Good practice amp, especially if you're into metal

[RichCI]

I picked up a Marshall MG15CD as a Christmas gift for my buddy's kids. It arrived the other day so, of course, I had to plug it in and check it out. For the record, the only guitar I plugged into it was my LP as the kids have guitars with humbuckers (One Epi LP Jr and one Dean something-or-other).

 

I didn't have a lot of high hopes for this amp, I figured it would sound decent but nothing great but I was VERY surprised at how good it sounds. Okay, it's a 15w solid state amp but I think you'd be hard pressed to find something better for the money ($125).

 

There are two channels - clean and dirty - that share a common EQ section and a switch that is supposed to emulate how a tube amp interacts with the speaker (according to the manual). The switch seems to accentuate the lows and highs more than anything else and sounds spectacular on the clean channel (I swear to you, the clean channel was really good! Not at all what I expected from any kind of Marshall) but gets a bit fizzy sounding on the dirty channel. Disengaging the switch gives a more mids heavy tone but I preferred the switch engaged for both clean and dirty.

 

I found that with the dirty channel, particularly with that switch on, that setting the mids and treble much past 9 o'clock resulted in a pretty harsh tone but with those controls kept in check and the bass set around 10 or 11 o'clock, the amp sounded much bigger than it's small size and 8" speaker would suggest. In fact, it sounded a helluva lot bigger than my old 1966 Fender Champ with an 8" Weber in it. The fizzyness was still present in the background, but not particularly offensive and some might actually like that quality if they're into more aggressive sounds.

 

So, there you have it. If you're into metal or hard rock and looking for a good practice amp for small bucks, I think it's a winner.

[Thundergod]

I payed one and wasnt very impressed (in fact I hated the thing man...). Maybe the one I tried was damaged?

 

I gotta note that most of those cheap amps sound lame because of the speaker they come with, I have upgraded speakers for some of them and the change in tone was amazing.

[Guitar slinger]

I payed one and wasnt very impressed (in fact I hated the thing man...). Maybe the one I tried was damaged?

 

I gotta note that most of those cheap amps sound lame because of the speaker they come with' date=' I have upgraded speakers for some of them and the change in tone was amazing.[/quote']

 

Don't think so. You got to be in a very good mood to like that. I don't remember ever being in that mood tough