Marshall Amplification is a British company which designs and manufactures electric guitar amplifiers. Marshall amplifiers are well known and highly popular among guitarists. To this day, top-line Marshall amplifiers still use vacuum tube preamp and poweramp stages instead of solid-state devices (transistors), although Marshall also manufacture cheaper solid-state or hybrid devices. Vacuum tube amplifiers (known as "valve amplifiers" in the UK) are generally considered to exhibit a "warmer" tone than that of transistors, particularly when overdriven; instead of abruptly clipping off the signal at cut-off and saturation levels, the signal is smoothly rounded off. Vacuum tubes also exhibit different harmonic effects than transistors.

History

Marshall Amplification was first founded during the early 1960s by Jim Marshall in a small shop in London. Initial products were 45 watt amplifiers, very similar in both design and tone to Fender products of the day. Early customers included Pete Townshend and John Entwistle of The Who, whose search for extra volume led Marshall to design the classic 100 watt valve amplifier. Additionally, a switch to the European EL34 poweramp valve increased the product's potential for overdrive. Marshall's profile was further raised by one of the amplifiers appearing on the cover of the John Mayall's Bluesbreakers LP which featured Eric Clapton. As the 1960s drew to a close, the overdriven tone of the Marshall was further exploited by guitarists such as Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Jimmy Page. Amplifiers from this era, known as "plexis" because of their plexiglas front panel, now have significant collector value and can command high prices.

Amplifiers from the 1970s onwards can be distinguished most easily by their brushed metal front panel. In the mid-1970s, Marshall introduced the "master volume" series - these amplifiers claimed to offer the overdriven tone of the earlier products, but at a much lower volume. This was achieved by limiting the output of the preamp stage; unfortunately, this results in a less pleasing overdriven tone, as much of the smooth, singing sustain of a classic valve amplifier comes from the poweramp tubes. Marshall continued to offer the earlier models, but many players agree that earlier amplifiers are still better.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Marshall continued to introduce new series of amplifiers which offered more gain and overdrive at low volumes - successively, the JCM800, JCM900 and JCM2000 series. Marshall continues to hold a leading position in the market, as many competitors (for example, Hiwatt , Sound City , Vox and Orange) either amalgamated or disappeared in the 1970s.

Marshall Stack

The classic Marshall stack is a symbol of loud rock music. A full stack consists of one head containing the actual amplifier on top of two stacked 4x12s, which are loudspeaker cabinets each containing four 12 inch loudspeakers arranged in a square layout. The top cabinet has the top two loudspeakers angled slightly upwards, giving the Marshall stack a distinctive appearance. When a single cabinet is used, the complete unit is called a half stack.

It is claimed that the full stack was invented by Pete Townshend, for whom Marshall built a huge speaker cabinet containing eight 12 inch speaker in the mid-1960s, to compete with the volume of John Entwistle and Keith Moon. Townshend loved the cabinet, but it was too heavy to transport; he took it back to Marshall and recommended it be cut in half. Thus the stack was born.

Marshall also produce 'combo' amplifiers which combine speaker and amp in one case and several variations of the classic stack design including a mini stack and a micro stack, which is about 10 inches high and runs on batteries.

For even greater power, a second or even a third 'slave' head can be driven from the master amplifier, each additional amplifier head driving another two cabinets. This was taken to its logical conclusion in the early 1970s by the band Blue Öyster Cult, who used an entire wall of full-stack Marshall amplifiers as their backdrop.

External links

• Marshall Amplifiers Official Site