Marshall Origin Series Amplifiers

[PU239]

Unless it's part of a power scaling scheme on a larger wattage amp

The power scaling used on the Orgin is very different than anything Marshall has done. It works by switching the circuit board to lower the voltage on the output transformer, totally transparency in tone at lower volumes.

It works.

In person the Orgin sounds every bit the low wattage plexi tone people have asked for.

There are good videos coming without effects, give them time to post.

 

[dptone5]

I am very glad to see Marshall's new Origin series. I think it has the Plexi vibe at a great price point with all the modern features that a guitarist is looking for.

I believe Marshall hit a home run here and it is going to be very successful. Should compete very well with it's competitors in this price range.

My good friend is seriously thinking about adding a new Origin 20 Watt combo to his collection. He wanted something that will get him close to Plexi tone at a manageable volume, with a loop. He is stoked. He never wanted a 50 or 100 Watt head and cab, but he wants a Marshall to add to his VOX and Fender collection. And at this price, it works.

However, I was a little disappointed about one thing....here is what I was hoping for and I am still trusting Marshall will do something in this arena soon.

Looking for that 20 Watt or 40 Watt head and/or combo that has a lot of the same features that the Origin has, but at a price point that competes directly with Friedman, Suhr and others. Hand-Wired, everything top of the line, including a nice, beefy output transformer, choke, etc. Power scaling, transparent loop and in the vane of Plexi/JMP/800 tone.

Call it the JCM 700 series - high quality, lower powered amps with modern features that takes us back to the "70's" with Plexi/JMP type tones.

I believe there is a market for Marshall to develop high quality products to compete directly with and overtake the BE-100, Dirty Shirley, Smallpox and Runt. There is no reason others are eating their lunch in this area.

The Origin is a great first step. Will get people into wanting to have that Marshall amp, and later desire a more expensive product when it becomes available.

 

[crossy67]

The more demos I hear, the more solid state it sounds. It doesn't have that rich tube tone IMO. Coupled with the $650 price tag for a 50 watt head and it weighing only 26 pounds, Im thinking this is basically a Blackstar. Technically a "tube" amp but op-amps doing most the work in the preamp stage and lots of solid state components. That definitely keeps cost and weight down. Im going to hold off and let people buy them and open them up to see whats going on inside first.

Your talking about the Blackstar HT range right?

 

[Crunchifyable]

I am very glad to see Marshall's new Origin series. I think it has the Plexi vibe at a great price point with all the modern features that a guitarist is looking for.

I believe Marshall hit a home run here and it is going to be very successful. Should compete very well with it's competitors in this price range.

My good friend is seriously thinking about adding a new Origin 20 Watt combo to his collection. He wanted something that will get him close to Plexi tone at a manageable volume, with a loop. He is stoked. He never wanted a 50 or 100 Watt head and cab, but he wants a Marshall to add to his VOX and Fender collection. And at this price, it works.

However, I was a little disappointed about one thing....here is what I was hoping for and I am still trusting Marshall will do something in this arena soon.

Looking for that 20 Watt or 40 Watt head and/or combo that has a lot of the same features that the Origin has, but at a price point that competes directly with Friedman, Suhr and others. Hand-Wired, everything top of the line, including a nice, beefy output transformer, choke, etc. Power scaling, transparent loop and in the vane of Plexi/JMP/800 tone.

Call it the JCM 700 series - high quality, lower powered amps with modern features that takes us back to the "70's" with Plexi/JMP type tones.

I believe there is a market for Marshall to develop high quality products to compete directly with and overtake the BE-100, Dirty Shirley, Smallpox and Runt. There is no reason others are eating their lunch in this area.

The Origin is a great first step. Will get people into wanting to have that Marshall amp, and later desire a more expensive product when it becomes available.

I think Marshall was trying to ride Friedman's coattails with this. Which would have been absurd to even write a decade ago. Basically trying to make a cheap mass produced product to compete with a smaller volume, higher quality amp maker. Marshall has become Bugera?

Friedman's products are expensive. Even the USA made PCB runts are fairly expensive. But they give the brown sound and some killer 80s tones. And might even be respectible for metal (I don't like the low end / low mids on Marshalls...it doesn't sound right for metal).

The new Marshall amps are a good "blank slate." And with the right speaker, could be killer. To me they sound generic but that could be the speakers. I like greenbacks.

I wasn't aware the origin had power scaling. That is a nice effect.

