Marshall Astoria Unleashed - The Capt visits Marshall HQ 

Lee is totally in his element doing these interviews. His knowledge of the industry and being a true fan of the guitar is apparent. Well done!

I'm intrigued by this "Sensitivity" control operating as a negative feedback loop on the *preamp* stage, and the "Edge" control being an EQ control. I think I might have preferred it if the Edge were a traditional power amp negative feedback Presence control, and they added a power amp negative feedback Resonance control, while still keeping the "Sensitivity" control. In any case, I'm really happy that Marshall took a chance on bringing out an amp that sort of flies in the face of what most people think when the word "Marshall" enters their brains. The Astoria Classic is the first Marshall I've ever seen/heard that makes me want to buy a Marshall. It's a shame I didn't find out about it until years after it was discontinued. Well, it's definitely on my bucket list of amps, now.

The dirty red one almost had me fiddling my knob. Well done Marshall!

I got the Custom. It was a belt-tightening purchase that I had to think long and hard about. It sounds UNBELIEVABLY good with both a Strat and a Les Paul. Like a lot of vintage Marshalls, it's midrangey and present without being harsh or fizzy; even with a fair amount of gain it has clarity and is unforgiving of bad technique (I've verified this :-). The EQ is powerful and it's set up to sound pretty good with everything at 12 o'clock, unlike the JTM45. When you see it in person the price makes more sense; it's a cost-be-damned build: hand-wired, flying leads, big heavy transformers, good KT66s (which aren't cheap), vintage-style large format electronics, great sounding tube FX loop, and elaborate & meticulous tolex and piping fit & finish. It's still a touch expensive in the US even given all that. If Marshall wanted to up the quality it's not obvious what they would change as I don't see evidence of compromise. Head and cab each weigh just shy of 40 lbs, have confidence-inspiring handles, and come with nice covers, which have been handy for bad weather in New England. The master volume is post-phase-inverter and sounds great; I don't know how the power scaling works but it's very effective. Full volume in "5 watt" mode, though, is still enough to rattle everything in a bedroom and produces SPLs I can't take for long. There's a hum-canceling circuit (variable pot inside the chassis) which renders it very quiet--even with the master volume dimed, which is effectively a master bypass according to the manual, it's easily quiet enough for recording. What surprised me the most was the gain range--the videos online showcase medium to boosted gain sounds, but it can do a great clean, especially using the low input. There's maybe a pinch of preamp tube compression, but no breakup. It can do jazz to hard rock/early metal at performance volumes. Ultimately I see it as eliminating the idiosyncrasies of the JTM45 (such as too much bass, limited volume control) and adding useful features like a PPIMV and more built-in gain, without giving up great KT66-derived vintage Marshall cleans and semi-cleans.

more Captain Visits videos please! these are great! i'd love to see a Blackstar one!

R.I.P to all of Marshall's great sounding discontinued amps. DSL 50, Vintage Modern, Astoria, Valvestate, TSL, Joe Satriani JVM, Super Bass, JMP, and many many others.

The first proper video about those one. Congrats Lee :)

and thats a MARSHALL! that green one with the pedal was just amazing!

25:55 Mick Taylor from Guitarist??

I love my Astoria Custom. Have it loaded up with NOS valves. Those lovely Genelex KT-66's sound wonderful!

THIS is how every amp demo should be done!

No posing, no showboating....just a good demo. This is great.

Finally found this vid! I had the pleasure of meeting The Captain after they had finished this shoot. That was a great day. If you have a chance to tour the Marshall factory, make sure you do!

Single channels are the most pure and 'boutiquey' but I'm pretty wedded to the '2 channels and FX loop' setup now so I'd go for the blue one.

Chris George has come along way from playing with his band at the Penrith Guitar Show where i first saw him preform , what a great job ,a total pleasure to come to work every day LUCKY MAN !!!!!!!!!!!!!

This has convinced me to check one of these out for myself at my local store as soon as they get them in. I've always been a Fender amp guy ( and nothing but! ) however I'm definitely impressed. Great video. Thank you very much for doing it.

Great demo and great amps! collected them all 3 now awesome amps.

