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Published on 04/28/11 at 15:54The Marshall 2466 Vintage Modern head is a 100 watt tube head that was introduced by Marshall to capitalize on the "modified Marshall" craze being spearheaded by guys like Dave Friedman, Rick Onslow, Scott Splawn and many others.The specs are as follows:
Valve compliment: 4 x ECC83 (12AX7s) in preamp, 4 x KT66 in power amp
Master Volume with two Gain Controls: Detail (highs) & Body (lows)
Two footswitchable Dynamic Ranges Low & High
Mid Boost switch
Footswitchable Proprietary digital Plate Reverb
Series FX loop with level switch and bypass
Made in England
It's a very simple amp upon first inspection. The front panel looks a lot like the traditional Marshall JMP/JCM 800 layout, but with a couple major changes. On the far right there is the Body and Detail controls which control your two different gain frequencies, low and high. There is also a Dynamic Range switch which allows you to switch from a lower gain, looser sound to a higher gain sound that is a little bit tighter in my experience. Though it's basically a single channel amp, there is still a lot of flexibility if you use the guitar's volume control and amp's various gain adjusters to hone your sound. There is also an effects loop on the back and a plate reverb on the front panel.
UTILIZATION
Getting a good tone out of the Marshall Vintage Modern (2466) is really quite easy. I found that was very dynamic and responsive to the type of guitar, type of pickup, picking attack, and use of the volume control. Since there is no "clean" channel on this amp, the best you're going to get is by using a combination of the low range modes, low settings on the body and detail controls and use of your guitar's volume control and picking dynamics. However, most people don't buy Marshall type amps for cleans, myself included, so that's not a huge dealbreaker in my eyes.
Really, the biggest thing about setting up this amp is remembering one key word... "balance." Make sure to set the controls to a happy medium between super high gain and lower gain if you want the best of both worlds. However, if you are looking for a single sound (IE: classic plexi, super high gain 800) just set the amp up to your taste and enjoy the dulcet tones!
SOUNDS
I tried this guitar with numerous Les Pauls mainly, as I wanted to get a feel for it when playing seventies and eighties hard rock and see how it would handle tones ala Van Halen, Whitesnake, Dio, et al. Because of this, I spent most of my time in the high dynamic range mode with the body and detail controls to taste (I tended to leave the body control around noon, and the detail was set to about 1 or 2 oclock.) I was using this amp through a Vintage 30 loaded 4x12, which is a great sounding speaker compliment for this amp's tonal range.
The tones I liked best were those higher gain settings that were very similar to the tones of guys like Doug Aldrich or John Sykes. Very full and thick sounding, not too grainy, but with enough of that top end Marshall-y "sizzle" to give the tone that classic burning quality for riffs and leads. For that set of tones, the only amp I've played that was comparable was the Splawn Quick Rod. Everything else Marshall makes falls flat on its face when compared to this amp for raunchy British aggression, in my opinion.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I was very impressed with this amp. I was recommend to try it by a friend of mine who works at the local Marshall dealer. I was very skeptical, since I normally *loathe* new Marshall amplifiers. However, this one was a pleasant surprise! The vintage and modern tones were both there in spades, and I really dug both tones. Though I spent more time with the more modern riff rock tone, I did mess around with the lower range cleaner tones and was impressed with those as well for a smoky blues/classic rock vibe.
For the $1,200 or so price point they hit new, it's an absolute no-brainer to me. They're a great sounding hard rock amp. Users of the classic Marshalls will be happy that it's so similar to their favourite JMP or 800 in terms of controls, and modern users should enjoy the fact that this amp doesn't take endless tweaking to get sounding great. Probably the only new Marshall I would recommend right now is this one. If you want that classic Marshall rock tone, this is the one to get!
Valve compliment: 4 x ECC83 (12AX7s) in preamp, 4 x KT66 in power amp
Master Volume with two Gain Controls: Detail (highs) & Body (lows)
Two footswitchable Dynamic Ranges Low & High
Mid Boost switch
Footswitchable Proprietary digital Plate Reverb
Series FX loop with level switch and bypass
Made in England
It's a very simple amp upon first inspection. The front panel looks a lot like the traditional Marshall JMP/JCM 800 layout, but with a couple major changes. On the far right there is the Body and Detail controls which control your two different gain frequencies, low and high. There is also a Dynamic Range switch which allows you to switch from a lower gain, looser sound to a higher gain sound that is a little bit tighter in my experience. Though it's basically a single channel amp, there is still a lot of flexibility if you use the guitar's volume control and amp's various gain adjusters to hone your sound. There is also an effects loop on the back and a plate reverb on the front panel.
UTILIZATION
Getting a good tone out of the Marshall Vintage Modern (2466) is really quite easy. I found that was very dynamic and responsive to the type of guitar, type of pickup, picking attack, and use of the volume control. Since there is no "clean" channel on this amp, the best you're going to get is by using a combination of the low range modes, low settings on the body and detail controls and use of your guitar's volume control and picking dynamics. However, most people don't buy Marshall type amps for cleans, myself included, so that's not a huge dealbreaker in my eyes.
Really, the biggest thing about setting up this amp is remembering one key word... "balance." Make sure to set the controls to a happy medium between super high gain and lower gain if you want the best of both worlds. However, if you are looking for a single sound (IE: classic plexi, super high gain 800) just set the amp up to your taste and enjoy the dulcet tones!
SOUNDS
I tried this guitar with numerous Les Pauls mainly, as I wanted to get a feel for it when playing seventies and eighties hard rock and see how it would handle tones ala Van Halen, Whitesnake, Dio, et al. Because of this, I spent most of my time in the high dynamic range mode with the body and detail controls to taste (I tended to leave the body control around noon, and the detail was set to about 1 or 2 oclock.) I was using this amp through a Vintage 30 loaded 4x12, which is a great sounding speaker compliment for this amp's tonal range.
The tones I liked best were those higher gain settings that were very similar to the tones of guys like Doug Aldrich or John Sykes. Very full and thick sounding, not too grainy, but with enough of that top end Marshall-y "sizzle" to give the tone that classic burning quality for riffs and leads. For that set of tones, the only amp I've played that was comparable was the Splawn Quick Rod. Everything else Marshall makes falls flat on its face when compared to this amp for raunchy British aggression, in my opinion.
OVERALL OPINION
All in all I was very impressed with this amp. I was recommend to try it by a friend of mine who works at the local Marshall dealer. I was very skeptical, since I normally *loathe* new Marshall amplifiers. However, this one was a pleasant surprise! The vintage and modern tones were both there in spades, and I really dug both tones. Though I spent more time with the more modern riff rock tone, I did mess around with the lower range cleaner tones and was impressed with those as well for a smoky blues/classic rock vibe.
For the $1,200 or so price point they hit new, it's an absolute no-brainer to me. They're a great sounding hard rock amp. Users of the classic Marshalls will be happy that it's so similar to their favourite JMP or 800 in terms of controls, and modern users should enjoy the fact that this amp doesn't take endless tweaking to get sounding great. Probably the only new Marshall I would recommend right now is this one. If you want that classic Marshall rock tone, this is the one to get!