New Amp Searching...

[maliciousteve]

I'm on the hunt for a new amp. I'm selling my current amp (Brunetti) and looking for something that can spit fire, scare the neighbours but also not be an annoying hissy mess.

Currently, I've got these in mind:

Peavey JSX - I had one of these and loved it, so high on my list
Marshall JVM 205H - I used to own the 410H and loved that too. number 1 spot of wanting at the moment.
Marshall DSL/TSL - heard nothing but good things about their tone, but heard bad things about reliability. I do live near the Marshall factory, so may not be a huge deal if something goes wrong
Engl Powerball - Had one a very long time ago and couldn't get on with it at the time (didn't have a great cab at the time) . However, the other guitarist in my last band had one and I loved the tone.

How is the reliability of the JCM2000s?

and are there any amps you'd recommend around the £500/$600 mark on the used market?

 

[Emperoff]

JSX gets my vote.

Why are you selling the Brunetti? I'm getting a MC-20 combo soon so I'm curious.

 

[BurningRome]

I've had several JCM2000 DSL's both 100W and 50W. I prefer the 100W and find them to be great sounding amps. I use a Boss SD1 as a clean boost with the Green channel (clean channel with the onboard overdrive) and the Joe Bonamassa EQ settings and think it sounds phenomenal for metal or anything aggressive.

The JCM2000 DSL reliability issue is a real thing. I've never had a problem and you have to think if you find any today their either good ones or have been resolved.

I wouldn't pay today's crazy prices for one though. 500-600 is fair.

Note: Its all tube distortion, no diode clipping, if you care.

I personally think the JVM sounds phenomenal and I'm sure the Engl stuff is cheaper there for you than it is for us here in the US. All good options.

 

[KnightBrolaire]

I'm on the hunt for a new amp. I'm selling my current amp (Brunetti) and looking for something that can spit fire, scare the neighbours but also not be an annoying hissy mess.

Currently, I've got these in mind:

Peavey JSX - I had one of these and loved it, so high on my list
Marshall JVM 205H - I used to own the 410H and loved that too. number 1 spot of wanting at the moment.
Marshall DSL/TSL - heard nothing but good things about their tone, but heard bad things about reliability. I do live near the Marshall factory, so may not be a huge deal if something goes wrong
Engl Powerball - Had one a very long time ago and couldn't get on with it at the time (didn't have a great cab at the time) . However, the other guitarist in my last band had one and I loved the tone.

How is the reliability of the JCM2000s?

and are there any amps you'd recommend around the £500/$600 mark on the used market?

The JSX/XXX/XXX2 are great amps and tend to hang around that price point (at least they do in the US). Also the Pentas are pretty cool, but ungodly loud.
I doubt you'd find one overseas but the Kustom Double Cross is an amp worth looking into. The gain structure is drier than most of James Brown's stuff, but it will do the gamut from nice cleans to edge of breakup stuff to full tilt fire breathing death metal/fat and thick doom metal.

Orange supercrush is a great option in that price range as well.

 

[budda]

You have a top 3 list, i guess buy the one you like most? I dont miss my jsx fwiw.

 

[maggotspawn]

I would opt for a later model DSL. 100H or 100HR. They sound killer.

 

[youngthrasher9]

If you do get a JSX try something like a E34L or KT variety tube quad in the power section. I don’t know if the JSX requires a resistor upgrade to run them (my xxx did) but it makes a huge difference in this amp family. Also don’t use the bias test points on the back, they aren’t accurate at all.

 

[maliciousteve]

If you do get a JSX try something like a E34L or KT variety tube quad in the power section. I don’t know if the JSX requires a resistor upgrade to run them (my xxx did) but it makes a huge difference in this amp family. Also don’t use the bias test points on the back, they aren’t accurate at all.

I had the JSX about 5 years ago. When I was gigging with it I put in a set of KT77s. All I had to do was adjust the bias and it sounded glorious.

Another amp has come on the radar for a good price. EVH 5150iii 100 watt. Weren't these unreliable some what? I remember trying one out when they were first released and it blew me away. But this was some time ago and I remember not really liking the 50 watt, the lead tones were too hissy for my liking

 

[BurningRome]

I had the JSX about 5 years ago. When I was gigging with it I put in a set of KT77s. All I had to do was adjust the bias and it sounded glorious.

Another amp has come on the radar for a good price. EVH 5150iii 100 watt. Weren't these unreliable some what? I remember trying one out when they were first released and it blew me away. But this was some time ago and I remember not really liking the 50 watt, the lead tones were too hissy for my liking

I really really like the EVH 100. For so long I tried to avoid them, I also had a EVH 50 and Peavey 5150s and like them just felt it was "generic".

