Marshall MG-15 DFX

[WRGKMC]

Scored one of these little Marshalls today for $28 with free shipping.

 

 

I'll be able to run it with my Valvestate 15 and run stereo effects for a 30 watt total

 

[DeepEnd]

Congratulations. Happy New Amp Day.

[WRGKMC]

Thanks.

 

The price was so low on that one I simply couldn't pass it up.

 

I've had the Valvestate for many years. Paid $100 for it from a pawn shop. I use it mostly for practice or small jams. It doesn't quite keep up with drummer. Two of them might. I can use bigger stuff for that. The MG series pre date the Valvestate I believe. Not sure the sound will be an exact match like two Valvestates would be. The MG has a closed back too. It should be good enough to run my multieffects pedal in stereo.

 

I have been using a Peavey Studio One with the Marshall jamming with some friends. We plug a drum machine into the PA and just jam to old tunes we know. The Peavey is a 65 watt amp and I have a hard time balancing it to the Marshall. I really hate the Peavey Tone too, not that its bad, its just got a weird tone stack and I cant get the kinds of tones I like. I'm thinking about selling that Peavey. I'm sure I can get more then I paid for it.

I got enough amps as it is and I really need to start down sizing.

 

What I may do is build a single combo cab for both. Might be cool to have a pair of heads and speakers in one light weight suitcase type cab. If I do that I may wind up using 10" speakers just so I get a little more beef. The 8" is OK when you get them loud enough but I mainly run the amp clean at lower volume and get my drive tones from pedals. I'm thinking 10's would produce a larger footprint and I'd still have a lower volume with the 15W heads.

[DeepEnd]

The Valvestate line was introduced in the 90's. AFAIK, the MG series is newer. They're also full SS as opposed to the "hybrid" Valvestates with their single preamp tube. I nearly bought a Valvestate 65R earlier this year but I discovered the reverb didn't work. It was decently priced and I figured I could replace the reverb tank fairly cheap but they guy selling it said he'd rather not sell it to me under the circumstances. (I guess he thought I'd complain if the new tank didn't solve the problem; FWIW, I wouldn't have.)

[Mikeo]

Scored one of these little Marshalls today for $28 with free shipping.

 

 

I'll be able to run it with my Valvestate 15 and run stereo effects for a 30 watt total

 

 

 

 

That's a pretty cool score.

[WRGKMC]

They actually overlap by a year.

 

There's also an older MG series like the one I bought and the newer Carbon series which are their newest which have a different look.

 

The smaller Valvestate amps don't have preamp tubes like my 100W head does. Not sure about the 50 or 30W versions. The 15W are definitely all SS. I think its the amps that have channel switching which have the preamp tubes, likely the 50W and up. The smaller ones use SS drive, which in itself isn't that bad. They get the same drive tones as a Marshall Shreadmaster/Govornor pedal do so the circuits must be similar. are employed to get the drive tones

 

Not sure how much of a difference there is between the MG and Valvestate circuits. I'll find out though. I'll likely open it up and compare. The MG does have built in effects but the power amp likely uses Mosfets like the Valvestate. FET's work like valves which is why they coined the name from solid state valves = valvestate

 

By the way, the guy selling that 65 may have wanted to get the tank fixed before selling it. Finding a replacement tank may have been tough. Marshall uses its own tanks in their SS amps. Finding something that sounded right might be difficult. The tank in my 100 head is a short multi spring tank.

 

The tank in my 15W is a total piece of crap. I cant even call it a tank. The reverb in mine has started fading. I was thinking the springs might have stretched and were resting on a foam pad by the way it sounded. The tank is part of the chassis frame and the elements and springs are mounted to the chassis itself. Its such a weak design I figured I waited till it failed before trying to fix it. I don't run reverb in the amp anyway because the pedals I use sound better for that. I'd likely rip the thing out and run wires to an actual tank.

[WRGKMC]

Yea can't beat that price. If I don't like it I'm sure I can turn a profit on the thing.

[DeepEnd]

. . . By the way' date=' the guy selling that 65 may have wanted to get the tank fixed before selling it. Finding a replacement tank may have been tough. Marshall uses its own tanks in their SS amps. Finding something that sounded right might be difficult. The tank in my 100 head is a short multi spring tank. . . .[/quote']

The tank should be a 8DB2C1D (http://www.amprepairparts.com/marshallreverb.htm and scroll down about halfway). I could get a MOD tank for $16 or so +shipping and be in business (https://www.tubesandmore.com/product...nk-mod-8db2c1d). Even if a new tank didn't solve the problem I'd be able to use a pedal. As it turns out, the guy actually sold the amp "as is" for $20 a couple of weeks ago but I missed it.

