10 or 20 Watt Vintage Marshall

[sinner]

Anyone have either the little "popular" 10 watt vintage Marshall or the 20 combo?

I saw a little 10 watt head on a 112 cab at the guitar show, looked very nice but didn't get a chance to try it out.

How are they?

[Masa]

10Watt? Have they ever made 10W?

[sinner]

Here's a couple:

http://www.gbase.com/Stores/Gear/GearDetails.aspx?Item=1546877

http://www.gbase.com/Stores/Gear/GearDetails.aspx?Item=1502494

[re-animator]

with marshall... the magic number is 18 watts.

[908SSP]

Yea the 10 watters weren't very good sounding amps. Look cool.

[Masa]

Wow, I didn't know about the 10W. Is it like a single ended EL84?

[Unabender]

Here's a pretty cool link about the history of Marshall amplification:

http://www.drtube.com/marshall.htm

... and on the page, there's this:
1930 JMP Popular, 10W 1x12" combo

This amp was in production only shortly from 1972 up to 1973. It looks just like a 20W Marshall amp. It's a 4 input, 2 channel amp featuring a tremolo.

It's a push-pull amplifier with a ECL86 as a power tube. I'm not sure if the 10 watt rating is actually very correct here... might be less.

[Masa]

Pretty interesting. Thanks for the info.

[mike@nortoncable.com]

The 2061 is a fantastic amp 18watts . As is the 1974CX 1x12 combo.
Anything that says "Super lead", "JTM", "JMP" "Major" or "JCM 800"
is Pure Marshall :)

[John Phillips]

Here's a pretty cool link about the history of Marshall amplification:

http://www.drtube.com/marshall.htm

... and on the page, there's this:
1930 JMP Popular, 10W 1x12" combo

This amp was in production only shortly from 1972 up to 1973. It looks just like a 20W Marshall amp. It's a 4 input, 2 channel amp featuring a tremolo.

It's a push-pull amplifier with a ECL86 as a power tube. I'm not sure if the 10 watt rating is actually very correct here... might be less.
Actually that isn't entirely correct, especially the production dates, even though they're often quoted. I had a '70 one, and I've seen others from before '72 as well.

It's a very poor amp IMO. The 'two' channels are simply a passive mixer followed by a single gain stage, which is wide-open the whole time, so it's very noisy unless turned right up. The tone is weak, thin and harsh (although anyone selling one will tell you it's cool and bluesy ;)), and the power output is pretty low.

I rebuilt mine as a near-18W circuit with EL84s (but no tube rectifier, which the PT doesn't support) using the blanked-off extra cutouts in the chassis and moving the tremolo circuit to a small extra board. The power output increased substantially, although not as far as 18W if I remember. The limiting factor on the original circuit is the ECL86s, which isn't surprising since it was intended as a low-powered combined driver/output tube for the audio section in TVs.

The speakers in mine were Elacs, although I don't know for sure if they were stock (I'm pretty sure I've seen others with them too though), which I replaced with Marshall-labeled Celestion 7442s from a PA column.

There was never a head version AFAIK, although the Tremolo 20 head shares the same poor circuit design since half of the preamp tube is used to run the tremolo, and although they have the same transformers and power section as a normal 20W, they sound weaker and noisier.

Unless you're a collector, the Popular is basically a cool-looking piece of junk IMO, and I wouldn't hesitate to convert one to an 18W circuit (or something similar) even today.

[hairyandy]

Actually that isn't entirely correct, especially the production dates, even though they're often quoted. I had a '70 one, and I've seen others from before '72 as well.

It's a very poor amp IMO. The 'two' channels are simply a passive mixer followed by a single gain stage, which is wide-open the whole time, so it's very noisy unless turned right up. The tone is weak, thin and harsh (although anyone selling one will tell you it's cool and bluesy ;)), and the power output is pretty low.

I rebuilt mine as a near-18W circuit with EL84s (but no tube rectifier, which the PT doesn't support) using the blanked-off extra cutouts in the chassis and moving the tremolo circuit to a small extra board. The power output increased substantially, although not as far as 18W if I remember. The limiting factor on the original circuit is the ECL86s, which isn't surprising since it was intended as a low-powered combined driver/output tube for the audio section in TVs.

The speakers in mine were Elacs, although I don't know for sure if they were stock (I'm pretty sure I've seen others with them too though), which I replaced with Marshall-labeled Celestion 7442s from a PA column.

There was never a head version AFAIK, although the Tremolo 20 head shares the same poor circuit design since half of the preamp tube is used to run the tremolo, and although they have the same transformers and power section as a normal 20W, they sound weaker and noisier.