I was at sweetwater in Dec and ran the EVH100 through a Marshall AX cab, because I have that cab and tried a tele with single coils and was shocked with how awesome the clean channel and 2nd channel sounded. It was like, what in the world type of shock. Then I tried high gain.

It just sounded fantastic. So now I own an EVH 100 that is a year old off a very negotiable seller.

It's a great amp. I also found some pictures of EVH set up with these amps, not the stealth and set up my settings just like his out of curiosity and it sounds great.

I do not play anything remotely similar to Van Halen, it's just a great sounding amp.

Out of everything you listed, this is the amp I'd buy of the amps you've listed.

 

[NexusMT]

Engl Powerball get's my vote. You get 4 Channels, from fender cleans to downtune distortion plus a mid boost and a noise gate. What else do you need ?

 

[Kosthrash]

All your listed amps have killer tones, I'd just mention the new DSL100hr (you even can get the DSL20hr brand new within your budget) and the EVH 5150 Iconic 80w head.

 

[tayistay]

How much is the Victory Kraken go for used in the UK? Great amp!

 

[jonsick]

I'm on the hunt for a new amp. I'm selling my current amp (Brunetti) and looking for something that can spit fire, scare the neighbours but also not be an annoying hissy mess.

Currently, I've got these in mind:

Peavey JSX - I had one of these and loved it, so high on my list
Marshall JVM 205H - I used to own the 410H and loved that too. number 1 spot of wanting at the moment.
Marshall DSL/TSL - heard nothing but good things about their tone, but heard bad things about reliability. I do live near the Marshall factory, so may not be a huge deal if something goes wrong
Engl Powerball - Had one a very long time ago and couldn't get on with it at the time (didn't have a great cab at the time) . However, the other guitarist in my last band had one and I loved the tone.

How is the reliability of the JCM2000s?

and are there any amps you'd recommend around the £500/$600 mark on the used market?

I have owned or currently own all of these and my assessment is:

Peavey JSX. Great amplifier, not too noisy and has a very smooth tone to it. I found it missed a good bit of grind on its distortion channels, but I like mine overall.

Marshall JVM410H. The bigger brother to the 205H. I like the sound of it overall but the two things that keep it off my top spot on the list is that overall it's quite dark sounding and secondly vastly complicated. Though I am used to it, all those knobs and buttons means it is not a set and forget amplifier.

Marshall JCM2000 DSL100 vs DSL100HR. The modern HR is a little more closed in sounding than the JCM2000 variant. But even so given overall reliability (more below), I would go for the HR version if this is on your list.

Engl Powerball: I owned the v1 on the Powerball and it sounded great in the room, but add a band and it disappears in almost any mix. I run a Powerball II live now and it's leaps and bounds better than the original. Four channels (of which I use three really) and crucially the EQ knobs sound good in almost any position. They do like a V-30 loaded cab, though I use V-Types in my Marshall 1960AV and it sounds perfect. I don't think I am changing anytime soon.

Marshall TSL100: I have multiple of these amplifiers and I definitely cause a little disagreement when I say it's the best Marshall amplifier ever made. Of course, read below about reliability. It is a 3-channel head with reverb. The channels all sound good, two effects loops so one for clean channel and one for the gain channel and it's by far my favourite sounding amplifier ever owned. It's the amplifier I also record with primarily above anything else.

Now, JCM2000 reliability. All JCM2000s are affected; I have been told only up to 2005 made heads or so, but I have had a 2005 head in with this issue. And it is thus. The mainboard's PCB becomes conductive over time. That is as the amplifier heats up, the substrate of the PCB begins to become conductive which is now what you want in a PCB. The typical symptoms are that the bias starts to fall on one side and run away on the other as the amplifier heats up. Sonically it sounds like a buzz saw and chances are your valves will start glowing red. For the JCM2000s, it isn't a case of if, it's really when it happens.

There are modifications that I have found online and actually performed on a couple of JCM2000s. They work but they don't stay working. I have had those repairs come back on me about two months down the line.

In my view the only lasting fix is to replace the mainboard entirely with a new manufactured board from Marshall. Though they used to be readily available, Marshall have reduced their manufacture significantly over time and thus availability is likely going to be via Marshall only. Despite having bought around 40-50 of these boards to replace into JCM2000s over the course of the last 15 years or so, Marshall played hardline with me the last time to the point where I told the guy to go to Marshall for replacement directly as it was easier than me trying to eek a job out of it (I don't do enough repair to justify attempting to keep the business when it's easier for a customer to just go there and I just don't bother charging them).

The result is a fully working amplifier. The oldest TSL100 that I did this modification on is a 1998 build and I replaced the board myself in around 2012 or so. It's been going perfectly since then, never broken down once. So replacing the mainboard in my view is the proper solution. Just beware that if the amplifier has been running in that condition for any length of time, there may be other issues besides. I have had to replace a good few output transformers due to previous owners not caring about the issue and still running the amplifier in that state.

