Buying Marshall Amp, Need Help On Deciding Which One And Opininons Quick!

Hello all, well my Dad's boss is giving me a Fender (not sure what type it is yet but my dad said he remembered him saying it was made in Mexico, so im hoping maybe a Stratocaster) so I have decided to buy a nice Marshall amp to learn on. I have looked in my price range and here is what I found:
http://www.zzounds.com/love.music?p=p.MSHMG80RCD&z=1213927843678

or

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/ex/shop/guitar/011104205307216063121107342177?pid=482767

Which do you guys think I should get? I will be playing Blink 182/Sum 41 type stuff eventually so I want one that lends itself to crunchiness and a cleaner sound when I need them. So what do you guys think is the better buy? I would think the 80 watt Marhsall is better but I wanted to ask all you experienced guys. Thanks in advance!

(Also what are the best internet palces to buy from for the best price, these places dont seem to be too bad)

(Also anyone have any experience or heard anytihng about the zZounds.com store?)

-Callaway

First of all, have you noticed that all your posts end with the word "quick", followed by an exclamation mark?

I find it somewhat humourous to see the words "nice Marshall amp" and "to learn on" in the same sentence. I don't think that there are many people here that ever had experience with that sort of thing.

Most Marshall amps are nice, but I would suggest that you do some general research on the 'net, not about Marshall amps, but about amps in general. Find out how many watts is enough, whether tube or solid-state is better for you, etc. Check out www.guitarnuts.com

Also, as with the guitar situation, it would be prudent to buy a used or cheap new amp. You won't be having any gigs right away, so it's not as if you need an amp you can perform with. Then, when you decide that you hate Marshall distortion, or that you wanted a tube amp all along, you won't be kicking yourself for buying a $1000 amp that has a $500 resale value.



P.S. 80 watts is really overkill, especially for in-your-basement type jamming. Check out the website above, or even the "Tech Talk" section of the forum (you might need to go back a few months) and see how many watts are enough.

First of all, have you noticed that all your posts end with the word "quick", followed by an exclamation mark?

I find it somewhat humourous to see the words "nice Marshall amp" and "to learn on" in the same sentence. I don't think that there are many people here that ever had experience with that sort of thing.

Most Marshall amps are nice, but I would suggest that you do some general research on the 'net, not about Marshall amps, but about amps in general. Find out how many watts is enough, whether tube or solid-state is better for you, etc. Check out www.guitarnuts.com

Also, as with the guitar situation, it would be prudent to buy a used or cheap new amp. You won't be having any gigs right away, so it's not as if you need an amp you can perform with. Then, when you decide that you hate Marshall distortion, or that you wanted a tube amp all along, you won't be kicking yourself for buying a $1000 amp that has a $500 resale value.

I've found that www.musiciansfriend.com and www.music123.com seem to have the best prices around.


P.S. 80 watts is really overkill, especially for in-your-basement type jamming. Check out the website above, or even the "Tech Talk" section of the forum (you might need to go back a few months) and see how many watts are enough.

Thanks for the replies guys, my question is, I thought Marshall amps were good? Can you guys explain the ins and outs of them (what is bad and what is good)? After reading all the info you guys gave me links to I figure even 30watt would be nice. I was looking at the Vox you are recommending Pony but I also want to get all the controls and features that the Marshall has, point in case I dont want to have to be ordering anything new anytime soon, as its hard to explain to my parents why I am getting rid of something for something else when I just got it and I hate dealing with that, sorry about all the annoying questions, I know it must be frustrating but im just trying to be able to get it mostly right the first time around so I dont have to deal with it in the near future. