Marshall MA Series brings valves to the masses
| Posted in Guitar
Marshall MA Series is likely to have become a top search item in Google by the time you read this, following the launch of Marshall Amplification’s new all-valve range. And with good reason – the MA Series has already been described as Marshall’s ‘most accessible range of valve-driven amplifiers ever’, and its most affordable.
These four amplifiers – the 50 Watt MA50H head, MA100H 100 Watt head, MA50C 50 Watt combo and the 100 Watt MA100C combo – have been designed to introduce players to valve amplification, without the bank-busting side-effects…
Indeed, you could see the range’s launch as the culmination of Marshall’s long-standing mission to bring valves to the masses, following on from the Valvestate topologies of the Nineties, which inserted a valve into the preamp of a solid state amp, and the more recent AVT models. For the MA Series, the solid state preamp and power amp sections are no more, leading Marshall to declare the amplifiers to be ‘the perfect stepping stone’ between a guitarist’s first Marshall and the brand’s major-league models.
Each MA amp is also packing a feature set likely to have guitarists all over the country drooling into their pickups. Marshall has described the dual-channel amplifiers – based on a classic combination of ECC83 double triode valves in the preamp and EL34 pentode valves in the power amp – as producing ‘clear bright notes’ when in the Clean channel and used with single-coil pickups. However, guitarists who make liberal use of their volume pot when switching to humbuckers will be able to enjoy the kind of organic signal break-up that inspires mountain-sized riffs.
Alternately, switching to Overdrive will unveil ‘the full potential of Marshall valve power’, while hitting the Overdrive Boost will add just enough extra gain to make even a folk music fan start pounding the air with their fingers outstretched.
Adding to this second and we think rather exciting option is a function named Crunch Balance control. Turning the Crunch Balance up automatically moves the amplifier’s overdrive tone closer to the boosted tone, while turning it back down reduces the amount of gain and volume in your unboosted overdrive. That means you can use the included two-way footswitch to dramatically leap from a crunchy verse into a screaming metal chorus.
Otherwise the amplifiers’ controls are kept minimal but effective, with separate EQ stages for the Clean and Overdrive channels, and a master section including presence, resonance and reverb for operating for the onboard spring reverb tank.
Perhaps the nicest touch however is the inclusion of two orange LEDs in each amplifier’s interior, with the simple function of illuminating the valves within. Those two lights alone could be enough to ensure that while the MA Series is lighting up the internet today, it won’t be long before it’s doing the same thing for stages everywhere
About Barney Jameson
A contributor, editor and in some cases creator of more music and pro audio magazines than he cares to remember, Barney Jameson is a veteran of writing about gear, and a pretty keen singer songwriter to boot.
Having started his musical education reading old copies of the Melody Maker while riding the tube to University in the mid-nineties, Barney once sang in a band called Sugarstone, troubling record company chequebooks not quite enough to make it a career option. Instead, he achieved his goal of starting a music magazine of his own when he founded Playmusic in the early noughties. Later on, having exploited VIP access to as many festivals as possible, he wrote about the pro audio industry throughout Europe and the Middle East, travelling to far-flung destinations such as Dubai, Doha and Muscat (nice mountains).
As the latest addition to the DV247 team, Barney has big plans. But when he’s not plotting online domination of the musical instrument world, he keeps himself busy writing songs on a battered old acoustic guitar and playing them to audiences in his home town.
Tags: AVT, ECC83, EL34, Marshall Amplification, Overdrive, valve, Valvestate