I can't really judge it until I see a schematic.

They probably should have just redesigned the DSL to be a competitor to other amps (the EVH 5150 III series, IMO, the best current mass produced amp line up), or at least a little bit more modern.

 

[mbell75]

Your talking about the Blackstar HT range right?

Yes, like the Club 50. They are both around the same price and weight. The Origin 50 head is actually 5 pounds lighter.

 

[Crunchifyable]

Yes, like the Club 50. They are both around the same price and weight. The Origin 50 head is actually 5 pounds lighter.

Could be something as simple as a switch to plywood vs mdf in the headshells. Or lighter sheet metal and stuff.

The stuff that makes the HT series bad is the surface mount components and the diodes and such...and those don't really factor into the weight...just the tone / authenticity / repairability aspect. I can't see Marshall reinventing the wheel...that's not their MO.

Marshall seems to like full size components and even true flying wire tube sockets. So the people who buy them will probably appreciate the build quality.

 

[Len]

Could be something as simple as a switch to plywood vs mdf in the headshells. Or lighter sheet metal and stuff.

The stuff that makes the HT series bad is the surface mount components and the diodes and such...and those don't really factor into the weight...just the tone / authenticity / repairability aspect. I can't see Marshall reinventing the wheel...that's not their MO.

Marshall seems to like full size components and even true flying wire tube sockets. So the people who buy them will probably appreciate the build quality.

SMT components make amps “bad”? That’s a really narrow view of the world in my book.

 

[Crunchifyable]

SMT components make amps “bad”? That’s a really narrow view of the world in my book.

SMT isn't bad per se...just cheap and microscopic. The 0.6w axial resistors and box caps Marshall uses tend to be cheap enough and compact. When everything else in a tube amp is expensive (things like glass, filter caps, transformers), they can afford to spend a penny extra on decent components.

When you go to SMT you save what...a penny or two per component at the cost of having much smaller components. My perception is that they make repair and modification more difficult and for something like a guitar amp, they should be able to use traditional components.

Maybe SMT reduces labor time. I'd actually consider using them in my builds just to see how they are to install, solder, etc, on a protoboard. Or to see if I could cram a full 5150 50w into a 12" chassis. But for a big name manufacturer, they already know the game well enough to use the standard components.

Blackstar cut a lot of corners to try something different. I think they reinvented the wheel just to eliminate a phase inverter and pack more nickel components per square inch.

And for people who care, they don't want corners cut.

 

[Kinkless Tetrode]

The more demos I hear, the more solid state it sounds. It doesn't have that rich tube tone IMO. Coupled with the $650 price tag for a 50 watt head and it weighing only 26 pounds, Im thinking this is basically a Blackstar. Technically a "tube" amp but op-amps doing most the work in the preamp stage and lots of solid state components. That definitely keeps cost and weight down. Im going to hold off and let people buy them and open them up to see whats going on inside first.

It's been reported that this is a Santiago designed amp. So I doubt it.

 

[Micky]

I am all for discussions, but arguing about rumors is ridiculous.

Let's wait and see how these are built before condemning them...

 

[PU239]

I am all for discussions, but arguing about rumors is ridiculous.

Let's wait and see how these are built before condemning them...

I had a discussion with Jon Ellory (Marshall CEO) about quality control.

Fact 1
Marshall now owns the factory in Vietnam, no other brand is made there except Marshall.

Fact 2

Marshall has a team from the UK who oversee production and quality control. He does not see any quality issues with production at this factory.

Fact 3

Marshall does not like it anymore than many of us. If they do not use this factory the amps will not be competitive or profitable. Another words they won't be made .

Marshall plans a total refresh of their amps over the next two years to stay competitive. The 800, 1959, 1987, JVM stays. Most everything else gone by July. Many more to come next year.

As far as this Friedman shit goes, Marshall sells thousands of more amps then Friedman does. They are more worried about Roland than Friedman.

 

[JeffMcLeod]

I think the problem with the sound demos is they are using crappy speakers (no offense to anyone who likes the Celestion V-types, they just aren't close enough IMO).

I don't like what I hear but I bet if they plugged them into greenbacks or similar or even v30s, the tone would come out.

Not only that, but most demos I see (for any amp, not just these) have these guys playing some stupid blues riffs on some twangy-ass Fenders.

Psh!

 

[santiall]

Lots of speculation... The only I can clarify is that I started those amps and they were pretty much complete when I left BUT the amps that are released are different so I don't know what's actually in there although obviously the platform is the same.

