The Newest Marshall DSL's

longi

I'm curious to know what people think of the newest DSL versions. They've caught my attention and I've become a bit obsessed with them on Youtube. Are they any good or are they to be avoided? I'm particularly interested in the 1 watt and 5 watt versions.

Alex2678

I liked both the 5 watt and the one watt, (owned both) if you were going for any I’d get the newest 5 watt. The older 5 watt which I had didn’t have a master volume on the low gain side. I owned the newer 1 watt which did, and it sounded great, but would’ve been nice to be able to get a bit more out of it 

monquixote

I've got the current gen 40 watt and it's brilliant.

Alex2678

I also owned the last gen 40 and it was great, understand the newer ones are even better

longi

Ahh!... Interesting! How do you find the shared controls? 

longi

Alex2678 said:

I liked both the 5 watt and the one watt, (owned both) if you were going for any I’d get the newest 5 watt. The older 5 watt which I had didn’t have a master volume on the low gain side. I owned the newer 1 watt which did, and it sounded great, but would’ve been nice to be able to get a bit more out of it 

Do you mean more headroom? I'm sort of leaning towards the 5 watt version but the 1 watt version looks intriguing. The pricing of them is very competitive. 

ICBM

If you like the sound of them they're fine. I can't speak for other techs, but unlike the original DSL series (ironically UK-made, which would be assumed to be better than the new Vietnam-made ones) which were notoriously problem-riddled due to a combination of build quality and design flaws, I haven't seen a single new series one for any repair other than a valve fault yet.

I'm not so much a fan of the smaller ones, but that's because I just don't find the sounds I'm looking for in low-powered amps usually - I prefer the 20W and especially 40W ones. I haven't heard a 100W one yet.

Alex2678

longi said:

Alex2678 said:

I liked both the 5 watt and the one watt, (owned both) if you were going for any I’d get the newest 5 watt. The older 5 watt which I had didn’t have a master volume on the low gain side. I owned the newer 1 watt which did, and it sounded great, but would’ve been nice to be able to get a bit more out of it 

Do you mean more headroom? I'm sort of leaning towards the 5 watt version but the 1 watt version looks intriguing. The pricing of them is very competitive. 

Yeah just bigger speaker and a little more headroom, the one watt was fine in the living room but would’ve been a bit limiting if I’d taken it to jam with my friends I think 

monquixote

Big speakers + more Watts = better..

I can play the 40 at the full power with the master down at bedroom level and it's fine.

It's not amp amp where you want to crank the power amp.

Alex2678

monquixote said:

Big speakers + more Watts = better..

I can play the 40 at the full power with the master down at bedroom level and it's fine.

It's not amp amp where you want to crank the power amp.

Agree with this my 40 was fine at home 

longi

Thanks for the comments guys, I'll probably give the 1 watt a miss and maybe look at the 5 and 20 watt annoys. 

TTBZ

The 1w is surprisingly fun though a 4x12! Tbh I think the 20/40/100 R gen are all good. The 100w (plus a wheeled flight case cos it's heavy!) is on my short list for amps to try if my band ever gets gigging, it's a lot of value for money and they sound great. I wish there was a way to bypass the speaker emulation on them, would make a great silent recording amp too if it could be run through IRs.

longi

TTBZ said:

The 1w is surprisingly fun though a 4x12! Tbh I think the 20/40/100 R gen are all good. The 100w (plus a wheeled flight case cos it's heavy!) is on my short list for amps to try if my band ever gets gigging, it's a lot of value for money and they sound great. I wish there was a way to bypass the speaker emulation on them, would make a great silent recording amp too if it could be run through IRs.

I Guess you could get an AMT Pandora for running separate IR's (something I already have) or equivalent if you don't like the Softube IR. I checked out the DSL20 on Youtube this morning and it sounds great. Food for thought.

TTBZ

Yeah it's just a shame there's no unfiltered DI out so you can do that in standby mode, you'd need a loadbox or something to do it silently.

Stratavarious

The DSL40CR is great.. two power outputs and a DI you can use in silent/standby and four channels instead of 2 with less powerful models.   

Great tones at any volumes.

Was gigging mine last night at a festival.  Sounded great.

monquixote

TTBZ said:

Yeah it's just a shame there's no unfiltered DI out so you can do that in standby mode, you'd need a loadbox or something to do it silently.

Totally agree. 
So many DI outputs are ruined by having poor quality emulation that is non switchable.

longi

Is the emulation a generic IR so to speak of? 

longi

monquixote said:

Big speakers + more Watts = better..

I can play the 40 at the full power with the master down at bedroom level and it's fine.

It's not amp amp where you want to crank the power amp.

Is that sure to the amount of gain on tap? Does it flub out? 

Bidley

I have the 100w head. Sounds massive, great functionality for the price. I don't feel the need to put a TS in front of it either which is a first for me.

monquixote

longi said:

monquixote said:

Big speakers + more Watts = better..

I can play the 40 at the full power with the master down at bedroom level and it's fine.

It's not amp amp where you want to crank the power amp.

Is that sure to the amount of gain on tap? Does it flub out? 

The crunch is a JCM800.

ultra 1 is like an 800 with a TS

Ultra 2 is some kind of modern thing that I don't love.

Sounds good at all levels.

longi

Good to know, I think I'll see if I can make time to try one out. They seem to get very favorable reviews everywhere.