#Marshall amplifiers serial number#

With that paradigm shift, the stage was set for an entirely new type of music to take root. At the time, it was said that Marshall had created the 'world's first great bad amplifier.' Unlike their contemporaries, Marshall amps had distortion coming from the tubes, not the speakers. Production ramped up over the course of 1963 with more a standardized centered chassis. The first few specimens had an offset chassis and control panel (something Jim thought would better line up with the jacks on cabinets), making them rare collectors’ pieces these days. With this new design cemented, Marshall amps went into the store's showroom in 1962. These were changes made by both Ken and a recently hired young intern, Dudley Craven. Other changes included moving the coupling capacitors to the output stage and adding extra negative feedback. The 6L6 power tubes were replaced with 5881s. The 12AX7s became ECC83s, including the input tube for which Fender had used a lower gain 12AY7. What did they change? Most obviously, all the Fender tubes were replaced with British ones. Contrary to popular belief, it was not merely a Fender Bassman clone. With the demand for a new sound and the cost of importing amps from elsewhere, Ken was convinced they could and should produce their own.Īfter five prototypes, they had the first Marshall amp - the JTM 45 (JTM for James & Terry Marshall, 45 for the RMS-rated wattage). When Townshend and Entwistle (among others) started asking for amps that could give more than a Fender Bassman (one of the most powerful amps at the time), Bran was the one who opened up a 5F6A Bassman (on loan from employee Mike Borer) and created a schematic from its guts to use as the basis for an entirely new amp.

That person was Ken Bran, a former Pan Am aircraft engineer and musician. The Selmer amps often broke down, so Jim hired a service tech. In addition to drums, Jim and Terry carried Vox and Selmer amps, but the bands stopping by convinced them to import Fender and Gibson guitars and amps as well. With soon-to-be-famous musicians like Mitch Mitchell, Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton and John Entwistle frequently stopping in, a community was forming at the store where locals in the midst of a burgeoning rock scene could get away from the big band crowd and talk shop. Originally named “Jim Marshall & Son,” Jim and his son Terry Marshall opened their doors in July 1960 at 76 Uxbridge Road in Hanwell, England.Įventually the store changed its name to “J & T Marshall” and opened a second location across the street.

As his number of students and desire to be a major drum dealer grew, it was clear he was going to have to set up his own shop. He entered the London music scene as a drummer, first gigging with a local big band and eventually giving lessons out of his house. Jim Marshall - the “Father Of Loud” and namesake of the company - was not a guitar player.

#Marshall amplifiers serial number#

While we do some decoding of various model names in this article, you can get a full breakdown of serial number dating and speaker codes for Marshall amps in our Marshall Dating Guide.

While Fender amps may have blazed a trail for country and early rock ‘n roll, we owe modern lead guitar tone to the precedent-setting Marshall amps of the ‘60s and ‘70s.īelow, we're taking a look at the iconic models and events from the company’s birth in 1962 to the end of hand-wired production in 1973. From the early JTM 45 prototypes to the Bluesbreaker combos and later innovations, Marshall stood for a particular sonic response, a brand of British rock quite separate from the jangly tones of Vox amps. The legacy of Marshall amps doesn’t rest solely upon the 100-watt Super Lead, though. In some cases, the band could now drown out the crowd completely.

For the first time, people could see a band live with hundreds of thousands of fellow fans and actually hear the band over the crowd.