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King Loudness « Eurgh... »
Published on 08/14/11 at 09:36The Marshall MG30DFX is Marshall's attempt at a small wattage (30 watts) practice amp that follows the Line 6/Peavey trend of adding onboard effects. It features 2 channels each with its own EQ, a digital reverb, a few cheesy onboard effect (chorus, flanger, etc) and the promise of killer tone in a small package backed by the Marshall name. Here's a full list of specs:
Features:
Twin footswitchable channels - Clean and Overdrive
Independent tone controls for Bass amd Treble on each channel
Contour Control for dramatic mid sweep and "scooping"
Emulated Line Out jack and Headphone jack
CD input which allows you to play along to your favorite discs
Built-in Digital Effects - Reverb, Chorus, Flange, and Delay
10 in. custom-voiced speaker
FDD (Frequency Dependent Damping)
UTILIZATION
This amp is not easy to get a good tone out of simply because it's not a great sounding amp. Unlike similar practice amps from Vox, Peavey or Line 6, this amp just falls short tonally in just about every way. The EQ controls are near uselss for my tastes and the channels have a thin and metallic quality that's not pleasing to the ear at all. The onboard effects sound cheesy and don't help things either, and the stock 10 inch speaker is particularly wimpy and skittish sounding... a far cry from the excellent tones out of other small 30w amps of the same ilk.
SOUNDS
I've tried this amp with various single coil and humbucker loaded guitars and keep coming to the same sad conclusion. The amp really just does not sound good! The clean channel is lifeless and dull and can only really be helped when reverb is added. As a dry clean tone though it doesn't inspire creativity in the slightest. The drive channel is really just grainy and buzzy sounding. There isn't much I could do to make the sound work for my tastes... especially considering they took away the midrange control for a very strange and useless "contour" control that seems to just scoop the mids out as you turn it up.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think the Marshall MG Series amps are not a wise investment. There are many, many better options for a 30w practice amp with effects like the Peavey Vypyr 30 or the Line 6 Spider IV 30. This amp doesn't sound good, the controls really don't do much to help that, and given Marshall's questionable reliability as of late, I wouldn't expect one to last long without issues either... don't bother.
Features:
Twin footswitchable channels - Clean and Overdrive
Independent tone controls for Bass amd Treble on each channel
Contour Control for dramatic mid sweep and "scooping"
Emulated Line Out jack and Headphone jack
CD input which allows you to play along to your favorite discs
Built-in Digital Effects - Reverb, Chorus, Flange, and Delay
10 in. custom-voiced speaker
FDD (Frequency Dependent Damping)
UTILIZATION
This amp is not easy to get a good tone out of simply because it's not a great sounding amp. Unlike similar practice amps from Vox, Peavey or Line 6, this amp just falls short tonally in just about every way. The EQ controls are near uselss for my tastes and the channels have a thin and metallic quality that's not pleasing to the ear at all. The onboard effects sound cheesy and don't help things either, and the stock 10 inch speaker is particularly wimpy and skittish sounding... a far cry from the excellent tones out of other small 30w amps of the same ilk.
SOUNDS
I've tried this amp with various single coil and humbucker loaded guitars and keep coming to the same sad conclusion. The amp really just does not sound good! The clean channel is lifeless and dull and can only really be helped when reverb is added. As a dry clean tone though it doesn't inspire creativity in the slightest. The drive channel is really just grainy and buzzy sounding. There isn't much I could do to make the sound work for my tastes... especially considering they took away the midrange control for a very strange and useless "contour" control that seems to just scoop the mids out as you turn it up.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I think the Marshall MG Series amps are not a wise investment. There are many, many better options for a 30w practice amp with effects like the Peavey Vypyr 30 or the Line 6 Spider IV 30. This amp doesn't sound good, the controls really don't do much to help that, and given Marshall's questionable reliability as of late, I wouldn't expect one to last long without issues either... don't bother.