As per what the amps were by the time I left: full tube amps, somehow related in a way to a 2061 with switchable extra gain (no extra stage nor solid started booster), Bass, Mid, Treble EQ and Tilt control. They had reverb, FX loop, emulated line out, footswitch and a 4 position attenuator so depending on the front panel power setting one could fine tune the final level with the attenuator or record without completely in silence by taking the signal after the power amp using the internal attenuator as power soak.

They were 50W/5W and 18W/2W 2xEL34 push-pull plus 5W/1W 1xEL34 switchable on the front panel. I had a combination of class AB/class A and cathode bias/fixed bias with different HT voltages for the push pull amps so the class of operation and output power could be changed depending on the front panel setting. The 5W single ended was the same amp as in the SL5, which is basically half standard push-pull running in class A. Whatever is in the current amps, I do not know.

The amps were started as the crunch channel for a Satriani combo and the tilt control is an idea to try to balance the brightness that many amps have when the gain setting is low. I presented the function as something similar in a way to be able to balance the treble and normal inputs in a 4 input amp although is not 100% the same. The name Tilt comes from a relatively old EQ method that with of single knob either boosted the bass or the treble by 'tilting' the frequency response from \ to / if that makes sense.

The original protos are featured in the song San Francisco Blue by Joe Satriani in both rhythm and solo tracks, appeared pictured in some magazines on top of several vintage amps and also appears in few videos of Paul Gilbert as he really liked the amp when I presented it to him so we sent a prototype for him to play and send feedback for development purposes.

Regarding the final released amps you'll need to wait till someone checks the amps or Marshall discloses more info... I can only talk about what I had in my bench by then. Obviously the reverb, line out and attenuator for example are gone, perhaps some other stuff has been changed too so take all the functions I tried to explain with a pinch of salt.

In any case I've heard the new amps and they sound very good to me.

Hope it helps!

 

[Micky]

Lots of speculation... The only I can clarify is that I started those amps and they were pretty much complete when I left BUT the amps that are released are different so I don't know what's actually in there although obviously the platform is the same.

As per what the amps were by the time I left: full tube amps, somehow related in a way to a 2061 with switchable extra gain (no extra stage nor solid started booster), Bass, Mid, Treble EQ and Tilt control. They had reverb, FX loop, emulated line out, footswitch and a 4 position attenuator so depending on the front panel power setting one could fine tune the final level with the attenuator or record without completely in silence by taking the signal after the power amp using the internal attenuator as power soak.

They were 50W/5W and 18W/2W 2xEL34 push-pull plus 5W/1W 1xEL34 switchable on the front panel. I had a combination of class AB/class A and cathode bias/fixed bias with different HT voltages for the push pull amps so the class of operation and output power could be changed depending on the front panel setting. The 5W single ended was the same amp as in the SL5, which is basically half standard push-pull running in class A. Whatever is in the current amps, I do not know.

The amps were started as the crunch channel for a Satriani combo and the tilt control is an idea to try to balance the brightness that many amps have when the gain setting is low. I presented the function as something similar in a way to be able to balance the treble and normal inputs in a 4 input amp although is not 100% the same. The name Tilt comes from a relatively old EQ method that with of single knob either boosted the bass or the treble by 'tilting' the frequency response from \ to / if that makes sense.

The original protos are featured in the song San Francisco Blue by Joe Satriani in both rhythm and solo tracks, appeared pictured in some magazines on top of several vintage amps and also appears in few videos of Paul Gilbert as he really liked the amp when I presented it to him so we sent a prototype for him to play and send feedback for development purposes.

Regarding the final released amps you'll need to wait till someone checks the amps or Marshall discloses more info... I can only talk about what I had in my bench by then. Obviously the reverb, line out and attenuator for example are gone, perhaps some other stuff has been changed too so take all the functions I tried to explain with a pinch of salt.

In any case I've heard the new amps and they sound very good to me.

Hope it helps!

Thanks for the info. I think it is great that you can take the time to talk about the initial design. I hope you can continue to contribute to this thread!

 

[Deep Purple fan]

I think Marshall was trying to ride Friedman's coattails with this. Which would have been absurd to even write a decade ago. Basically trying to make a cheap mass produced product to compete with a smaller volume, higher quality amp maker. Marshall has become Bugera?

