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Marshall DSL100
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Marshall DSL100

Tube Guitar Amp Head from Marshall belonging to the JCM2000 DSL series

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iamqman iamqman

« Gerat work horse amp »

Published on 03/23/11 at 10:51
This amp has been one of my all time favorite amps to play. It is so easy to dial in and works so well for gigs. I got a chance to play one at a buddies house once and I knew once I hit that lead 2 button that I had to have it. I had this amp for the better part of my last bands quick career and it worked hard for me night after night. I never had a problem with it and it stayed true to its tone. I consistently got compliments on my tone all the time. So that encouragement allowed me to keep the amp for some time.

The 2 channels are very usable in both of them sound very good. The clean channel sounds great with pedals in front of it and when you crank up the gain on it you get a very good classic rock tone. Switch over to the high gain channel and click that mid boost/lead 2 button and man does this thing scream. A great lead rock tone that is very fun to play.

Marshall JCM2000 Dual Super Lead 100 Head Features:

* Classic Gain and Ultra Gain channels, each with two modes
* Deep switch adds a resonant bass boost
* Tone Shift scoops the mids
* Reverb controls for each channel
* Two footswitch jacks for changing channels and switching reverb in/out
* 100W of power
* Four ECC83 preamp tubes
* Four EL34 power amp tubes


UTILIZATION

I would usually keep the tone shift and deep switch on at all times. When I disengage them it seemed to loose something. I generally stayed on lead 2 because I think it had a bit more mids in it that sprang up which I liked.

The feel of the amp was really nice and forgiving. It has a nice plexi sag to it but a snappy attack of an JCM 800. I only had to replace the tubes once when I had it but I had GT tubes in there and it was afire breather. Once I put ECC83's and El34 from GT the amp just came to life.

I didn't read the manual since I bought it used. The good thing is if you need the manual you can go on Marshall's website and download it for free.

SOUNDS

The sound was perfect for gigging! It stayed true night after night and never failed me. It was pretty consistent and took a beating. For me at the time it was a perfect gigging amp. I have recorded with it several times and never really like the tone I got from it. Could have been mics or placement but I never like how it sounded recorded. I have heard other people get a solid tone from it so maybe it was just me.

Also it seems these amps are somewhat inconsistent. I have heard a lot of terrible sounding ones and I've owned and played several amazing sounding ones. Since this amp is discontinued from Marshall you are only going to get it used so try it out before buying.

OVERALL OPINION

I wish they would put a choke in the amp to take pressure off the transformers. I always want to replace the transformers with Mercury but never got the chance. I have read that they sound even better when having proper trannies in there.

I wouldn't record with it, but I would beat the crap out of it in clubs and bars. It is priced pretty low so you can find it around $650 used if you take some time and especially in this down market. I recommend anyone who needs a good work horse amp that you can gig nightly and beat,, well this maybe your amp.