jshinal's forum posts 2

Allow me to give an oddball, less expensive alternative to a fancy Bluesbreaker clone.

Get a good 2x12 open back cabinet, empty if possible. There are many builders who make good clones of the Marshall 2x12 open back style. Load it with a pair of speakers that imitate Celestion Greenbacks or the older Bulldogs.

Then find a nice 50w JCM2000 DSL50. Run it in green channel mode, with the master volume on 10 and the preamp gain half way up.

Perfect ? No - but tweaked a bit, it will give you 85-90% of what you want. Types of tubes or speakers will affect the final flavor, but that's what's interesting to fiddle with. Best of all, it's a ton cheaper than a handbuilt reproduction.

I've heard one of the 50w Metros a local slide player has, they do sound fantastic. But I got my DSL50 for $425 off Craigslist. I just had to wait a while for a good opportunity.

My former lead guitarist used one as his 'B' rig. This is a guy who plays a Germino halfstack normally. The Quilters are very clean with lots of headroom. So if you have a really sweet and pure sounding dirtbox in front of it, that's what you'll hear come out. As a tonehound myself, I was very impressed.