Advice Please. Marshal TSL100

veldt666

The first & last Marshal I used was a Master volume 100W, around 77/78. I've used Fender, Burman, Boogie, & Fuch's  amp's, since then.

I have Inherited a TSL100 Head + cab, & not sure what to expect, so can anyone advise on the Pro's & con's of this model?

(I know about the footswitch problem already)

Then I'll decide whether to keep it, or move it.

Thanks,

ICBM

Get rid of it before something goes wrong with it. (Assuming it's working now.)

Pros - the cab will be OK.

Cons - the amps sound thin and buzzy, and have a tendency to catch fire.

Sassafras

ICBM said:

Get rid of it before something goes wrong with it. (Assuming it's working now.)

Pros - the cab will be OK.

Cons - the amps sound thin and buzzy, and have a tendency to catch fire.

Always the optimist.
  

ChrisCox1994

I gigged one for two or three years, its a decent enough gigging amp, and you can use the fx loop level as a footswichable solo boost which is nice. 

Clean channel can do 'marshall' clean up to nice broken up hendrix bluesy tone.

Channels two and three are gainy and fat, not the best marshall tone by a long way but good enough. 

They're super cheap too. 

I know they have a rep for going wrong a lot but mine was ok... apart from the the relay switches... and the valves went... 

Just a bit bloody big these days IMO but if 100w heads with 412 cabs are your thing then there decent enough, especially for the low prices you can get them for now. 

OLD dsl50 head is better though IMO tone wise. 

professorben

ChrisCox1994 said:

I gigged one for two or three years, its a decent enough gigging amp, and you can use the fx loop level as a footswichable solo boost which is nice. 

Clean channel can do 'marshall' clean up to nice broken up hendrix bluesy tone.

Channels two and three are gainy and fat, not the best marshall tone by a long way but good enough. 

They're super cheap too. 

I know they have a rep for going wrong a lot but mine was ok... apart from the the relay switches... and the valves went... 

Just a bit bloody big these days IMO but if 100w heads with 412 cabs are your thing then there decent enough, especially for the low prices you can get them for now. 

OLD dsl50 head is better though 

this. Especially on the crunch. 

gubble

I had experience with no less than three of these when they first came out.

Why three do you ask? Well they all went back under warranty because they all broke in some magical way or other.

#1 - I'm not sure what happened to this one - I think the board fried itself in a not so spectacular fashion.,

#2. Footswitch died, replacement footswitch arrived and didn't work so the entire amp went back

#3 - Went up in smoke - If I remember rightly there really was smoke too.

That was 3 amps in less than a year. For what was meant to be their flagship amplifier suitable to gigging and touring it really wasn't suitable at all.

Oh it sounded rubbish too. Nothing like a DSL (and I don't mean that in a good way)

DrJazzTap

They are very tempting these days due to the second hand prices. But I could never get a good clean sound out of mine.

ICBM

Sassafras said:

ICBM said:

Get rid of it before something goes wrong with it. (Assuming it's working now.)

Pros - the cab will be OK.

Cons - the amps sound thin and buzzy, and have a tendency to catch fire.

Always the optimist.
  

True. The cab might not be great either...

Benson

Owned and gigged one for quite some time. Never went wrong but could never dial out the fizzyness. Replaced with a DSL and was much happier. 

Nerine

If you've inherited it, why not try it out and see if you like it? 

Personally I think they're shit, but some people do like them. 

They aren't regarded as being Marshalls finest hour. In fact the TSL kinda spawned all the junk that followed. They haven't made a good amp since. 

ICBM

Nerine said:

They aren't regarded as being Marshalls finest hour. In fact the TSL kinda spawned all the junk that followed. They haven't made a good amp since 1990

Corrected for accuracy .


(Actually to be fair, the vintage reissues are great.)

Danny1969

I've seen a couple of these in for repair, poor design in my opinion, the track spacing and the quality of the PCB isn't sufficient for the voltages across it .... one of my guys got a new PCB from Marshall, was a different colour and presumably better quality

I've actually got one in the house now, been storing it for a friend for a while. Never been tempted to turn it on, I remember what it sounds like

ICBM

Danny1969 said:

I've seen a couple of these in for repair, poor design in my opinion, the track spacing and the quality of the PCB isn't sufficient for the voltages across it .... one of my guys got a new PCB from Marshall, was a different colour and presumably better quality

There's a particularly ludicrous oversight on the earlier versions of the board too - the tips of the stand-off legs of the screen resistors (at +470VDC) come within less than a millimetre of the filament trace (at 0VDC)… just asking for it to arc, which they often do. They fixed three of the four on the second version!

They also have a tendency to arc through the thickness of the board - often the board literally catches fire. And then there's the bias runaway problem (I've got one in the workshop right now with that), bias failures caused by the jumper connector to the adjuster board, the band-aid cap on the fourth power valve which still occasionally blows even though it's 500V-rated (because excess spike voltages are being developed there somehow), the stupid and unnecessary switching point in the 16-ohm speaker jack which blows output transformers, not paralleling the contacts in the 4/8-ohm selector so it goes iffy, the footswitch problems… it just goes on and on. And that's just the *common* faults!

Seriously, if you've acquired one and it's in full working order now, get rid of it before something goes wrong since it will most likely cost a lot to fix.

Cabicular

Hang on these were 'worse' than the DSL?
Jeebus
ive only ever seen them in hovel like rehearsal rooms but the sheer amount of controls on it made me unplug it and stick a tiny terror on the cab

ICBM

Cabicular said:

Hang on these were 'worse' than the DSL?

Yes. Same build quality and main PCB, but with a different - thinner and buzzier - preamp section.

And that's just the TSL100 - the TSL60 is even worse, unlike the DSL50 which is the same as the DSL100 but with smaller transformers and only two power valves, the 60 is like a larger DSL401. It sounds terrible - thin, weak and gutless. In fact I'm not sure that the 401 isn't fuller and louder.

veldt666

Wow, thanks for, all the Advise guy's. I had a chance to spend a few hours with the TSL 100 Head + 1960A Cab. My Initial finding's were, as follows, It's in full working order, as only used 3 times. I'm not sure If it's an early example, or a later one, (How do I find out)? Great, clean channel.(Full bodied & great sustain, quite, Fender like, in fact) Decent sounding crunch channel, (I don't use too much gain, so it didn't seem too fizzy), also, great sustain. Lead channel, seems to be voiced like the Crunch, but with much more gain, ( I doubt I would use this, ever) 1960A Cab, I find the 12T-75's a bit scooped & bland,( I only ever used a cab with Vintage 30's, If offered a Marshal as a rental). But, when I plugged the head in to my EV Cabs, or a 2 X 12 fitted with Eminence Tonker's, it really thickened up the amp on all levels. So, I suppose I just need to watch for the impending burn out? Is it worth having some Mods done to cure the Impending problem's,(Has anyone had this done? Can you recommend a tech, who has done Mod's, to cure the design faults)? I appreciate all the Input, keep chiming in, If any further experience might help, Thanks,