Marshall Super 100 JH: We Can Only Dream
Written: Jun 21 '07 (Updated Jul 15 '07)
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Pros: Super 60s and 70s vintage rock guitar sounds
Cons: Price. Too loud to practice with.
The Bottom Line: The Super 100 JH is a serious rock amp for players who need vintage 60s and 70s clean and medium gain sounds. It's very loud and very expensive.
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| buffoonery's Full Review: Marshall Super 100JH |
Most of us—me, anyway—may have given up on trying to play our assorted guitars as well as Jimi Hendrix, but with the right equipment we might having at least a shot at sounding like him. Capturing his sound has been for decades an elusive quest. Guitarists pore through pictures of Hendrix playing in concert, trying to figure out what guitars he was running through what effects through what amps. Most famously, that was a right-handed Stratocaster played upside down (Hendrix was left-handed) through a wall of Marshall amps, often powered by a distortion pedal such as a Fuzz Face. Yet, try as we might, given that back in the 60s two amps of the same model coming out of the same assembly line could have dissimilar sounds, the quest has often been more forlorn than Parsifal’s seeking the Holy Grail even when we can get hold of vintage 60s equipment. The objective, of course, is capture that powerful, soaring lead sound the utterly redefined rock guitar forever.
The men at Marshall are facilitating that quest, for some of us at least, by issuing the Super 100 JH amplifier head (plus full and slant 4x12 cabs). I say “some of us”, because a) at $6400 on sale at Guitar Center for the whole set up, and b) the fact that only 600 are being produced world wide, this is not an amplifier for the masses. What it is, though, is one hell of a fine sounding amplifier that delivers extraordinarily classic 60s and 70s rock tones.
The Class AB 100 watt amp is based on a Super 100 once owned by Hendrix. Handwired, the construction screams “quality”. The amp is based as closely as possible on the sample amp, except with updates for modern safety standards. In the manual, Marshall is careful to brag that is has gone original equipment manufacturers to ensure authenticity. Marshall reports that the 1966 100 heads that Hendrix was using were stock except for minor but significant modifications that his technicians made to add treble, bass and low mids.
The front of the amp has the original gold Plexiglas panel. Look at the reverse side and the four huge Marshall KT66 power tubes working in push-pull stare you in the face. Three Marshall 12AX7s feed the preamp. The head weighs 46.5 pounds. There’s a little silver 𣺜” in the upper left corner of the cabs. Stand back from the ensemble and the whole thing screams “classic rock”.
The head’s controls are simplicity itself. No morass of switches, knobs, controls and what not as being produced by Starship Mesa. Nope. This is a straightforward two channel head, Channel One being High Treble (voiced for more treble) and the other Normal. Each channel has a Low and High Sensitivity input. There are separate Loudness (volume) controls for each channel, which share the four Treble, Middle, Bass and Presence controls. The controls are interactive, meaning that when you monkey with one you’re affecting the way the others behave. Specifically, the Bass and Treble controls will affect the Mid control. Experimentation is recommended.
The front also has an on/off switch, standby switch, and power light indicator. The reverse has an output impedance selector, two loudspeaker outputs, mains selector, input and fuse.
The two cabs are constructed of Baltic birch ply. The straight-front cab is 6 ¾” taller than the usual cab. Each cab has 4 12” Celestion G12C 25 watt speakers that are specially designed to duplicate the sounds of the original 25-watt Greenbacks.
Marshall is careful to explain that the two channels are in phase and have the same number of gain stages. Hence, they can be jumpered together by plugging your guitar into the top input and connecting the bottom input to the top input of the other channel. You can also “daisy chain” up to three heads together by running a jumper cable from the bottom channel input of one head into the top channel input of another head. The sonic possibilities are endless!!!
Good luck finding the three heads that this process requires along with the do-re-mi to buy them. But ain’t dreaming fun?
Obviously, you’re probably most interested in what kind of sound this thing produces for your $6500 plus tax. Easy answer: classic, vintage rock guitar sounds. I wasn’t able to crank this up too far for too long in the store, but the crystalline lead sounds this head can produce are astounding when you’ve got the guitar volume at 10. The attack and articulation are fabulous. There’s an extraordinary amount of headroom. Played with the neck pick ups on both a Strat and a 490 Alnico humbuckered Les Paul, the amp delivers great rhythm when guitar volume is dialed down a little and nice leads at 10. The amp starts breaking up slowly as you move the amp loudness up but this is not a metal amp. What this is is something will give you both the clean and mild gain sounds with the superb overtones required to play vintage 60s British and American rock: Hendrix, Zeppelin (even though Page allegedly used a Supro amp on the early Zep albums), Clapton of course, Stones, Kinks, Who, Bad Company, the whole lot. It’s a wonderfully crisp amplifier with a powerful amount of anger stored up when you need it.
Needless to say, it’s not the greatest practice amp in the world because you can’t crank it in your basement. Also, this amp has great natural sound so you don’t really want to run too much fancy stuff through it. Delay and reverb, sure. Mild distortion pedals—a Fuzz Face, certainly a Tube Screamer, maybe a mild Boss product, absolutely. Maybe a touch of chorus? But you’re in the wrong ballpark if you put a Boss Metal Zone or something in front of this. You might as well mix Coca-Cola with a 25-year old Macallan.
Who should buy this setup?: Once you get past the price (which is at least two grand more than a similarly equipped Mesa, H&K or Marshall), this is suited for collectors who will admire it and vintage rockers who will use it. It is not well suited to metal players (there isn’t nearly enough gain). Blues guys will find much to admire but they may just want to stick to a much less costly vintage Twin or Reverb. Country and jazzers—you’re reading the wrong review. I will say that, given Marshall’s decision to make this a limited edition and the fact that it sound great for what it does, I think this amp has good potential for price appreciation.
PS: Thanks to category lead sparkospunky for getting this posted with the cool psychedelic picture from the Marshall manual.
Other amp reviews from buffoonery:
Marshall Super 100 JH
Peavey Classic 30 Combo
Crate Power Block
Roland Micro Cube
Mesa 5:25 Express
Mesa Stiletto Ace
Fender Cyber Twin
Line 6 Vetta II Combo
Mesa 5:50 Express
Line 6 Spider III 75
Mesa Lone Star Combo
Vox Valvetronix AD60VT
Mesa Stiletto Deuce
Mesa Triple Rectifier Head
Fender DSP 65
Peavey Triple XXX Head
Fender Super Sonic 1x12 Combo
Hughes and Kettner Switchblade 50 Combo
Fender MH 500 Metalhead
64 Fender Vibroverb Custom Blackface
Mesa Dual Rectifier Roadster
Peavey Penta Head
Peavey JSX Joe Satriani Signature Head
Line 6 Spider II Head
Crate Acoustic CA30
Line 6 Flextone III Plus
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And you may also be interested in a few books such as:
Hugo Pinksterboer – Tipbook Amplifiers and Effects
Ritchie Fliegler – Amps: The Other Half of Rock and Roll
Michael Ross – Getting Great Guitar Sounds: A Non-Technical Approach to Shaping Your Personal Sound
Recommended:
Yes
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