You may think that Marshall learned their lesson? Nope, the JVM series is affected by the same issue. My JVM410H is a 2020 build and has already had a mainboard replacement (by Marshall as again they wouldn't supply me with the board directly).

Cost-wise, the last known figure I had for the mainboard replacement in a JCM2000 DSL100 a customer of mine had was £180 or so back in around 2018 from my potentially shaky memory.

So while the JCM2000s sound great and I still truly believe the TSL100 to be one of the best amplifiers made by Marshall, expect a repair bill on day one most likely. But given they go for around £300-£400, add £200 of repair, you're into it about £500-£600. Or if you get lucky and find a used unit that has had the work done, then happy days.

Another thing I note about the JCM2000s is how beaten up a lot of the amplifiers on the used market are. My theory is that Marshall supplied a lot of these amplifiers to rental companies for touring bands and festivals and the like and as a result they received little to no care in their use or maintenance. When they got any sort of age on them, they just got turfed out onto the used markets to owners who didn't know better to maintain them and potentially put them in their garage to sit for a decade before selling on. They were made in fairly high numbers. That's my theory, don't quote that as fact.

If you want to play safe and the Marshall sound is your thing, I would potentially go for the DSL100HR overall as it will have a warranty if you buy it new. If you want a nice more open sound and an amplifier that will treat you right, go for a TSL100 and expect to do some repair work.

Of course, if you don't want any of that and like the more controllable distortion sounds without having to add boost pedals and sounds good in almost any EQ position, definitely look at the Engl Powerball II.

 

[maliciousteve]

I have owned or currently own all of these and my assessment is:

Peavey JSX. Great amplifier, not too noisy and has a very smooth tone to it. I found it missed a good bit of grind on its distortion channels, but I like mine overall.

Marshall JVM410H. The bigger brother to the 205H. I like the sound of it overall but the two things that keep it off my top spot on the list is that overall it's quite dark sounding and secondly vastly complicated. Though I am used to it, all those knobs and buttons means it is not a set and forget amplifier.

Marshall JCM2000 DSL100 vs DSL100HR. The modern HR is a little more closed in sounding than the JCM2000 variant. But even so given overall reliability (more below), I would go for the HR version if this is on your list.

Engl Powerball: I owned the v1 on the Powerball and it sounded great in the room, but add a band and it disappears in almost any mix. I run a Powerball II live now and it's leaps and bounds better than the original. Four channels (of which I use three really) and crucially the EQ knobs sound good in almost any position. They do like a V-30 loaded cab, though I use V-Types in my Marshall 1960AV and it sounds perfect. I don't think I am changing anytime soon.

Marshall TSL100: I have multiple of these amplifiers and I definitely cause a little disagreement when I say it's the best Marshall amplifier ever made. Of course, read below about reliability. It is a 3-channel head with reverb. The channels all sound good, two effects loops so one for clean channel and one for the gain channel and it's by far my favourite sounding amplifier ever owned. It's the amplifier I also record with primarily above anything else.

Now, JCM2000 reliability. All JCM2000s are affected; I have been told only up to 2005 made heads or so, but I have had a 2005 head in with this issue. And it is thus. The mainboard's PCB becomes conductive over time. That is as the amplifier heats up, the substrate of the PCB begins to become conductive which is now what you want in a PCB. The typical symptoms are that the bias starts to fall on one side and run away on the other as the amplifier heats up. Sonically it sounds like a buzz saw and chances are your valves will start glowing red. For the JCM2000s, it isn't a case of if, it's really when it happens.

There are modifications that I have found online and actually performed on a couple of JCM2000s. They work but they don't stay working. I have had those repairs come back on me about two months down the line.

In my view the only lasting fix is to replace the mainboard entirely with a new manufactured board from Marshall. Though they used to be readily available, Marshall have reduced their manufacture significantly over time and thus availability is likely going to be via Marshall only. Despite having bought around 40-50 of these boards to replace into JCM2000s over the course of the last 15 years or so, Marshall played hardline with me the last time to the point where I told the guy to go to Marshall for replacement directly as it was easier than me trying to eek a job out of it (I don't do enough repair to justify attempting to keep the business when it's easier for a customer to just go there and I just don't bother charging them).

The result is a fully working amplifier. The oldest TSL100 that I did this modification on is a 1998 build and I replaced the board myself in around 2012 or so. It's been going perfectly since then, never broken down once. So replacing the mainboard in my view is the proper solution. Just beware that if the amplifier has been running in that condition for any length of time, there may be other issues besides. I have had to replace a good few output transformers due to previous owners not caring about the issue and still running the amplifier in that state.

