Anyone Tried a Marshall DSL40?

darthed1981

Was thinking of picking up one of these for my birthday.

As a fan of 90s alternative and indie rock, when going valve I'm thinking Vox AC30, Marchall DSL40 or a Fender HRD, and the Marshall has a sort of "thrash out Oasis songs after a couple of beers" appeal to it.

Anyone played or owned one, thoughts, inputs?

I could just be sensible and keep using my Katana 50 for everything, but it's my 40th birthday!!!

Philtre

darthed1981 said:

 but it's my 40th birthday!!!

As they don't make an AC40 I guess you should get the DSL40. (Mind you, the HRD is 40 watts...)

darthed1981

Philtre said:

darthed1981 said:

 but it's my 40th birthday!!!

As they don't make an AC40 I guess you should get the DSL40. (Mind you, the HRD is 40 watts...)

As bizarre as it seems, the wattage vs age thing hadn't occurred to me.

Hate to think how loud an AC40 would be...

ICBM

A friend of mine has one. It sounds great.

I have never seen a broken one.

A DSL40 for a 40th birthday sounds like a good excuse to me .

YellowLedBetterMan

I have played them a few times here and there and loved them. Everyone I know who owns one (all two people) love them. They cover a lot of Marshally sounds and can cover the entire gain range from cleans to screamy rock distortion. The only thing I didn't like was the onboard reverb, but then I'm a sucker for a proper spring reverb.

fastonebaz

I've had one for past few years,  terrific amp,  very nice tone after changing the speaker for a neo creamback

Nikc

My brother in law has just bought one it sounds great and he loves it

TTBZ

Yes they're great amps! The V Type speaker is a massive improvement over the 70/80 that used to come in them. Had I not originally got a great deal on my Jubilee I would have got myself either the 40CR and turned it into a head, or the 20HR. The Vintage Gain crunch mode on the 40 will get you into that JCM800 kind of territory and Ultra Gain OD1 will do everything above that. I don't find much use for OD2 when 1 has all the gain you'll ever need. 

bazxkr

Got the dsl40 combo and love it Has the 70/80  speaker and it is a bit meh so most will upgrade. i been toying with a neo cream back but just never got round to it.  I only use it on the clean setting at the 20w half power for home through a tc major fx for any flavour. I use the fx levels on the tc major to regulate the output level so it don't blow the tiles off

bazxkr

BTW I have a katana 50 too and that would go long before the marshall

Onpar

I used to have one and it sounded really good especially with the R9 I had at the time. I swapped the 70/80 out for a V30 and was a big improvement but added to the weight. I ended up selling it and buying a HRD as its a much better pedal platform for function. Work. But I'm now hankering after that Marshall sound again and looking at a smaller DSL or the Jcm800 Studio Classic. 

birtner

I had the version with the 70/80 speaker in and thought it was decent. Cuts through like nobody’s business 

Alex2678

I really regret selling mine 

tabano

They sound brilliant, any DSL has sounded great to me for doing the Marshall thing, specially the green channel with your boost pedal of choice

Stratavarious

Yep.. using mine at practice tonight.   Great feature set at the price and the crunch mode is really good.

The DSL40CR with updated speaker and 6 button footswitch is a killer gigging amp.  Dual master volumes volumes, 4 channels, switchable Fx loop...

TTBZ

I believe you could also do the switching with a small midi controller if you didn't want the massive 6 way switch. For me the standard 2 button switch would have been more useful if it toggled masters on the 2nd switch rather than FX loop on/off.

ICBM

TTBZ said:

For me the standard 2 button switch would have been more useful if it toggled masters on the 2nd switch rather than FX loop on/off.

It's unbelievable that they would choose those functions, unless the purpose is purely to force you to pay more for the bigger switch - which many people don't need or want.

If you're just using it as a straightforward amp in a live context, channel switch and MV switch are the only sensible choice given that it has two master volume controls - which must be for that purpose since there's no point otherwise.

John_A

I don’t know.  A boost and a delay in the loop gives you instant solo and you can have your pedals sat on top of the amp.  

I’d get the bigger foot switch

bazxkr

Stratavarious said:

Yep.. using mine at practice tonight.   Great feature set at the price and the crunch mode is really good.

The DSL40CR with updated speaker and 6 button footswitch is a killer gigging amp.  Dual master volumes volumes, 4 channels, switchable Fx loop...

Good point....... think it is worth emphasising for those getting interested in DSL40 is that it was updated around 2017ish I think. For basic ease of identification for example mine is the old version and has 11 control knobs & 70/80 speaker whereas the updated one has 13 control knobs and updated Celestion V type speaker plus other improvements and is apparently a marked step up over the old. The 6 way switch does not work on the old version. Both have the high/low power option. 
So bear this in mind if you hunt for one which one you are looking at. Would assume the new model would hold higher prices than the old too. I especially like the DSL look in the limited edition cream tolex model on both the old & the new

darthed1981

bazxkr said:

Stratavarious said:

Yep.. using mine at practice tonight.   Great feature set at the price and the crunch mode is really good.

The DSL40CR with updated speaker and 6 button footswitch is a killer gigging amp.  Dual master volumes volumes, 4 channels, switchable Fx loop...

Good point....... think it is worth emphasising for those getting interested in DSL40 is that it was updated around 2017ish I think. For basic ease of identification for example mine is the old version and has 11 control knobs & 70/80 speaker whereas the updated one has 13 control knobs and updated Celestion V type speaker and is apparently a marked improvement over the old. The 6 way switch does not work on the old version. Both have the high/low power option. 
So bear this in mind if you hunt for one which one you are looking at. Would assume the new model would hold higher prices than the old. I especially like the DSL look in the cream tolex model on both the old & the new

Thanks - I'm only interested in the new model and most likely will buy brand new (it's a birthday pressie after all).

I've always wanted a big valve amp I can stick some pedals into, and I think the DSL40CR will tick all my boxes.

Thanks all in thread for advice

Jonathangus

Am I right in thinking Noel used a JCM 900?  You can pick one of those up for round about the same as a new DSL 40CR.