Marshall Valvestate VS65R- Was It As BAD As I Remember? 

It’s been a while since I’ve seen you RU-vid’n it…Glad to see your still kickin it.

I had written these off a long time ago too but I loved almost all of the tones in this amp and all of the ones you liked I also liked. I also love watching you play and rip. Thanks!

I’d like to see a speaker upgrade for sure. A sound comparison of the old and new speaker, and closing the back up with both speakers compared would be pretty cool. I’m all for Fine Tuning vids. This is my favorite RU-vid channel. I’ve been a Planet Tone customer because of this channel. You’ve never steered me wrong Lucas. Oh by the way, your vid on the different guitarist you’ve come across from your days working at music shops is a go to for when I need a laugh. I showed it to my son and he found it as hilarious as I did! Thanks for the vids as always, congrats on the new space, please keep them coming.

Good demo, I have a VS100 and the trick to taming the harshness on these amps I've found after some experimentation is to stick a Mullard brand Long Plate 12AX7 preamp tube in there, one that already has pre burn in, and it gets rids of the ice picky harshness, smooths it out and fattens up the tone and reduces that hybrid sizzle

Haha. Yeah, I think the reason we all remember our original gear being so bad is because we had no idea how to use it, or any idea what a good tone actually sounded like. We also didn’t have the skill to make the best of it either way.

Has any one tried a Celestion 30 watt speaker in this Valvestate. I have one of these along with 3 other valve combos and I just can't part with it. I'm the original owner and all I've ever replaced on this amp is the transformer . It goes to all the shows with me . But I'm interested in hearing back about new speakers tried out on this Valvestate.

Excellent video! Getting the perfect tone is a matter of personal taste and we only get to the point of discovering what we like after years of sonic exploration and experimentation.

Thinking of finally taking one of these, 100w most probably. Great to see you pulling out some great sounds of it, not surprised, love your stuff...i think these amps are incredible workhorse amps

I took one of these and put a celestion speaker in it and it is my main recording amp now

This is the exact amp I gigged with in 2007. Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

Got one of these back in 1990, still have it to this day although its been years since it was used. Always wondered if a better speaker would improve the tone

I have one of these and did the speaker out jack mod. Now I can play through my 2x12 cab. Sounds great. I've also noticed on these that the power resistors get very hot. In fact mine was damaging the board so I replaced them with heatsink style resistors, screwed them to the chassis and wired back to the pcb. Works great, no overheating. You're welcome to pictures if you wanted them.

I'd love to see a speaker upgrade and see made to hook into a cab as well. that would be really cool!!

Do it man! I have the same amp and I'm planning to stick a V30 into it + new 12ax7. It was my first "real" amp back then so it's all about second chances😂

Nice review!!!!

Static X used the Valvestate amps on tour going way back to their early days. They were cheap, generally reliable, and very heavy sounding on the highest gain settings. Most importantly, they didn't get mooshy or flubby when the gain was cranked to 10. They stayed pretty tight. I'd like to pick up one to have around as an inexpensive emergency amp. Plus, they don't weigh much. Easy to lug around.

I bought my VS100R circa 2001 and I remember it being as close as you could possibly get to something like a DSL. The VS line was definitely on a different league than Marshall's MG range or the Peavy Bandit. Nowadays I run a SC20H but I still keep the VS100R for the memories and having the ocasional fun with some high gain chugging. I can see now why Valvestates are popular with the metal heads. Also the VS100R had jack outputs for two cabinets, didn't know that wasn't the case with the smaller VS65R.

This was designed to be a hybrid so I think you found that! I plug a schaffer replica into mine and I love it. It gets rid of the flatness you're talking about. That will give you the ACDC, Def Leppard guitar crunch that isn't flat. This is my practice, do everything amp.

i have 5 marshalls, reverb 12, a sort of lead 12 with added reverb, the predecessor of the vs65 the 8040, a lead 20, an avt 20 and a 8020. all sound good and similar. with my beloved uk g12t-75 from nineties. you nailed the problem, when we were younger we are not able to get a proper setting lol :D

The boil down is you can hear there is a valve but it's not pushed hard enough into saturation for it to assert it's dominance. *This is certainly on purpose and I imagine they imagined guys would mod them, but that was never a trend I'm aware of.* I'm also sure they expected it to be used as a pedal platform but that becomes expensive. I'm a shred and sweep guy, but I prefer solid-state; I'm also an electrical/electronics engineer by college education, so it makes me an oddball twice over. Valves become far too expensive of rigs when I know what is ultimately inside them. You either spend 3-5 grand on a boutique head, or you buy something "known" and start pedal stomping it until delight, and either way it just gets expensive beyond it's value. I think the Valvestate rather than try to please the tube guys, they aimed for getting a tube into the hands of solid-state guys. The bottom line is the circuit should have put the tube into heavy plate saturation so it can deliver the truest of valve experiences, but it doesn't. With all that said, and it was a lot, I still think they sound like great amps.

I'd be really interested to hear a speaker swap on this or hear it through an external cab. Def try some mods.

Boy, if you wanted to cut through a mix, that'll work...