You may think that Marshall learned their lesson? Nope, the JVM series is affected by the same issue. My JVM410H is a 2020 build and has already had a mainboard replacement (by Marshall as again they wouldn't supply me with the board directly).

Cost-wise, the last known figure I had for the mainboard replacement in a JCM2000 DSL100 a customer of mine had was £180 or so back in around 2018 from my potentially shaky memory.

So while the JCM2000s sound great and I still truly believe the TSL100 to be one of the best amplifiers made by Marshall, expect a repair bill on day one most likely. But given they go for around £300-£400, add £200 of repair, you're into it about £500-£600. Or if you get lucky and find a used unit that has had the work done, then happy days.

Another thing I note about the JCM2000s is how beaten up a lot of the amplifiers on the used market are. My theory is that Marshall supplied a lot of these amplifiers to rental companies for touring bands and festivals and the like and as a result they received little to no care in their use or maintenance. When they got any sort of age on them, they just got turfed out onto the used markets to owners who didn't know better to maintain them and potentially put them in their garage to sit for a decade before selling on. They were made in fairly high numbers. That's my theory, don't quote that as fact.

If you want to play safe and the Marshall sound is your thing, I would potentially go for the DSL100HR overall as it will have a warranty if you buy it new. If you want a nice more open sound and an amplifier that will treat you right, go for a TSL100 and expect to do some repair work.

Of course, if you don't want any of that and like the more controllable distortion sounds without having to add boost pedals and sounds good in almost any EQ position, definitely look at the Engl Powerball II.

Thanks Jon. If I remember right, it was you who I bought my first Powerball from years ago.

I think I may give the Marshalls a miss, I’ve heard nothing but great clips but I don’t think I want the hassle of something like a dodgy pcb.

I think after much thinking I’m going to narrow it down to a JSX or an Engl of some kind. I’ll see if I can stretch to a powerball II but I also heard sticking an EQ pedal into the powerball I fx loop helps with cutting through a bit better. I’lol be running it with an Orange 2x12 with V30s so it’s good to know it’ll pair well

 

[jonsick]

Thanks Jon. If I remember right, it was you who I bought my first Powerball from years ago.

I think I may give the Marshalls a miss, I’ve heard nothing but great clips but I don’t think I want the hassle of something like a dodgy pcb.

I think after much thinking I’m going to narrow it down to a JSX or an Engl of some kind. I’ll see if I can stretch to a powerball II but I also heard sticking an EQ pedal into the powerball I fx loop helps with cutting through a bit better. I’lol be running it with an Orange 2x12 with V30s so it’s good to know it’ll pair well

Wow it was indeed! I do remember that. I think that was the beginning of the end of my even playing for a long ol' time too. I think it was about 3 years later before I actually even picked up a guitar again.

I don't blame you for missing out on the Marshalls. Personally I find it astounding that Marshall didn't learn their lessons from the JCM2000 and that JVM series amplifiers are coming up with the same problems. It's even more amazing that they have really clamped down on providing replacement boards like they used to.

I have never been able to AB a Powerball I and II. Someone mentioned that the main difference was the PB2 has a larger output transformer which solved the cutting through issue. For me, I'm pretty sorted with the II and does what I want it to do no problem. This is a live clip of my PB2 (ESP EII Arrow 7 string) and my counterpart is on a 6505+ with an EII Eclipse 7.



If I had zero amplifiers and was choosing again from scratch, I think a PB2 would be the first amplifier I would buy... followed by a TSL100 haha.

 

[BabUShka]

For the moment I play both Powerball and JVM205.
They are both very different amps with a lot of dialing options. I love the very modern and compressed sound of the powerball. The high gain channel is brutal from the first note. Good cleans. Crunch, not so much imo. Good leads.

Soundwise I think the JVM is superior to most amps I've played.. Its just so amazing. Good cleans, OK crunch and fantasic high gains. Its also compressed, but not as much as the Powerball. For me, the JVM will always be my go-to-amp. People say its modern and compressed, but imo not nearly as much as the Powerball. It does everything. Most times I think the Powerball is insanely good, but when I plug in the JVM - its more raw and opened-sounding.

If you are very dependent on the FX-loop, I can comment that my JVM sounds like shit through the loop. I know others who has complained. Not that important for me as I use the built in reverb and nothing else, but if you will use a lot of effects in the loop, do some reasearch before you but the JVM. In general it takes pedals really well in front of the amp.

Im thinking of keeping my JVM, and maybe replacing the PB with another smaller ENGL amp. (Fireball 25, Ironball).
Hard to choose only one.. JVM sounds better imo, but ENGL make cool amps with a solid built quality.