Marshall 5210 MODs?

[GTG]

I just purchased a SS, Marshall 5210 because of the tube shortage, because I don’t want to put a lot of hours on my Marshall JTM 45’s
So I was wondering if you guys knew of any mods to smooth out the overdrive in these Marshall 5210’s i’m not looking for more gain if that helps in fact I like that clean dirt kind of sound. I’m not sure if 5210’s use clipping diodes or op amp distortion, not sure? And the only schematics I can find are extremely fuzzy and hard to read. So any help with smoothing out the distortion channel would be greatly appreciated. Also if anybody knows which capacitors are the tone stack capacitors in the later 5210’s, i’d like to change out the capacitors for better ones. Thanks again for any help

 

[Tatzmann]

You cant do anything but turn it
louder and use less preamp.

No, it wont get any better if you stomp on
that SD-1. Worse.

No straight forward mod will change this!

I had all the 80s transistor Marshalls at the
same time that i had the real amps.

The buzz fuzz comes from the semiconductors
themselves.

The baseproblem is your dialing in way
too much preamp at too low mastervolume.
Tube or Transistor amp doesnt mather, but
with the transistors its way worse.

A lot of guys will step up and say
this is BS, but it aint. The ear doesnt like
it when you try to fool it with cascaded
overdriving.

People who tell different have tired ears.

Just try it, put your JTM45 Volume on 5.

Yes loud.

Now turn the Master on your 5210 FULL up.
Then adjust preamp until its about as loud
as your JTM.

Doesnt sound shitty anymore all off a sudden,
huh?

 

[FracStrat]

IMHO, If you really want to get a bit more Marshally tone out of a 5210, here are a few things I did to mine.. I was happy with the results.. YMMV

Closed Back,
EQ in the EFX Loop
Well broken-in Speaker with a bit less High-End in character

added benefit of being reversible changes

 

[Marcomel79]

IMHO, If you really want to get a bit more Marshally tone out of a 5210, here are a few things I did to mine.. I was happy with the results.. YMMV

Closed Back,
EQ in the EFX Loop
Well broken-in Speaker with a bit less High-End in character

added benefit of being reversible changes

My 5210 came with a Celestion G12M-70, which is not bright. Generally a hated speaker but it works well with this combo

 

[jmerwin62]

You cant do anything but turn it
louder and use less preamp.

No, it wont get any better if you stomp on
that SD-1. Worse.

No straight forward mod will change this!

I had all the 80s transistor Marshalls at the
same time that i had the real amps.

The buzz fuzz comes from the semiconductors
themselves.

The baseproblem is your dialing in way
too much preamp at too low mastervolume.
Tube or Transistor amp doesnt mather, but
with the transistors its way worse.

A lot of guys will step up and say
this is BS, but it aint. The ear doesnt like
it when you try to fool it with cascaded
overdriving.

People who tell different have tired ears.

Just try it, put your JTM45 Volume on 5.

Yes loud.

Now turn the Master on your 5210 FULL up.
Then adjust preamp until its about as loud
as your JTM.

Doesnt sound shitty anymore all off a sudden,
huh?

I'll give it a try when I have the house to myself. I just rehabed the pots on my 5210. It's been in the closet collecting dust for 20 years, thinking I needed to replace nearly all of the pots. Last time I checked, I couldn't find them all, but this time I could so I thought, $35, why not give it a shot. But before I did, I hit the pots with Deoxit D5 and (last time was D100 and still scratchy) and they are now good as new. No surgery required. Turns out the amp sounds way better than I remembered. Quiet as a church mouse too.

I got the foot switch to work. The only issue is the gain. It very slowly increases up to 9, with some good mild distortion sounds along the way, then at 9.1, the chainsaw arrives. I guess it's good at what it is, but there's not much adjustment left.

I've been thinking about building an attenuator. I was going to use it with my small tube amps, but maybe the 5210 needs one so it can work a little harder.

 

[Marcomel79]

You cant do anything but turn it
louder and use less preamp.

No, it wont get any better if you stomp on
that SD-1. Worse.

No straight forward mod will change this!

I had all the 80s transistor Marshalls at the
same time that i had the real amps.

The buzz fuzz comes from the semiconductors
themselves.

The baseproblem is your dialing in way
too much preamp at too low mastervolume.
Tube or Transistor amp doesnt mather, but
with the transistors its way worse.

A lot of guys will step up and say
this is BS, but it aint. The ear doesnt like
it when you try to fool it with cascaded
overdriving.

People who tell different have tired ears.

Just try it, put your JTM45 Volume on 5.

Yes loud.

Now turn the Master on your 5210 FULL up.
Then adjust preamp until its about as loud
as your JTM.

Doesnt sound shitty anymore all off a sudden,
huh?

Man i just plugged in my 5210 after years of it sitting in a corner. You were so right. Both volumes dimed on the dirty channel and preamp to taste. No can of bees at all!!! Sounds absolutely glorious! To bad it has to be ear scorching loud to get there...

I have it up for sale but now im having second thoughts... i would use the money to fund a jtm45 clone though...

 

[Seven]

I have one and used it for home practice until the capacitors started choking. If it's all original, I would just leave it alone and find a pedal that does whatever tones you are chasing.

The 5210 is okay for some couch wankerage while watching TV on mute, but doesn't really do anything all that special. I do think the OEM speaker has a nice sound to it. The one I have has a brownish frame and vented hole in the magnet and is probably a Celesion of some sort from that era. It has a chime to it that is pleasing which is why I kept it. I might load it into a closed back 1X12 for recording.

As a side note, I sometimes think some of us are drawn to older amps or cabinets because the speaker/s are broken in and well aged. Just a theory.

I probably won't have the caps changed on the 5210 because the amp is really not a collectors amp, IMO. Then again, EVERYTHING on Reverb is "vintage" or a "collectors item" or "rare" and will have an inflated price to match, so there is that !

 

[blademaster2]

I have a better copy of the schematic. No diode clipping is used.

I do not usually try mods, but I did try a different Op Amp in my 5210 (tried a NE5532, hoping it would give better cleans). Result: It sounded terrible, and had the muddiest overdrive tone I have ever heard. I immediately reverted to the original Op Amp and stopped messing with it. The Op Amp used (I forget off hand what it was) is pretty good for a solid state guitar amp, and for my taste I dial back the mids (scooped) and it sounds great clean or melt-your-face-off distorted. It works well with the Seymour Duncan Black Winter pickups, but has great tone also with my Strat and its pups.

Overall, it is not so good for blues tones IMO but for clean and rock tones it does pretty nicely.