Marshall DSL1-C Review

So you wanted to be a rock star?

Finding the right piece of gear can be difficult, mostly because of there's a GIANT disconnect between "the sound in your head" and "the sound they're selling you."

If you ask me, that's the disconnect that single handedly keeps the guitar industry afloat.  Let's face it - nobody is marketing to rock stars.  They're marketing to a guy who started playing guitar in high school, but eventually grew up and found that he had this super awesome thing called disposable income. In other words, me.

You mean I've got more money than I need for food and shelter?

Most major companies get this, and it's the obvious motivation behind all those lunch box heads, low wattage tube amps, and low cost "collect them all" vintage reissues.  The kids have to sleep, and daddy wants to rock out.  Most of these items are built to a price, and most leave you disappointed.

Then there's this...

Get Ready to be... Disappointed?

This entered the collection after (well before) my sale of a Two Rock 1x12 to "THE LOCAL STEVIE".  As I mentioned in the previous post, I was pretty underwhelmed when I finally gave it a try.  The channels didn't balance.  The lead sound was fizzy, and the EQ seemed to just adjust the level of suck.  The speaker (an 8 inch affair) didn't seem to be able to handle the bass, and overall it struck me as a really poorly conceived little amp.  Sure, maybe it sounded great through a 4x12, BUT I DON'T HAVE A F#$KING 4X12 AND THAT WASN'T THE POINT!!!

The suck went to 11, is what I'm trying to say.

I gave it a couple of days, but the situation wasn't improving.  I decided to open up the back and see if a tube swap would do the trick.  I don't have a set of 12AT7s (the power tubes!) lying around, but I did have enough 12ax7s to replace those.  The difference wasn't immediately audible, so I started to compare the DSL1C to my Micro Terror stack.   Kind of an A/B of tiny British amps, with one costing more than 2x the other one.

Come here often?

Although there are serious differences in the two, I think it was a good comparison.  With the Marshall costing more and now having mostly better tubes, I figured the Orange wouldn't have a chance.  Oops.  The Orange sounded more organic and much smoother.  This didn't seem possible, so I unplugged the Orange speaker and plugged it into the Marshall.  BAM! Immediate improvement.

I took a second to try an rationalize what I was hearing.  The Marshall now sounded better, deeper, and smoother.  No more soda fizz highs.  Better, more natural mids.  Marshall low end.  Just a different 8 inch speaker, in a smaller cab no less? Nope. It wasn't that the speaker was better, it was that it had been broken in.  With that in mind, turn everything to eleven and chug that low E ad nauseam!

The best pieces of gear tick off a few things on the list.  Tops may be making you want to play more, and this has that quality in spades.  Now that the tubes and the speaker have been addressed, this is the Marshall sound in your head.  The power soak on the back is great for those times the kids are asleep, and at 1 watt, it's just loud enough for a jam session with friends.  

The clean channel is still pointless - too much bass in comparison to the lead, and the gain curve doesn't seem linear (to say nothing of the fact that not even a Tone Zone would drive it into overdrive).  This doesn't matter though, because anyone looking for a low wattage tube amp wants dynamics - the ability to control the level of drive with your volume knob and pick attack.  The lead channel gives you this in spades, going from "just clean enough for dirty country" to enough gain for hard rock on the volume knob.  Better still, there's an F/X loop on the back (too bad I sold all my reverb pedals).

I've never owned a Marshall, but maybe the most impressive thing with this amp is that different guitars sound different.  Too many amps are all about their own character, and not enough about the guitar's.  This little amp is different - still unmistakeably Marshall, but always in the context of the instrument plugged into it.

I maintain that no piece of gear will make you a better player but once in awhile, you find a piece of gear that makes you want to play more.  More doesn't mean better, but it sure doesn't hurt.