[WRGKMC]

Those should work electronically, but it doesn't necessarily mean they will sound the same. Manufacturers design the coils for specific amps, but like guitar pickups, they can sound very different even though they have the same impedance. The springs are like guitar strings too. Different metal alloys can produce different tones and sustains.

 

Of course there isn't any way of knowing exactly how a replacement sound. It may be improved over the stock tank or it may be worse, there's no way of knowing except trying it.

 

Marshall uses a generic gold colored tanks like this. They are not the best designed nor the most durable tanks out there. There are many complaints that the tanks get weak over time. I've had my VS100 for about 15 years without issues but I take care not to bang it around.

The VS15 gets moved around a lot so I suspect its cheap design is simply garbage. Unfortunately its not an actual tank that can be replaced. Its built into the chassis. Maybe I could wire a larger tank in. Its just not a big priority because I have pedals with much higher reverb quality.

 

[WRGKMC]

I got the MG15 in yesterday and gave it a test run. As I suspected, the clean tones are the same as my Valvestate 15 so the amp likely uses the same kind of circuitry and components. Other then the fact its a closed back cab, I should be able to get a good match running this one in stereo with may Valvestate which was my original intention.

 

The MG does have variations as far as the rest of the amp goes. The built in effects are very good. They are digital by the way. This is notable when you select the various settings. There is a delay where the sound goes dead when the effect is loading. This is typical for many digital effects as the effects loads it binary setting into memory. This delay wont be very good for changing effect settings during a song, but its not like you'd stop playing and fiddle with the knobs during a song anyway. I wouldn't be worth adding an expression pedal for changing effects either.

 

The drive channel is Marshalls typical high gain drive. Turning the gain up goes from zero to 90 with very little in between. Its fine for leads, especially if you know and like Marshall tone. You cant dial in lower gain crunch chords like I can with my Valvestate which is the only flaw I see, but I may be able to remedy that with a little circuit modification. I simply need to find the OP amp responsible for producing the gain and modify its signal feed. I may be able to do that off the gain pot itself, adding resistance to taper its signal down.

 

Again, not sure if I'll even bother with it. I use pedals for gain and can run the clean channel to get what I want.

 

I did read a bunch of reviews on the amp and that was the #1 complaint. The gain taper went from silent to nearly full gain with a small tweak and would gain up to insanity levels. I suppose I could add a channel switch pedal jack easy enough. I simply run wires to the switch on the panel and wire in a jack on the back to plug in a pedal. This would make it allot easier then using the front panel switch which would be difficult to switch when playing.

 

I am glad that most of the reviews I read were written by amateurs who either expected too much or too little from the amp. For many it was their first amp and they simply had no clue what to expect from an amp in this range. Some thought the bass was too little, others not enough, others thought the treble was piercing, others not enough.

 

I can confidently say, the amp produces an ideal Marshall frequency response curve, no more no less. The EQ controls are mild as are most Marshall amps. The bass tapers off higher then a Fender, there's a typical upper mid bump unique to Marshall amps and a wide treble range that will allow you to adjust to most pickups.

 

If anything I think this amp does have a reserve of treble response. This makes perfect sense given the customers this amp was built to target.

The amp's gain channel targets young kids into heavy metal. Those same kids tend to buy guitars with overwound/hot pickups or upgrade guitars with hot pups so the extra treble can be used to compensate for the treble loss hot pickups typically suffer from.

 

For me, I'm not into metal but I like enough treble to get some jangle when I need it. It seemed from my first test, the treble set at about 1/3 is the same as the VS15 maxed. I'll have to set them, side by side to confirm this. I'm not ruling out its simply because the MG has a closed back and the VS has an open back either. I could always remove the solid back and add two short panels to make an open backed cab like the VS if I need to balances their responses up a tad.

 

The speaker still sounds tight so I don't think the amp was used much. There's a two inch ding where the Tolex was chipped off. I can patch that up in no time with a dab of black paint then some epoxy glue carefully applied to conceal the spot. I could tape it off and spray some flex seal which I have. I'm thinking it would likely peel off though. Same with black silicone calk which I also have. Epoxy properly applied can be very durable.

 

Anyway, for $28 I have no complaints.

[DeepEnd]

I'll keep it in mind but given that the amp is long gone it really doesn't matter at this point.