Unless you're a collector, the Popular is basically a cool-looking piece of junk IMO, and I wouldn't hesitate to convert one to an 18W circuit (or something similar) even today.

Poor circuit design because it uses half of a 12ax7 to run the trem? Think again, it's actually pretty concise design in my book because it is using that extra gain stage rather than adding more tubes. Plenty of amps that we all know and love only use half of one of the 12ax7s and don't use the other half for anything.

I used a 1-12" 1930 Popular on my band's last record quite extensively. It was a 1971 and had a stock Celestion 12". We recorded the record with Dan Baird (ex-Georgia Satellites) and he owns the Popular and brought it to the session. When cranked it got the best mid-70's Stones/Faces tone you've ever heard (which is why Dan owns it). With a Rangemaster or a TS-9 in front of it the tones were killer. The 1930 was made on the exact same chassis in the same cabinets as the 18-watt Marshalls, that's why there are plugs in the extra chassis holes, they drilled the chassis for an 18-watt and used them for both amps which was cheaper to manufacture.

These amps are pretty rare and while you're entitled to your own opinion John, I personally think that converting one to an 18-watt is just stupid. It may sound better but it's also ruining what has become a pretty expensive vintage Marshall. Try putting some good tubes in it and replace the electrolytics instead and I'll bet it will sound much better.

My $.02,

Andy

[908SSP]

These amps are pretty rare and while you're entitled to your own opinion John, I personally think that converting one to an 18-watt is just stupid. It may sound better but it's also ruining what has become a pretty expensive vintage Marshall. Try putting some good tubes in it and replace the electrolytics instead and I'll bet it will sound much better.


There is a dealer in England that would argue with you they have made a fortune converting these to 18 watters passing them off as the real deal. You are the first person I have ever heard that says they sound good. I thought I read they were a copy of a Watkins Dominator. Haven't heard much about them either.

[drbob1]

Actually, I think the 10w might have some similarities with the Watkins Westminster single channel version. That also used the 61s and sounded weak. Makes sense since the 18w is derived from the Watkins Dominator.

[908SSP]

Actually, I think the 10w might have some similarities with the Watkins Westminster single channel version. That also used the 61s and sounded weak. Makes sense since the 18w is derived from the Watkins Dominator.

You're probably correct I remembered wrong.:crazy

[John Phillips]

Poor circuit design because it uses half of a 12ax7 to run the trem? Think again, it's actually pretty concise design in my book because it is using that extra gain stage rather than adding more tubes. No, think again: it's a poor circuit design because it takes away one half of the 12AX7 that is normally used for the two input channels and uses it to run the trem.

This means that both input channels are then mixed passively by all four volume/tone controls, then amplified by the one remaining tube stage - which doesn't have a volume control after it, hence is wide-open the whole time, and why they're very noisy (as well as weak-sounding because of the passive load on the input signal).

What they should have done was to add an extra tube, but there's not much room on the chassis (on the 20W heads - on the Popular it was almost certainly just to cut cost).

These amps are pretty rare and while you're entitled to your own opinion John, I personally think that converting one to an 18-watt is just stupid. It may sound better but it's also ruining what has become a pretty expensive vintage Marshall. Try putting some good tubes in it and replace the electrolytics instead and I'll bet it will sound much better.They are not anywhere near as rare as anyone who is trying to sell you one (and quoting the inaccurate production dates) will try to tell you. A guy I know has three of them, including my old one. (Two basketweave models from '71 at the latest, and one checkerboard from the '72-'73 period.)

Better tubes? Possibly, but they came with Mullards, and many still have them. New caps? Yes, but that doesn't change the inherently poor circuit design.

Sound better? That's relative. Better than before, possibly... but still crap by comparison to any other Marshall - except possibly the Capri and Mercury, which are equally "collectable" junk that need to be rebuilt before they can work properly.

Just because something is old does not make it good - especially when it was designed to be as cheap as possible to make in the first place.

[hairyandy]

Just because something is old does not make it good - especially when it was designed to be as cheap as possible to make in the first place.

I agree completely. My experience with this amp though is that it sounds pretty darn good, definitely way better than the Capri and Mercury and, I dare say, better than some of their bigger amps from the late 70's like the Club and Country. Maybe the difference in our experiences is that the one I used had a 12"? I could see how 2-10" might accentuate some harshness that a 12" might not. Regardless, I haven't been able to find one in the three years since I used one so I would call that pretty rare.

Andy