Marshall 5010

Micah

Hi all,
Bit of a random post this, as I'm not well versed on the world of guitars and amps.  About 7 years ago I saw myself as the next Matt Bellamy and set about learning the guitar.  That was short lived and I was clearing out my stuff at my parents yesterday and came across this Marshall 5010 amp.  I've plugged it in and it still works, but am looking to get rid, however, I can't find much about it.  I suppose this is a kind of 'how much is it worth' thread, but also want to see if there's anyone wanting to give it a good home as (being a member of a few specialist forums myself) I think it might be rather old and potentially be of interest to someone... or I could be completely wrong!
Anyway, thanks for your time to read this, sorry if I've broken any forum rules.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v131/micahgti/thumb_IMG_5293_1024.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v131/micahgti/thumb_IMG_5294_1024.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v131/micahgti/thumb_IMG_5295_1024.jpg[/IMG]

ICBM

Welcome Micah

That's an excellent amp - from the mid-1980s, and built as well as a JCM800 valve amp with a proper welded-box steel chassis, plywood cabinet, and over-spec components.

...though sadly, not worth as much as it probably should be due to being 'transistor'. That one also has the less-desirable McKenzie speaker rather than the better Celestion that some came with, although it's easy to change. (An 8-ohm speaker works fine even though the original is 4-ohm, and then allows you to fit an extension speaker jack if you want to - you won't notice a loss of volume with a decent 8-ohm Celestion since the McKenzie isn't all that sensitive.) The mismatching knob is easy to replace, Marshall sell them in sets - probably best to replace all six since the gold cap colour is slightly different now.

(Info for possible buyers .)

They sound pretty good, not quite like a valve Marshall but not too far off, and take pedals really well.

After all that, the bad news is that it's not worth more than about £100 to maybe £150 absolutely tops given the slightly less than perfect condition (although the rip in the vinyl is easy to stick down if you're careful), the knob and the speaker. Hopefully that's not too unwelcome.

The good news is that there are quite a few of us who like these old solid-state Marshalls, and it shouldn't be too hard to find someone interested. Not me, I'm too far away and I don't really need another one anyway!

You're probably best to post a new thread in the classifieds with a definite price and whether you're willing to ship it, etc.

Hope that helps!

PS, your best plan is to keep it and buy a guitar .

polotska

I quite like the whole range of JCM800-era solid state Marshalls like the 5010—I’ve head a couple of Lead 12s and a couple of Lead 20s, which are sort of the baby brothers to this one. Extremely well made and reliable, good sounding (so much better than, say, the Marshall MG range), and absolute bargains used. I’ve toyed around with the idea of picking up a 5210 (split-channel brother to the 5010) but haven’t gotten around to it.

ICBM

polotska said:

I quite like the whole range of JCM800-era solid state Marshalls like the 5010—I’ve head a couple of Lead 12s and a couple of Lead 20s, which are sort of the baby brothers to this one. Extremely well made and reliable, good sounding (so much better than, say, the Marshall MG range), and absolute bargains used. I’ve toyed around with the idea of picking up a 5210 (split-channel brother to the 5010) but haven’t gotten around to it.

I've had a couple of Leads 12s (one of which was my first ever Marshall, back in 1985) and Reverb 12s, a Mosfet Lead 100 and I've currently got a Master Lead 75, which was Marshall's answer to the Sessionette 75 and duplicates its control function/layout identically, but sounds much better. They came with a ludicrously efficient but rather harsh-sounding (in a solid-state amp) Sidewinder speaker, that I've replaced with a Classic Lead 80.

The 5210 is almost as good, although again the ones with the McKenzie speaker aren't as good as the ones with the Celestion G12M-70 - which is a speaker I normally detest, but sounds really good in these solid-state amps exactly because they have no top or bottom-end so they hide those parts of the solid-state sound .

Micah

ICBM, thanks very much and I was waiting for the 'keep it and get another guitar' comment from someone! I don't have the dexterity required and not really the time to devote to trying, so it will have to go.  Perhaps in another life I will be good enough!
I would like to also say thank you for being so polite and informative, this must be a great forum