Marshall DSL vs Fender Bassbreaker?

andyp

Hi Folks.

I'm commencing looking for a small home use valve amp to replace the home-built one my Old Man has loaned me. I'm still a beginner but it's coming along pretty well still after 18 months and I'm loving the Blues / Rock area but fancy an amp that can do clean but maybe bordering on metal too. The Marshall sound is really what makes me tick, but the new Fenders looks superb and something makes me think the Marshall DSLs aren't meant to be very good?

It's DSL 5 that I'm looking at just now and going by the spec, it seems ideal - headphones are very useful for me and also the ability to turn it down to 1 watt is very appealing. I want to be able to use the amp for a few years so it's likely it'll need to be able to do quiet home use and noisy home use, so these features are perfect. The Fender appears to be a much "better" amp and really good value but I think the 15 seems like one to get, but it has neither the headphone socket or power reduction facility (as far as I can tell) so it's probably just simply too loud for me to get the good of it. I have a handful of pedals (Soul Food, reverb, chorus and a couple of distortions) so I've just been using my home-built amp with these so far to try and get the tones I'm after.

I'm also keen on Vox amps but my Blackstar ID Core 10 has kind of put me off a Blackstar valve amp if they are of similar tone as I find it quite muddy sounding. Should I be looking at anything else? Like an Orange? My budget is £500 max.

Any advice would be very welcome.  I guess I just need to go and try some and see what happens.

Thanks,

Andy

ennspek

I think you hit the nail on the head with your last paragraph.

andyp

Yeah, I probably did!

My budget of £500 seems to give me a lot of choice. I'll start looking and see what I like.

Andy

ennspek

If you include 2nd hand the world is your lobster!

andyp

Yeah, second hand is fine too. The search begins!