I have to say, I've been lusting after all the Friedman, Victory and Dr Z amps for a while and i really didn't think Marshall had anything left to offer as a "New" amp. That being said these amps sound amazing and i love the added flexibility. The main complaint I had with my old 2061X was that it was so one dimensional. Thanks Cap for actually messing with an amp like the rest of us would if we could be there!

always great to see you interacting with musos and talking gear Capt

Just picked one up from my Marshall rep. Really dig this amp! BTW I am the GSM for Mark's Guitar Exchange in San Diego. Dig all the vids you post & share them with my clients! Cheers!

Brilliant amps. Love the tones here but when Lee plugged his R8 in at the end it just went up to a whole new level.

I hate to say it, but I'm in the "Black, White, and Gold" camp when it comes to Marshall amps, but looks aside, the amp sounds fantastic! The whole "modern boutique" discussion though really is about reproduction models vs vintage-sounding ones with modern features like master volume, multiple inputs/outputs, effects loop, and power attenuation for home/studio usage. The Capt and Chris certainly get into that somewhat, but for all the reasons they use to argue the value of 30-watt amps for modern guitarists... it sort of becomes a sales pitch for the VOX AC30!

Chris George..... A thinner angrier Chappers.

These amps look like Marvel's Avengers. The Hulk, Iron Man, and Captain America.

Best Astoria demo to date. Most others sound horrible, especially those done on the convention floor.

wow!! i could sooooooooo rock the green one!!! I'm really happy to see Marshall step up and not just resting on their laurels!!

That Fender strat comes to live with the Custom one! INSANE

This amp sounds amazing. Nice and chunky.

Great video, thanks for the wonderful overview of this new amp line. They all sound great. If I had to pick one I'd go with the Red one for the high gain and wonderful tone, since I'm a high gain player. Thank you Captain and Chris for putting this together!

I am currently in the studio and have recorded guitar using my 95 Gibson LP Standard and Fender Strat and I'm ready to up my game on my amp. I played through a Plexi and a JCM 800 SL. I would love to hear a shot out between the Austoria Custom and the heads mentioned here before getting once stp closer to taking the leap! Love the video and thank you for sharing this!

all of these sound fantastic! I ordered the Custom Head - can't wait

cant watch this guy chewing gum for half an hour

Probably the best thing Marshall put out in a while

When he turned that "custom" gain up all the way with the boost... o-m-g!

Ok, these amps sound officially stellar

the gain on the custom/red one is nice. still sounds natural even 3/4 of the way up but just right for modern metal

I would have been great if Marshall filmed the 'blind test' of when they were testing which tubes to use for the amp. It would be great to hear the differences between the KT66, EL34 - and personally I think an old US made pair of Tung Sol 6550s would be amazing too! Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page both went 6550/KT88s in their Marshalls for a reason...they sound amazing!

First class video from Chris and Lee ,the sounds were enormous Lee well don you got the best sound out of that gibby of yours and when I go in to your store I also feel like a kid going in to a sweetshop for the first time,woppy :-)

The Captain is extremely polite and concise. I sure would like to see Marshall hit it out of the park with something good. It's a long time coming. Friedman has kind of filled in the gap where Marshall has failed in the last 5 years or so, IMO, as far as the Marshall type sound goes....especially Plexi.

chris george, brilliant lefty player, great review!

Astoria Custom puedo decir que me encanta, suena hermoso, he probado varios amplificadores, Astoria Custom es un equipo especial, tiene el overdrive Perfecto. Salud

I love how much Lee loves his les paul

Blue one for me! Such great amps.

OMG that Astoria Custom is a KILLER!!! I LIKE!!!

Great amps Marshall! Love em... That said, the aforementioned Marshall Vintage Modern did all this and more (body control, detail control, KT66's, etc ...minus the power scaling) so while these are great new amps - the VM was ahead of its time and still my favorite Marshall amp ever.

Sounded huge and great playing.

The red and blue models are camps that compete with the brown eyes and metro plexis. Best thing Marshall have done since the 70s imho. Incredible tone. Giving me GAS!

dig the amps,shame i gotta sell me kids to afford one.

