Anyone familiar with Marshall Valvestate S80 8240

[Telewanger]

I had to do a plumbing service call at a Pawn Shop today. I saw a Marshall Valvestate 8240 sitting there. The price was $100.00. I plugged it in and it worked but, all of the pots were dirty and it was popping and cracking. I talked the guy down to $75.00. It has 2 Eminence 12" speakers and 40 watts per channel. I brought it home and hosed it down with contact cleaner. I had some Groove Tubes, so I put a 12AX7 preamp tube in it. It only has one tube. For a solid state amp, it sounds pretty decent.

Do you guys have any experience with these amps? Pros or Cons?

This amp has 2 X 12" Eminence 1256 speakers in it.

[FrankenFretter]

I have a Marshall VS100 Valvestate, and I love it. It has a single 12"Celestion (Not what it came with), and three channels (one clean, two dirty). A while back, when it still belonged to the friend that I bought it from, it had some kind of issue with the volume dying out. He replaced the tube, but that didn't help. I have another friend who happens to build amphs, and he fixed some kind of soldering issue that it had. After that it's run fine, except lately it had started doing the volume thing again. I feared the worst, but when I switched the "Power Dimension" (an attenuator, I believe) off, it stopped happening. It actually sounds quite a bit better now, if that's possible. Switching to full power seems to have opened it up somehow, which makes sense, I guess.

Mine sounds like a Marshall, not an emulated Marshall. If I didn't know it wasn't full tube, I wouldn't guess it from the sound.

[markb]

That's a first generation Valvestate. The 8080 and 8240 were quite nice amps but I've never come across one without noisy pots. FWIW I've always preferred them to the later Valvestates, they just sound more "real" to my ears.

[Telewanger]

Now I know why it was so cheap! Yesterday after moving it, the damn thing it started sounding like an octaver. Really strange sounding noises were coming out of it. I tore it apart again and found 2 desoldered capacitors side by side. They were barely standing. I resoldered them and it started working great again. I checked all of the solder connections and didn't see anything else wrong.

When I crank the volume really loud something vibrates. I tightened the speakers, pots, and put some foam padding where the head meets the cabinet. Something still vibrates a little. I can't tell if it is electronic noise or something actually loose. The main thing is that it works. I knew it had some problems when I bought it for $75.00. It sounds really decent for a Solid State amp.

[Telewanger]

Update:

This amp is a hunk of crap, who am I fooling? I will tear the guts out of it a make a blank faceplate on it. It has 2Eminence speakers in it. It will be a 2 x 12 speaker cab now. I have been reading reviews of amps for several hours now. Every single person that has heard a Bugera V55HD 55W Tube Guitar Amp Head, says that they love it. Harmony Central gives it a 9.7 for sound quality. I have listened to a bunch of sound clips and watched some videos. I think that I will buy this head and use the Marshall Cab with it. It is a really good price for a tube amp head.

http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar+Amp/product/Bugera/V55HD%2F412H-BK/10/1

[SuperSwede]

I love the old Valvestate amphs.. the S80 sounds really good and the chorus is top notch.. to bad that yours seems to be a lemon.

[Telewanger]

I love the old Valvestate amphs.. the S80 sounds really good and the chorus is top notch.. to bad that yours seems to be a lemon.

The Valvestate is now a nice speaker cab. The speakers are in really good shape, so I don't feel bad about the deal at all.

[danohat]

Valvestate= pooh.

[FrankenFretter]

Valvestate= pooh.

I actually like my Valvestate quite a bit. Did you have a bad experience with one?

[sodapop_2k]

It sucks you had a bad run with this amp, I had the 200w stereo jobbie with the "Roland-esque" chorus about a decade ago and it was flippin' sweet. I wish frequently that I hadn't gotten rid of it.

Come to think of it, the effects loop never worked right on that thing.

Never mind, nice sound as a stand alone with two 1960's though.

[SuperSwede]

Valvestate= pooh.

I think that the old valvestate amphs sounds awesome, both clean and overdriven.. And they were a great ticket for many many aspiring rock star guitarists when they were introduced! :AOK

OsJVxLELiCo

Rn6f9riixbg

[danohat]

The one I had had nice cleans and horrible distortion. The amp just sounded very solid state ish and uninspiring. My tastes have changed a bit since then. Maybe I wouldn't mind it as much today.

[DeanEVO_Dude]

The one I had had nice cleans and horrible distortion. The amp just sounded very solid state ish and uninspiring. My tastes have changed a bit since then. Maybe I wouldn't mind it as much today.

That's kindof ironic, from what I understand, with the Valvestate amps, the tube is only used on the dirty channels... I could be wrong, or it might be the newer ones, but I seem to recall reading that somewhere. This is not to say that all tube-generated distortion is the bee's knees, but lets face it, it is one of the "holy grails" that alot of us are searching for.

[FrankenFretter]

The cleans on my VS100 are less clean than my Vox. The dirty channels are great though, typical Marshall breakup and very good tone. Maybe I have one of the rare good ones, but other than being too loud for my little house, I don't have any complaints.