Years ago I bought one of those from a bum outside a bar in Savannah, Ga for $20. They definitely do the metal thing. I could nail Fear Factory tones with the VS65 hooked to the peavey 4x12 i had at the time. legit no clue how well it did for normal rock music. I ended up selling it to a local shop for $165.

You have to balance the contour and treble for this amp 'cause it really is very sizzly. Once you master these two controls, it starts to sound a lot better... 27:05 the contour control is VERY touchy at the start of its range

I just watched my first one of your videos on the Splawn Quick Rod and, damn, you grew up fast... took like 20 minutes. You reminded me back then of one of my best friends from HS (Memphis early 80s) who also played guitar. You're much better than him, obviously. I was as well and I started taking classical lessons at age 7 in 1973, first Les Paul in '76 at 10 and Marshall 2203 half stack w/the black back T1281's in the 1982 bass cab at 12 in '78... so 51 years of almost non-stop playing this year. Still have that infamous Paul but the Marshall burned up in a bandhouse fire in 1995. Just got a 2012 QR from GC today but my neighbors are on high alert after I got a bit lit this weekend and blew them out so I'll have to take my ass downtown to my old practice spot or somewhere else to get jiggy wif it. Later!

I liked it. That's why I'm in the process of buying one. I think it has some useable tones. So sure, upgrade it so I can see how it works. Besides, that's what I like about Marshalls, they don't sound like Fenders. 😀

So these are great amps if you are willing to work with the peripharel equipment used with it. The cabs and stock speakers are not good. I reccomend either celestion g12h-100s or Mesa celestion black shadows to boost the bottom end and tame the highs of this amp. Putting said speakers in closed back cabinets with oversized dimensions make it even better. Step 2 is to add an EQ in the loop to roll back the 11k-13k fizziness. 3rd of all, I have never heard an amp that reacted more positively than this one to having a BBE sonic maximizer in the loop. These 3 additions will make this amp an absolute beast. A buddy of mine has a dual rectifier half stack and told me he would have saved 1000+ dollars if he knew he could buy a VS and get the type of sound I am getting out of mine. Lol

Fuauuu como suena!!!💪🤩

Warehouse et 65 wakes up these amps like you can believe. Highly recommend them.

It likens itself to a glorified bedroom amp at a keg party where you're put on the spot and expected to 'do it'. I'd say it's worthy of the switching jack mod I used to do for people were you could plug in a decent ext cab and defeat the God knows what factor of that unforgiving stock 'speaker'. Kinda reminds me of one of those transistor 100w skinny Marshall heads from the 70s. I knew a dude that had one back then, and a 73 1959 and I was like 'WHY?'. I also picked up a transistor 70s 30w 2x12 Master Lead Combo I got from a pawn shop back in the 80s. Who would've thought those 20w black back speakers in there would be worth as much as people have been asking for them lately? I'm like 'Uh.. no way'. it sounded okay but not quite where they took this one you have, which is more like the 100w tranny head I mentioned. I did the exact opposite mod to it so I could use as a cabinet for my head to save my girlfriend's back. Truth be told, it was really bad...! 32:01 Hey, there's the first Mosquito Blender circuit living in there. That's a cool feature.

Also your PRS DGT will make a massive difference as well. As opposed to playing a Strat or single coils through it. It would be awesome to see you turn it into a head, reckon it would wicked through a 4x12 cab couple of pedals, and that lovely DGT. Overall, good review

I have a Marshall model 8100 valvestate head with a Marshall 1936 2x12 cab with vintage 30's sounds good not great but good lol...

Idk man. My buddy had one of these in the day and I thought it sounded great then. I was def jealous. Didn't Meshuggah play these things ?

Amp has No Balls on Distortion. Whattai expect with 1 Tube 🙄

Got some really great sounds out of this, man! Great playing as always, too. Definitely would watch a speaker swap video. I probably wouldn’t do a Vintage 30 because that 2k spike might exacerbate that high-end sizzle. I’d say Celestion creamback all the way - it’s got the wattage handling and that deeper, richer voice. The Eminence Private Jack would sound amazing but it’s a 50-watt speaker (although the greenback it’s based on is only 25w). Just some ideas!

I love my valve state 20 watt it sounds better then my buddies 100 watt valve state head

The Valvestate amps definitely were aimed at the metal scene. Really, they do that fairly well. They weren’t aimed at Fender at all. So comparing the two is certainly oranges vs. apples. These things are super subjective. Perhaps a more reasonable comparison might be against the less expensive Marshall amps like the DSL. Lesser tube amp Marshall against Valvestate Marshall?

Never liked the valvestate combos but the heads were nice and fit my budget.

This sound Good. 👍 You def had wrong in your pawnshopadventure.

It's the tragedy of entry-mid level amps like this that they seem to be exclusively used by beginners who don't have the experience to get any kind of nice sounds out of them

This is the guy who claims Greco Les Paul's are better than Epiphone and Gibson Les Pauls myself and friends are still laughing at him..

I had one in the 90’s. It was awful from what I remember.

i couldn't here anything wrong with it , seems like a good working mans amp ...