NAD: Marshall DSL20HR

[culturejam]

I've actually had this for about two weeks now. Just wanted to wait to play it a few hours before I weighed in with an opinion on tone, features, etc.

Overall, I really like it. I'll break down what I see as the pros and cons:

PRO:
• Tons of gain on tap on the red channel, but it never gets fizzy.
• Low-end is very prominent but can be mostly dialed out if desired (Bass control + Resonance control)
• The tone stack is very responsive and works in a logical way
• Sounds *phenomenal* when cranked and *really really good* at lower volumes...this is all on the 20W mode
• It's 20W but still has EL34s, but it's cathode biased instead of fixed. So it's still got a "big bottle" sound about it without being a total beast watts-wise.
• Digital reverb is pretty decent. Better than a Belton brick, but not as good as a dedicated DSP pedal or rack unit.

CON:
• The green (clean) channel is what I would call "neither fish nor fowl". It can't ever get totally squeaky clean (with humbuckers anyway), but it also doesn't ever top out with a nice crunch. It goes from sorta-clean to not-quite-driven.
• In the 10W mode on the red channel, the same tone is mostly still there as 20W, but there is a fair loss of high end which requires an EQ adjustment to get it close to the 20W mode. Still, it's impressive and a noticeable volume reduction. I marked this a con because I had read many comments saying "it sounds exactly the same at 10W as 20W", but I'm just not hearing that.

Not tested yet: effects loop, emulated output jack.

Other notes:
• The EL34s are JJ brand and matched (see photos below). The silkscreen says Marshall, but the shape is a dead giveaway...as is the JJ logo sticker on the base.  
• The phase inverter appears to be Chinese, but V1 and V2 appear to be JJ as well. Silkscreen markings are identical to the EL34s, and I compared the internals to some JJ 12ax7s I have, and they look nearly identical (same getter, same plate size and configuration, etc).

Enough yapping. Here's some photos.

[pickdropper]

I've spent a lot of time playing old Marshalls lately and I find that I almost always have to knock the bass to 0.

I've only spent a little time with that amp, but it seems pretty cool.  I'd probably spend most of my time playing with the red channel.  If there is a high end loss with the 10W setting, I'd just stick on the 20W setting as it's only a 3dB volume cut to go down to half power (theoretically, at least).

[jimilee]

Neat little box


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[culturejam]

If there is a high end loss with the 10W setting, I'd just stick on the 20W setting as it's only a 3dB volume cut to go down to half power (theoretically, at least).

Agreed. The 20W setting is easy enough to run at low master volume and still sounds good. I mainly brought up the 10W high loss because I had seen some guys on TGP claim that it sounded "exactly" the same in both modes. I do not agree. 

[gordo]

Nice little amp.  I like the fact that it's not running EL84's.  Nice sounding tubes but you just can't get the "grunt" out of the smaller bottles.

[culturejam]

I decided that even though this is a cathode biased amp, I might as well check the current draw on the power tubes. I have one of those "bias probe" sockets with DMM leads I got ages ago and have never used (until tonight).

Maybe I'm using it wrong (but it seems like there's only one way?), but it looks like the one tube I checked is pulling 56mA in 20W mode.

Seems high, right? Like, an EL34 should be pulling 35mA - 40mA in most cases, from what I've read.

I had a speaker load attached, and a guitar plugged in to the input. I think I set it all up right.

Is the current draw different for cathode bias? Is it possible the reading is for both tubes? Obviously, I know fuck-all about how this stuff works. 

[culturejam]

And just for kicks, here's a gut shot:

[culturejam]

I put the stock preamp tubes back in so I could test the stock JJ EL34 power tubes vs a set of JJ E34L tubes. As expected, it's not a night/day difference. But I could hear some differences.

The E34L tubes break up a little bit later than the stock tubes and the overall sustain on the dirty channel is slightly less. It's maybe a 10-15% difference, but it's enough to notice. I don't have golden ears, so if I notice it, it's probably really happening.

On the clean channel, there's not much difference other than the slightly less gain of the E34Ls, which to me is an improvement.

The other main thing I can hear is that the E34Ls have less hum/noise than the stock tubes. Again, not a "game changer" difference, but I noticed it.

[thesmokingman]

going to keep this one in mind ... I have an 18 watt and there are two main things lacking there, master volume and an effects loop ... still eyeballing the or-15 too