Talk me out of buying a Marshall SV20H

ICBM

Slash'N'burn said:

I’ve heard a couple of owners say the same thing, yet other owners say they are great with multiple distortion pedals - wonder if some have a fault? 

I’ve run multiple fuzz and distortion into mine, but the loudness was probably at 4-5 (slight breakup with the pedals off) I’ve not tried it with the amp all the way up.

The 5w setting sounds more like a 5w cut  (i.e 15w) to me - and with an attenuator it sounds best on the 20w setting, more heavily attenuated,  I just don’t use the 5w at all.

I'm certain it wasn't faulty, it was working perfectly otherwise and sounded great when pushed less hard. But at band volume - we're fairly loud, but not ridiculously so - it was clearly really struggling, and the 'one note' thing was very obvious, in fact it was the singer who complained about it. The guitarist was finding it very frustrating to play as well. (I'm the bass player in this band.) It lasted exactly one band practice, then he sold it...

For reference he uses an Orange Rocker 30 normally, and we've never had a problem with volume or the amp sounding like it couldn't keep up. Both amps were through the same cab, a Marshall 2x12" with G12H-30s. The pedals were a Catalinbread Merkin, Foxrox Octron, MXR Distortion+, MXR Micro Amp and a Marshall Drivemaster - sometimes more than one at once, particularly with the Micro Amp which is usually set full up.

When I tried it at home it was with the guitar straight in, and I only used one pedal, a Boss DF-2 (used more as an overdrive with the distortion and tone both fairly low). I don't use the pedal to push the amp harder when it's already full up though - he does . I don't think I would have had it higher than about 6 when I was using the pedal, and the pedal would be set to only just louder than unity. The 5W setting is definitely much quieter, but just didn't sound good to me.

Also, a 50W Marshall is massively too loud with the same band - he did have a 2204, but even with the master volume it was always better attenuated - the SV20 wasn't even close to as loud or dynamic, which for a lot of players is going to be a big advantage.

Bygone_Tones

Had one and sold it. Mine seemed to have way too much hiss, I couldn't live with it.