DrRobert
Les Paul Forum Member
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2003
- Messages
- 6,050
In one of those little asides of history, when Jim Marshall decided he needed master volumes to get higher levels of distortion without ear bleeding volume, he tried a couple of different things...
Marshall 2150-only seen one, only rates 1 line in Doyle's book and no description. Basically a 4 input, metal panel Lead amp with a master volume. Cheap to make, but I think they decided there was no advantage to the two channel thing with the MV and was soon dropped in favor of the 2203s with 2 inputs.
Park 1210-gets 2 lines and a picture in Doyle's book. Apparently this is what Jim's engineers would have liked, but it was decided that it was too expensive. No idea how many are out there, anyone seen one? Anyway, it has two channels with two volumes and a master volume, but it's set up so that the two volumes cascade into each other. Plug into the left (low) input and you get one gain stage, plug into the right (high) and you get two. I understand that you could plug into the high and footswitch between one and two stages. This'd make it to Marshall what Mesa originally was to Fender. I've seen some Sound City amps with a similar setup, which brings us to the:
Wizard Rock Standard-apparently these guys found a 1210. The RS is not an exact copy, you can't footswitch the second gain stage in/out as I recall, but it does cascade them and does have the low input with only one gain stage. Great tone, nice sustain. It'll go from a JCM800 level up to a 2550 Jubilee without the nasty diodes
Marshall 2150-only seen one, only rates 1 line in Doyle's book and no description. Basically a 4 input, metal panel Lead amp with a master volume. Cheap to make, but I think they decided there was no advantage to the two channel thing with the MV and was soon dropped in favor of the 2203s with 2 inputs.
Park 1210-gets 2 lines and a picture in Doyle's book. Apparently this is what Jim's engineers would have liked, but it was decided that it was too expensive. No idea how many are out there, anyone seen one? Anyway, it has two channels with two volumes and a master volume, but it's set up so that the two volumes cascade into each other. Plug into the left (low) input and you get one gain stage, plug into the right (high) and you get two. I understand that you could plug into the high and footswitch between one and two stages. This'd make it to Marshall what Mesa originally was to Fender. I've seen some Sound City amps with a similar setup, which brings us to the:
Wizard Rock Standard-apparently these guys found a 1210. The RS is not an exact copy, you can't footswitch the second gain stage in/out as I recall, but it does cascade them and does have the low input with only one gain stage. Great tone, nice sustain. It'll go from a JCM800 level up to a 2550 Jubilee without the nasty diodes