Marshall 1974x hand wired 1x12” combo
I am endorsing Marshall’s new hand wired series of amplifiers based on some of their classic designs from the 60’s and 70’s.
The 1974x is a very faithful reproduction of the 18 watt combo made first in the mid sixties. This amp arrived w/ the 20 Celestion Greenback special formula aged speaker, and an original looking footswitch for the tremolo.
The amp looks great, so I plugged it in and cranked it up. The first guitar I used w/ it was a Strat and it sounded very good the two channels sounded similar but different enough to be useful. The tremolo channel sounded a bit darker to my ears. You can tell that the amp wanted a stronger input signal than my stockish Strat could deliver. So I went and got the Les Paul.
Well, well now we are recreating history, the amp immediately came to life. It had plenty of treble to make the Paul sound edgy yet fat. I big, big plus for any amp especially a low wattage amp. At this time I plugged in the matching extension cabinet (1974cx) and it cleaned up the sound a bit, maybe a bit too much for my ears (although later on I gigged w/ the amp using the extension cab and found it to be awesome when I overdrove the amp w/ my pedals)
Once I had the extension cab hooked up I went back to the Strat and found the sound to be fuller (duh!) and a bit friendlier to the Strats palette of sounds. I then plugged in a stock Tele and found it to be a better match for the Tele easily getting the Jimmy Page “Heartbreaker” intro sound w/ no effort at all.
I have since gigged w/ the amp a dozen times or so using it as the “B” amp in my usual A/B set-up and believe it to be a perfect dirty amp when matched w/ a clean amp running at about 45-50 watts. Another great sound I have gotten from this amp is when I run my Uni-Vibe through it. Jimi’s Band of Gypsys sound and Robin Trower’s sound come through the amp as if they were coming through my stereo back in the 70’s.
In closing I highly recommend this amp to all guitars players who love the sound of a Les Paul directly into an amp or a Strat overdriven ala Hendrix.
Joey Leone fall 2005