Friedman's products are expensive. Even the USA made PCB runts are fairly expensive. But they give the brown sound and some killer 80s tones. And might even be respectible for metal (I don't like the low end / low mids on Marshalls...it doesn't sound right for metal).

The new Marshall amps are a good "blank slate." And with the right speaker, could be killer. To me they sound generic but that could be the speakers. I like greenbacks.

I wasn't aware the origin had power scaling. That is a nice effect.

I can't really judge it until I see a schematic.

They probably should have just redesigned the DSL to be a competitor to other amps (the EVH 5150 III series, IMO, the best current mass produced amp line up), or at least a little bit more modern.

They are actually taking from Vox’s business model. Vox makes affordable imported versions of their iconic AC30 and they make higher priced uk hand wired high end AC30s. I bought an ACH30 last summer. Typical AC30 specs plus great fx loop and great attenuation....very similiar to the Marshall origin. It sounds great. I’m sure the $2000 plus UK made HW Head is sweeter but for 699 clams minus the 23% discount MF gave me its worth that trade off. I see a lot of similiarities with the new Origin, not so much with Friedman. Origin and DSL are not competing against Friedman at all. They are going after the sub $1000 dollar Amps very hard with these two new lines, plus code and MG. They are very strong in that segment. Friedman is not in that market segment.

 

[Len]

SMT isn't bad per se...just cheap and microscopic. The 0.6w axial resistors and box caps Marshall uses tend to be cheap enough and compact. When everything else in a tube amp is expensive (things like glass, filter caps, transformers), they can afford to spend a penny extra on decent components.

When you go to SMT you save what...a penny or two per component at the cost of having much smaller components. My perception is that they make repair and modification more difficult and for something like a guitar amp, they should be able to use traditional components.

Maybe SMT reduces labor time. I'd actually consider using them in my builds just to see how they are to install, solder, etc, on a protoboard. Or to see if I could cram a full 5150 50w into a 12" chassis. But for a big name manufacturer, they already know the game well enough to use the standard components.

Blackstar cut a lot of corners to try something different. I think they reinvented the wheel just to eliminate a phase inverter and pack more nickel components per square inch.

And for people who care, they don't want corners cut.

Wow, you really need to read up on current microeconomics trends and the industry. The world is moving towards SMT components since they can be populated on PCBs by pick and place machines more easily than thru-hole parts. The results are lower cost manufacturing, and thus lower sales price and more units sold. I guess if you owned a company you wouldn’t care about profits. Most of us do care about profits.

And just FYI, for active devices the die inside a SMT package is the same die as is inside a thru-hole package. I’m in the industry and work with SMT components all the time. Sure, they require a microscope and tweezers to work with, but it’s very doable as long as you learn the techniques.

SMT components allow for lower cost, higher performance and smaller products. It’s the way of technology and the world. If you want to fight it then good luck.

 

[Notthedocter]

Paul n Joe liked them... o really
Hopefully they didn’t get changed too much from the original protos
Preordered from Sweetwater-was told early April
I do realize this could change drastically, but have plenty of amps to play, n a few more builds I could do to tide me over
Cant wait to hear the demos without the god damn effects!

 

[DreamTommy]

The owners manuals are available on Marshalls new website:

https://marshall.com/marshall-amps/products/amps/origin/origin20h

In specs, the sizes must be wrong... Who does this stuff? Really interested in this amp, specifically the heads, but no matching cabs ad sizes are unknown.

 

[JCarno]

The more demos I hear, the more solid state it sounds. It doesn't have that rich tube tone IMO. Coupled with the $650 price tag for a 50 watt head and it weighing only 26 pounds, Im thinking this is basically a Blackstar. Technically a "tube" amp but op-amps doing most the work in the preamp stage and lots of solid state components. That definitely keeps cost and weight down. Im going to hold off and let people buy them and open them up to see whats going on inside first.

While I "liked" your post, I really don't like what you're saying but do appreciate your Columbo skills. It's what stopped me from pre-ordering one.
Like you, I'll wait and see whats inside first.
Before anyone says to me, "who gives a shit, pedals are the same thing", the only dirt, distortion, od or whatever kind of pedal you want to call it that I use is a Catalinbread Sabbra Cadabra. It's a single purpose pedal and I only use it with one amp for one tone.
I totally rely on "tube" distortion with all my amps.

 

[JCarno]

WTF! I was counting on you.

Yeah, Right!! I've been here almost 8 years and have never ever posted a clip of my playing.
You a funny guy!!