# Marshall MA50H head opinions



## 2N1305 (Nov 2, 2009)

Hi people,

I was in a music store lately and had the opportunity to try out a Marshall MA50H with a Marshall cabinet. I was using a Les Paul standard and was not impressed. The clean channel sounded fine but the overdrive channel was just not crunchy enough. Actually, it's not that it lacked crunch, rather, it had that typical solid-state "buzziness" in the high end. It obviously had more buzz as you cranked up the gain. I wasn't able to turn it up loud enough (or was too afraid to let the other people hear the junk I was playing (which after 9hrs at work isn't too good!) to see (hear) if the crunch would eventually hide the buzz, so I can't make a 100% accurate statement here. But suffice it to say I was not impressed. There was a DR Z 38 watt model that was standing by so I plugged into that amplifier and flipped the ON switch. Now that was crunch! It was actually even browner than the "brown" sound!(okay, maybe not but it was miles ahead of the Marshall's tone) I guess I could have turned up the treble all the way, but it was quite obvious that this amplifier was way more capable of serious ROCK tone that MA50H...

By comparison, my Traynor solidstate DG30 sounds just "as good" as this Marshall if not even better... Weird.

I don't know how come the fabled JCM series, which did have clipping diodes in the preamp section, sounded so good, I mean, that Guns 'n Roses sound was so good, there wasn't any buzz, so I guess the only other thing is the tubes, because as far as I know (or can logically deduce) the MA is based on the JCM series, there's not two ways about how Marshall makes an amplifier... Preamp->Phase-inverter->Output stage
But I canT' believe that the tubes would be so horrible as to mess up the sound that much.

Anyone else tried one of these out? (The Marshall)

Cheers


----------



## ThePass (Aug 10, 2007)

I haven't yet and now maybe won't!

Yikes.......

As for the Marshall line, I'd love to try out Slash's new sig head........now THAT hasta sound fine!


----------



## Andy (Sep 23, 2007)

They're awful from what I've heard, and I don't doubt it -- IMO, if you want a tube head, you have to spend some money.

For the same price, get a used DSL or JVM. The DSLs go for stupidly low prices, and are tied with the JVM for my favourite modern Marshall.

Also, clipping diodes don't really influence my opinion of an amp at all. They are some horrid examples, and some very nice ones. A JCM900 with the presence and treble anywhere above 9:00 will shear your eardrums apart, but (from what I understand) the Traynor YCS series has clipping diodes as well, and I dumped mine because it was much too polite -- very much the opposite of the "solid state sound".


----------



## 2N1305 (Nov 2, 2009)

Thank you for the comments! I will try a dsl then. whatever I can find used, maybe my friend will like ti more than me, I'm doing for him anyway...


----------



## bcmatt (Aug 25, 2007)

I should specify that the JCM800 had no diodes and was actually all-tube. It was the other JCMs after the 800 that started with the transistors. 
I think that's why an infamous forum member had (maybe still has) a signature that said "after the JCM800, it was all down hill."


----------



## ThePass (Aug 10, 2007)

2N1305 said:


> Thank you for the comments! I will try a dsl then. whatever I can find used, maybe my friend will like ti more than me, I'm doing for him anyway...


DSL are great amps!


----------



## Andy (Sep 23, 2007)

bcmatt said:


> I should specify that the JCM800 had no diodes and was actually all-tube. It was the other JCMs after the 800 that started with the transistors.
> I think that's why an infamous forum member had (maybe still has) a signature that said "after the JCM800, it was all down hill."


The single-channel 800s are all tube, for sure. I believe the channel switchers have a clipping diode on the higher gain channel, though... from what I've been told, they're a little harder and more sterile sounding -- closer to the 900 in tone.


----------



## Budda (May 29, 2007)

DSL50 was good times when I borrowed one.


----------



## warplanegrey (Jan 3, 2007)

The Marshall MA series are some of the worst sounding amps I've ever heard.


----------

