JCM800 sounds a little more defined…the SLP has a darker, slightly muddier sound. That’s what MY ears think. 😊. That said, the SLP does better with the cleaner sound.
Craig Mcdonald is like Craig Ferguson dressed as Han Solo but very cool for demoing these battles in tone,and i will say that the tube Marshall sounds better until higher gain like Breakin the Law then the solid state sounded damn near perfect as the tube sounded woofy im cheap and live on the gain channel so solid state is a no brainer for me
The 2203 model dates from 1976, it's an evolution of the 1959 circuit with more gain and a master volume. Please understand that "JCM800" is only a SERIES name, not a MODEL, and it started with the same models that were in the previous JMP line, but marked Jim Marshall's long awaited day of freedom when he was finally freed from the HORRIBLE Rose Morris exclusive distributorship contract he'd been saddled with for fifteen years. The JCM800 name and models carrying it were thus free of having any association or obligation to Rose Morris. And fortunately the JCM800 product relaunch was successful and save the company. Marshall was down to just 18 full time employees at the time the JCM800 marketing campaign launched. I'm not sure what you're doing to make that 1959 sound so choked but it sounds NOTHING like any of my three original 1959s.
Jesus, when this video was made I wasn't even playing guitar. 10 years later, my thoughts are tubes being pushed is hard to replicate. However, SS amps have came along way and with the right pedals sound great. Remember, the beatles used the solid state VOX on Sgt peppers album. I own marshall valve amplifiers and have owned fender valve amplifiers. I also own a Roland Jazz chorus. And my jazz chorus with the right pedals sound incredible and isn't as fragile as the valve amplifiers.
In this demo the tube sounded better, the more distorted sound from the tube amp aside it does show what people like about a tube amp. It's not only the warmth or the tone (although that is a part of it) but the liveliness or dynamics as it would probably be called officially. Correct me if I'm wrong but solid state builders have been onto trying to get that lively aspect in solid state amps these days though, I don't know if this solid state amp has anything to make it respond more 'tube-like'.
Biggest tell tale is feedback in a tube amp is controllable,Solid state cuts feedback,and some frequencies.You can feel the tubes ringing and swelling with feedback.
They both sound like s*** there's nothing clean about your clean Channel it's dirty. Why do you need to put a microphone on both of them that changes the whole story completely.
A booster pedal through the FX Loop will only help raise the volume more or also be able to lower it without affecting the volume of the amp, but the volume of the pedal will behave only as an output volume but will not add more gain, it will only raise or lower the volume without affect the amp which can act as an attenuator, but if you want to drive or distort more, then a booster pedal is much better through the input between the guitar and the amp input, in this case the volume of the pedal it will not raise or lower the volume as an output volume, but through the Input it will behave as an input volume that will help the pickups have more gain and therefore the amplifier arrives with more gain through the Input than the booster pedal at through the FX Loop that will only increase or decrease volume but will not increase more gain, to saturate and increase more gain a booster would be much better for the Input as most rock and metal bands did.
If the booster pedal was connected through the input between the guitar and the amp input, the booster pedal would also increase the gain of the guitar pickups, otherwise a booster from the FX Loop will only get more. volume but it will not increase as much gain as from the Input, the booster from the Input would help to add more gain to the guitar pickups, achieving a much more saturated sound, not only from the power stage, in the past the plexis did not have FX inputs either Loop and clean boosters or preamps from the input clipped and added incredible gain and there were no FX loops. Try boosters like MXR Micro Amp, DOD 210 or DOD 250 with minimal overdrive, EHX LPB-1 or 2, or Boss FA-1 from the Input and between the guitar and the Input of the amp, it will add much more gain not only to the amplifier but it will also help the pickups deliver much more gain and with a guitar with humbucker pickups even better even, in addition to saturating the power stage of the amp it would also add more gain to the guitar pickups, but through the FX Loop will only add gain to the stage and not to the guitar pickups, which would also do another part in that, this type of preamp boosters was what Iron Maiden used for the first mythical albums and they saturated so well, the pickups do a lot , and a clean booster pedal and some EQ have also just helped the rest, they can also clean the sound much better when playing cleans and saturate a lot but sounding more like an amplifier when the pedal is a clean booster preamp with circuit of FET transistors that if the pedal were overdrive through a diode circuit that would sound dirtier and less like an amplifier, the cabinet, the microphone, and possible equalizer pedal will also influence the final sound.
Booster pedals are much better through the Input because in this type of amplifiers you want to saturate much more from the power stage, and through the Input and from the Preamp not only will the power stage be more saturated but it will also drag more the gain from the guitar pickups than if the booster pedal passes only from the FX Loop without passing through the guitar pickups.
Boss have done a pretty good job of making a solid-state amp that gets that valve tone with their Katana series of amps, I've got a Katana KTN-100 100W 1 X 12 amp, and I love it to bits, it gets that overdriven quad of EL34 valve sound by it's use of Boss's Tube Logic technology, they designed the power amp of the KTN-100 to behave like four EL34 valves, definitely worth the money I paid for it.
The valve Marshall amp sounds like it has more midrange harmonics when overdriven, the overdrive also sounds more smoother and pleasant to the ear, the solid-state Marshall sounds like it has less midrange harmonics in the overdrive, and the high harmonics seem to sound fizzy and harsh, that's what my ears are telling me anyway.
