woodpile Posted February 15, 2022 Posted February 15, 2022 Picked up a good condition DSL40C from a guy locally who bought it to see if he would get in to guitar. He didn't and the amp has very little time on it. Have to say it sounds pretty good for a $350 amp. It needed some help from an MXR 7 band to blend some harshness out. The clean/crunch channel is where it will stay for me. It has the original cheap 70/80 Celestion in it so that might get swapped. It sounds good enough to qualify for the shady place and outdoor/bad weather gigs. Reviews seem to be fairly positive. There are some typical mods (speaker swap, C19 capacitor change). Anybody have or had one of these?
tommy p Posted February 15, 2022 Posted February 15, 2022 I got one when Sweetwater had a crazy one day sale on them a few years ago for $399 and I had some PayPal money to blow so it only cost me about $300 out of pocket. I love mine. I've used it to practice with, taken it to jams, and even played it live cranked through the clean channel portraying Malcolm Young in my AC/DC tribute band. I've read since I got mine that the 40CR is supposed to be better but I don't know how. If anyone has tried both and can describe the differences, I'd love to hear about it.
Biz Prof Posted February 15, 2022 Posted February 15, 2022 I've vacillated on picking one up for years now. They pop up on CL regularly in what appears to be good condition and for not much scratch. To boot, the demos for them on YouTube largely sound rather nice. The only knock I can recall (other than the stock speaker) is that there has been off/on criticism of the line regarding their reliability. Some of that seems to be related to tube failures, but I've seen some videos posted by amp techs that points out issues with the PC board. BUT...Marshall must have sold a gazillion of them, really. Assuming that's true, we can also conclude that we're proportionately more likely to hear about QC issues with this amp. I know several people who have them and have never had a single problem with them.
woodpile Posted February 15, 2022 Author Posted February 15, 2022 4 minutes ago, Biz Prof said: I've vacillated on picking one up for years now. They pop up on CL regularly in what appears to be good condition and for not much scratch. To boot, the demos for them on YouTube largely sound rather nice. The only knock I can recall (other than the stock speaker) is that there has been off/on criticism of the line regarding their reliability. Some of that seems to be related to tube failures, but I've seen some videos posted by amp techs that points out issues with the PC board. BUT...Marshall must have sold a gazillion of them, really. Assuming that's true, we can also conclude that we're proportionately more likely to hear about QC issues with this amp. I know several people who have them and have never had a single problem with them. I'm always concerned about reliability too. This one is supposedly the last year they made the C so I'm hoping most bugs have been addressed. I always gig with a backup in case it ever gremlins out. I hooked it through all of my cabinets for speaker comparisons and the 70/80 held up better than I thought when considering how it will sound in a mix. Stand alone, my G12-65 and V30 sounded better. Its another example of cheap gear sounding too good when I got too many expensive things.
tomteriffic Posted February 15, 2022 Posted February 15, 2022 Had one for several years now, had my pick of the stock/creamback speaker when Sweetwater was offering that option. Despite the speaker, the stock one just sounded more solid, more, immediate, just screwed together better in general. I took that one home with me and put a WGS speaker in. I've lived primarily in the clean/crunch neighborhood in the few hours I've put on it (band/gig plan fell through as soon as I spent the money). Admittedly I haven't put many hours on it, but in all it's a satisfying Marshall-y sort of thing, especially with the replacement speaker. Never had a problem with it.
Biz Prof Posted February 15, 2022 Posted February 15, 2022 24 minutes ago, tomteriffic said: Had one for several years now, had my pick of the stock/creamback speaker when Sweetwater was offering that option. Despite the speaker, the stock one just sounded more solid, more, immediate, just screwed together better in general. I took that one home with me and put a WGS speaker in. I've lived primarily in the clean/crunch neighborhood in the few hours I've put on it (band/gig plan fell through as soon as I spent the money). Admittedly I haven't put many hours on it, but in all it's a satisfying Marshall-y sort of thing, especially with the replacement speaker. Never had a problem with it. Which WGS speaker did you install?
tomteriffic Posted February 15, 2022 Posted February 15, 2022 4 hours ago, Biz Prof said: Which WGS speaker did you install? I don't remember and it isn't where I can crack it open to check. It was most probably a Veteran 30?
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