Call me old if you want. I don’t care. I got to see concerts by AC/DC with Bon Scott, Van Halen and Black Sabbath on the same stage, Pink Floyd’s original The Wall shows and much more....
Call me old if you want. I don’t care. I got to see concerts by AC/DC with Bon Scott, Van Halen and Black Sabbath on the same stage, Pink Floyd’s original The Wall shows and much more. That said, the one thing that makes me jealous of younger generations is that there’s a lot of low-cost gear out there today that’s truly great, whereas it cost a small fortune to replicate the sounds of my favorite bands back when I was starting out playing guitar.
Marshall’s new DSL20 combo is a perfect example. It’s a versatile two-channel all-tube combo that delivers various flavors of classic, coveted Marshall tones, but it’s priced low enough for beginners to consider as their first amp. It doesn’t skimp on features either, which makes the DSL20C ideal for more experienced players who want more Marshall magic in their studio arsenal without robbing funds from their 401Ks.
FEATURES
The DSL20C is a 20-watt amp with an all-tube circuit featuring two EL34 power amp tubes and three ECC83 preamp tubes. A single Celestion Seventy 80 12-inch speaker rated 80 watts at 16 ohms is housed in the cabinet, which has a semi-open-back design with ports that keep bass frequencies tight and focused. The amp provides two individually voiced channels—Classic and Ultra—each of which has its own Gain and Volume controls and shares a single set of EQ controls (treble, middle, bass, presence and resonance) and a reverb level control. The EQ section also features a Tone Shift button that reconfigures the midrange frequencies. Full-(20-watt) and half-power (10-watt) settings are selected via the standby rocker switch, and a Channel Select switch lets users manually change channels when the footswitch controller (which is included with the amp) isn’t connected.
Rear-panel features consist of