Astoria blowout

jeztone2

Let's face it. Whoever is in charge at Marshall has lost it. All these fridges & headphones celebrating the iconic logo. Then they design a handmade amp, that isn't quite a handmade amp, that looks nothing like the iconic design.

meanwhile Friedman eat up market share of high gain heads while JHS, Catalinbread etc exploit the lack of a mark 1 Guv'nor reissue. 

andyp

I never fail to be intrigued by how much pretty much everybody wants Marshall to succeed and want to buy their products yet they're all frustrated by either a lack of listening or a lack of direction from Marshall themselves. It's like business suicide. But they must still sell lots of stuff or they'd be bust by now.

I have two Marshall amps and love them both. Albeit they're not "real" Marshalls, or the kind of amps that people are yearning for Marshall to make. As a relatively new player though they suit me perfectly for what I want and will do for a few years I guess. Maybe the likes of me are the ones keeping them in business rather than the market sector(s) they used to occupy?

ThePrettyDamned

That's the thing - everyone *wants* Marshall to be successful. They just make it hard... 

Their reissues are good amps - perfect in fact. They sound right, they look right. They're expensive, but not horribly overpriced. It's quality gear. 

But friedman have taken a good market from them. Modded marshalls have always been popular - lots of people think of jcm800 amps to be high gain because of this. Yet the only high gain stuff they do is overpriced and not so well built (dsl (which doesn't sound tooooo awful) and, especially, the tsl) or the jvm which is massively overfeatured for a lot of players and still lacks the old school tone (although it is a good am in itself). 

Affordable line of old school amps, off shore built a la Jet City and VHS, and a small range of modded amps, off shore or UK built - probably go more premium. In fact, just three models needed - modded 100 watt jcm, modded 30 watt jcm and a modded 5 watt jcm. Boom. One for stadiums and metal bands who need the sheer power, one for pub bands who want a pair of el34s and a good rock sound from a small head and cab or combo and one for home practice that has a decent master volume. 

I really feel that if they look right (as in, close to the old amps), are built well enough (solid pcb, no need for expensive point to point or turrets, leave that to independent brands who do it better) and sound good (decent cab and speakers, good circuit design) they'd sell. They could probably bolt a simple clean channel on them. 

In fact, this all leads me to the original orange rocker 30. Well built, great sounding, looked right, hit the right price point. But Marshall would have a much bigger market than Orange. 

andyp

Can't disagree with any of that!

I got hooked up to a JVM when testing out my SG and (although I'd have a better chance now with 18 months more playing under my belt) I had no idea where to start with the controls. It was like the space shuttle to me at the time.

I'm very interested in those new Rocker 15s that Orange just released. They seem simple and versatile, I think this is where Marshall need to be with a premium line for more serious players - like reissues etc. If I was amp shopping this summer instead of last summer (when I bought my DSL5) then I think I might well have ended up going Orange.

timmysoft

I would think that Marshalls top end stuff sales are pretty insignificant compared to what they sell in practice amps. Its good that they've got the RI series, they're all good amps and to be honest they could just make those for the valve market and i think most people would be happy.

JTM45 - Good amp, good seller
1987x - Good amp, the volume lends itself to professional use
1959x - Good amp, probably not that many sales outside of the professional market
JCM800x - Good amp although the price is now a little stupid, i bet they still sell a few though!
JCM900x - Good amp, solid tones although the internet perception will limit sales


 I like the original DSL's - they don't sound like a classic plexi but they do sound like a  modern marshall, I liked the Astoria i tried, very JTM sounding and i thought the head looked pretty cool, i was only put off by the price really. The new Jubilee amps were well received and rightly so, they're great amps.

 I have tried the Friedmans and although i think they sound great, to me they sound like a Marshall thats been recorded well, so in a live mix i don't find them quite as exciting as i do in isolation, the same can be said for Bogners. The best non Marshall Marshall you can buy is still the Mesa Stiletto. there was a guy a few years ago who built amps under the Reinhardt name, his amps sounded like proper marshalls, but i believe he went back to building race cars.

Musicman20

Has anyone played the Astoria Classic Combo?

Collings

i,ve used both the Dual and Custom but not the Classic.

The Classic has the lowest gain and no effects loop and is more suited as a cleanish pedal platform I believe.