Had my first up close encounter with the Marshall Origin amps yesterday. I did see them at the Birmingham guitar show but it was during the designated quiet bit so couldn’t get to hear it.
The other guitarist in a band I play in brought the 20 head to a gig last night and I was really impressed. Now a slight disclaimer is that I didn’t actually play it but I thought it sounded great. I love the 4 input Marshall sound and am very lucky to have a 50w Top Hat Emplexador head which I used last night and you could definitely tell the two amps were from the same tonal family so to speak.
He used it with a Les Paul into a Road Kill 2x12 with V30s. It was certainly not a high gain amp (but neither were the amps it’s inspired by. I guess that’s what the Jubilee/JVM/DSL ranges are for) but at gig volumes it had a great classic breakup sound that he then used with a Klone, KoKo boost and OCD for different levels of dirt as needed. Then had a Boss MS3 hooked up in 4cm for switching and modulation effects and it took all the pedals superbly.
It was plenty loud for an unmiced gig through that cab/speakers with maybe 70 or so people in the pub. He actually started the gig on one of the reduced power options but switched to full power during the first song for more headroom rather than because he needed more volume.
The sound was clear, bold and punchy and sat very auidibly in the mix.
The bass player used in ears and we used the line out on the head to feed that and it worked great.
No idea what it is like at home/lower volumes but in a band gig setting it worked really well and seems a great compact gigging head as it’s quite small. Pretty much the same size as a Suhr Badger 30 head. Overall very impressed. Will see if I can have a play through it at rehearsal
Comments
I'm narrowing it down to one of these, a Jet City 20hv or a Laney Cub 15 head. My guess is the Marshall is the better of the 3... It looks the best so far!