These sound great which is something I haven't said about a new Marshall product for a long time! was that Mick Taylor doing the filming?!

NICE!! Sounds like the Captn has been practicing!

Is it possible that the green one, being single ended, derives a larger part of its gain from the power stage, this is why the power reduction reduces more gain - as opposed to cascading gain, where relatively more drive is gotten from the pre-amp stage?

les pauls look sick left handed, weird, they never really catch my eye otherwise

There's really no bad tone in there anywhere. That's the measure of an amp.

Fantastic demo!! Subscribed!!

Marshalls are pretty epic guitars - that is pretty nice...

The Marshall guy came up with a killer band name-Fight for Feedback.

Red one sounds amazing

Should have given Mick Taylor a turn.

finally a lefty on your channel!

that red amp makes me want to pick a flying v and jam some Michael Schenker stuff

The sound of the Lee's Les Paul is the reason I will never buy a Les Paul via Mail Order. When I buy one, I will go to a shop and play every single one until I find a magic one.

No combo love?? Bloody great stuff though :) Review of this and then the new Blackstar Artist tone coming out. Britain is fighting back!!!

Ha the Captain sounded great with the Les Paul. Give that Strat to the Surf players.

Great great video Cap, really enjoyed this one! Red or blue, red or blue??? :-)

Very nice indeed!!!

He said if your a Marshall fan whats not to like? the price tag! Yeah it sounds good but so does a little change in my pocket jingling around.

I love those amps.

Why is Mick doing the camera? I would love to hear him giving these amps a go!

1:42 - The most important realisation Marshall has made in the last 20 years.

The Custom is basically a Hardrockers Wet Dream Amp.

Well played Captain

Classic model : Typically Celestion... the bass knob does almost nothing, Mid is somewhat hear-able, and only the highs and edge control really works. If i was to buy one of these amps i'd toss an Eminence in there in a hurry. Everytime i had trouble with unresponsive eQ on classic type amps, getting rid of celestions solved the problem. I don't know what's the big difference with Eminences and other brands but i found that they react extremely poorly to eQ changes. Doesn't seem to be a problem for the two other Astoria

Please, review the new Sentry Noise Gate that TC Electronic put out just about a week ago, that would awesome! :)

great video!

Are you guys doing Gibson overview this year?

30W does not seem to sufficient to annoy my neighbors that I hate so very much. I find that three Triple Recs and a Marshall pig get the job done.

still saving for jtm45 combo aka the blues breaker

I play through a JCM 2000 DSL 50-watt. I can play volume on 3 on either channel, clean or gain on the Clean channel, vintage or high gain on the Ultra Gain channel and the amp sounds as awesome as it does when turned up to 7 and above (which can also blow your ears out in a small venue!). Perhaps I got one of the "sweet spot" DSLs but I'm not so sure. With these I detected a sonic loss on the first amp, dirt-tone loss on the second one (blue Astoria) and definite gain loss on the Custom (Red) whenever the reduction was used... hmmm. Any one else hear the same?

very informative video, time to sell some overstock of gear to buy one of these.

14:21. THAT is THE tone.

Ill take one of each...

18:50 best chair squeaking effect yet

wow, that sounds thick. Loving it.

well capt the red one needs to be one of your two amp set up now,,, did you hear yourself with that less paul,, that should be your guitar also,,, next vid you in the studio playing it awl :)

oh God that red one...

Is that a dink on top of your LP headstock Capt?

Sounds like a typical Marshall except it has color coded case for people to see what each amp is for. Same old Marshall.

holy shit the custom!!!

I am still no real Marshall fan but i enjoyed watching you guys talking and playing! :)

Quality video .....

Are they going to do Astoria 4 x 12 cabs to match the heads?

Yeah!

Left is right

These amps are perfect, if only I had money D:

i love the Red one!!!!

Need to know what riff he's playing at 21:05... sounds awesome

ooo I loves a dirty red head.

The way he keeps saying sure

Hi everyone! Does anyone know if the celestion speaker that comes with the astoria cabinet (red) ("G12H-CC") has any difference with the Celestion Creamback G12H-75? I would greatly appreciate any information.

What was mr Marshalls favorite guitar or guitar brand?