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UK-made DSLs and TSLs have various design and manufacturing flaws which tend to make them prone to failing... although as with anything like this, some people also say they’ve used them for years with no problems.
Personally I wouldn’t buy one, with the possible exception of the DSL401 combo, and even that needs work to make it reliable.
JVMs and the current Vietnamese-made DSLs seem pretty good.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The one you need is a JCM900 SL-X
harder to find but if you want a switchable boost and the classic modern Marshall tone, it’s unbeatable
Stand by, sentimental ***t coming in!!...
Back when I was an R&TV tech the major manufactures, Sony, Hitachi, Ferguson had excellent service backup systems. You could phone them if you had a particularly sticky fault (if you were a dealer) and get top advice.
One mnfctr, Rank Bush Murphy was especially good. Not only did they have a team of 'Technical Liason Officers' very experienced guys from production but they even produced a quarterly A5 booklet with service tips and a list of all currently reported faults across the product range. There was an annual index and they even provided stout outer files to keep then all in!
These days a 'decent' firm COULD provide a data base of faults. Anyone know of one?
Dave.
The earlier High Gain Master Volume models are OK too (and available as combos if you want one, which the SL-Xs never were), but the 'sensitivity' stage which uses the fourth preamp valve in the SL-X is done with a diode clipping circuit - some people don't like this, although if you don't have the sensitivity up too far it doesn't do much.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The SLX is a great amp and has more gain than an 800 and is more "modern" sounding.
They have a bad rep but they also made truck loads of them, so there is bound to be a perception of higher failure rate.... which goes with the inherent design flaws.
I recently acquired a dead TSL100 combo with several faults for the parts value, and although I could very likely have fixed it by replacing the main PCB, I didn't want to commit that much more money to something I could not sell with a straight face or absolutely guarantee to the buyer. Within six months I had needed both transformers for repairs on other ones, and that's not that unusual. Total number of transformers I've replaced in Fender Hotrods since the series started... 1.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Only bad thing is the footswitch cable works intermittedtly, but it must've been up/down stairs at home, in/out the car and to a gig or rehearsal at least 100 times. Also had the valves replaced and a couple of noisy pots when serviced by Marshall (twice) in the 15 years I've had it. Not because it wasn't working... more a safety net before a run of gigs.
Far too loud though.