TS808
April 15th, 2008, 05:55 PM
I was looking for a small combo to use mainly at home, and since I have two tube amps and a modeling amp, I thought I'd look at a solid-state amp (yes, you read that right). I was looking at clips of the Marshall MG 100 DFX and MG 250 DFX on YouTube last night, and was kind of blown away how good they sounded for solid state.
So...while in Guitar Center today, I tried the Marshall MG 100 DFX and wound up buying one. What I liked about it was the fact that it has a master volume so it could be played at lower levels as well as cranked.
Anyway, my 100 watt "bedroom amp" :D sounds pretty good. Solid state amps have come a long way since I started playing guitar.
I messed with the MG100 tonight, along with my Valvetronix, and Bluesbreaker clone tonight just to see how they all compared. There's no sense in comparing the 3 really since they are all different animals...but...I am definitely impressed by the new amp.
There are two modes on the clean channel: clean and crunch. The cleans are the best that I've heard from a Marshall, and the crunch mode is big and fat (think Bassman fat). The overdrive channel has two modes, one that is closer to a JTM 45 and the second overdrive is high gain, modern. There is a cool contour knob too which allows you to set the frequency of the midrange, from modern scooped, to vintage. Along with the midrange knob, you can get some pretty sweet tones. The second overdrive is almost too distorted for me (especially with a strat) so I ran the amp on the first overdrive mode with the bass, mid, and treble at 2:00 and the contour at 12:00 and the gain at about 2:00. The tones were rich, fat, and not overly shrill like alot of solid state amps I've played in the past. JTM 45? Not quite, but again, impressive for a solid state.
I would guess that alot of folks would not be able to tell if this was a solid state or tube amp. Marshall has a Frequency Damping control on this amp that when activated, gives the amp some sweet harmonics and dynamics.
If you're looking for an affordable solid state with decent tones that range from vintage to modern, I would recommend this amp. Give it a listen if you get the chance. It's not a tube amp, but it sounds alot better than a Marshall Valvestate that I owned about 10 years ago, and much better than the Fender Princeton Chorus and Deluxe 85 that I owned in the early 90's.
One of these days, I'll actually have to put up some sound clips.
So...while in Guitar Center today, I tried the Marshall MG 100 DFX and wound up buying one. What I liked about it was the fact that it has a master volume so it could be played at lower levels as well as cranked.
Anyway, my 100 watt "bedroom amp" :D sounds pretty good. Solid state amps have come a long way since I started playing guitar.
I messed with the MG100 tonight, along with my Valvetronix, and Bluesbreaker clone tonight just to see how they all compared. There's no sense in comparing the 3 really since they are all different animals...but...I am definitely impressed by the new amp.
There are two modes on the clean channel: clean and crunch. The cleans are the best that I've heard from a Marshall, and the crunch mode is big and fat (think Bassman fat). The overdrive channel has two modes, one that is closer to a JTM 45 and the second overdrive is high gain, modern. There is a cool contour knob too which allows you to set the frequency of the midrange, from modern scooped, to vintage. Along with the midrange knob, you can get some pretty sweet tones. The second overdrive is almost too distorted for me (especially with a strat) so I ran the amp on the first overdrive mode with the bass, mid, and treble at 2:00 and the contour at 12:00 and the gain at about 2:00. The tones were rich, fat, and not overly shrill like alot of solid state amps I've played in the past. JTM 45? Not quite, but again, impressive for a solid state.
I would guess that alot of folks would not be able to tell if this was a solid state or tube amp. Marshall has a Frequency Damping control on this amp that when activated, gives the amp some sweet harmonics and dynamics.
If you're looking for an affordable solid state with decent tones that range from vintage to modern, I would recommend this amp. Give it a listen if you get the chance. It's not a tube amp, but it sounds alot better than a Marshall Valvestate that I owned about 10 years ago, and much better than the Fender Princeton Chorus and Deluxe 85 that I owned in the early 90's.
One of these days, I'll actually have to put up some sound clips.