

This cabinet part of this amp is solidly built and ready for the road. The switches and pots have a high quality feel to them. However, the black vinyl covering is a bit thin and subject to tearing upon contact with sharp edged surfaces.

This is an outstanding practice amp or beginners amp. You can play fine sounding blues, rock, R&B, or pop tunes through this baby with no problem. Very nice unit for either rhythym or lead style playing.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this from my local guitar store,it is my first real amp,and I paid $180 for it.

This is my favorite amp because I've been playing for about a year or so and this one performs the best.It has a beautiful tone on the clean channel and great distortion.I can switch from playing something classical to playing Ozzy and not have a problem w/ the sound.It's a loud sucker too it's a 30w but it is loud I start rattling the windows when I crank it.All in all I'd say it's a good amp for someone past a tiny amp but not wanting to spend alot on a huge one.

One(actually the only one)problem I have is that the clean channel good be a little louder.

The construction is great(what else would you expect from a Marshall)and the quality is also superb.It's as nice rugged amp.

From the sweet clean channel w/ it's fabulous reverb and the raunchy or growling distortion this has to be the best amp I have.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I needed a modestly priced, modestly sized combo for practice and recording, but wanted good tone, good durabilty and two channels with reverb. I wanted quality tone but without the cost of tubes (valves), always a challenge! I decided that around 30 to 50 watts should be adequete and started auditioning amps from various manufacturers including Fender, Laney, etc.
But I kept coming back to Marshall's very affordable MG series of transistor amps. I finally purchased the 30 watt model (G30RCD) from a small dealer in central London for £130 UKP.

This amp provided exactly what I was after, it offers two footswitchable channels, the first is the clean channel with a fairly basic volume, treble and bass control set up but despite the simple controls it sounds very crisp and clear with my Telecaster plugged in. Channel two offers up far more controls for dirty/overdriven tones and being a Marshall, this didn't dissapoint! Offering gain, teble, mid, bass and volumne controls and has immense versatility for the price. The gain control is very responsive and can offer up a good impersonation of good ole blues tube tone right up to mental metal crunch. Scoop out the mids and it gets even scarier! Another excellent touch to speed up familiarity is the owners manual, which gives several suggested set-ups for the controls to suit various styles of music, eg. A blues setting, a rock setting, a metal setting etc. etc. so dabbling with the knobs whilst glancing at the manual soon starts to stir up tones that one likes. The final control is the reverb, and this is simply great, very deep and versatile (I never have it higher than number 3) and rounds the sound nicely. It also features some good inputs and outputs including headphones and CD in. All in all, a versatile twin channel amp. Also a bit of a surprise is the power and volume of this amp, it is much louder than I anticipated! It may say only 30 watts, but is a 30 Marshall watts! One could possibly even gig with it.

There were some minor dissapointments with this amp, but NOT in the sound quality or build quality or the tone, just the facilites, which may have been dropped to get the price point right. For example, there is no Master volume control, just two separate volume controls for each channel, so after getting all your tones right, a change in volume level for a new environment means adjusting each channel individually rather than simply controlling the whole output with a master control. Another slighlty limiting factor is that the reverb is not footswitchable and is not independant for each channel, but works globally. Another slight let down is the fact that the channels are footswitchable (which is a facility I needed) but a footswitch is NOT provided, it has to be purchased seperately! When one considers the small cost to Marshall of chucking in a cheap footswitch, it does seem a bit petty to leave it out. I bought one afterwards, they are £11 UKP for the standard Marshall one or £16 UKP for the one with an indicator light for the channels, this is the one I went for as a light is handy in a noisy environment. Of course one could use a cheap non-Marshall one (say Maplins) for considerably less (around £5 UKP) but I wanted Marshall written on mine!

The overall quality of this amp is great. The wonderful thing about Jim Marshall's products is that it doesn't matter how much you've got to spend, or small or big you want to go, you still get the great Marshall quality feel. A heavy, strong and well crafted cabinet, the same thickness and style as others in their range that costs loads more, no cost cutting here. It feels, looks and proabably is, bomb proof! All the controls work very well and operate smoothly, the whole thing has a real quality feel. And you've got "That badge" across the front, inspirational! Makes even me feel like a proper rocker!

A great sounding, well built and suprisingly powerful amp for the small financial outlay, I would give it a 5 star score if it came with Master volume control and a footswitch, but still the best amp for the money that I could find at the time. 4 out of 5.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I purchased my Marshall amp from Aatone's Music at 36601 Newark Blvd.#ll for $179.00 That's the going price for these great little 30 watt amps. Small enough for home and rehearsals, but powerful enough for small performances. Ever since the days of the Fillmore West and Winter Land back in the 1960's Marshall amps have been used by some of the biggest legions of rock!

This is a very versatile amp. It has two channels, a claen and overdrive. The 1st is the clean channel, it's great for jazz, r&b, soul and fusion. The second is the overdrive channel, it's really whales when playing hard rock, latin rock and heavy metal, ect ect. It also comes with built-in reverb, line out jack, headphone jack footswitch jack and cd input. It's really put together well, looks really professional.

There's nothing I don't like about my MG30RCD amp as of yet. Dose what it suppose to do, it's small and light enough to carry around and it's sound much more powerful then it's 30 watts.

This marshall amp is very well contructed. Look like it can take a licking and keep on jamming! The coners are well protected, the cabinet is sturdy and looks good.

If you want a great playing amp that won't let you down, looks good, plays great! What ever style of music you play, get yourself a Marshall amp! You won't be diappointed. After all It's a MARSHALL!!!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com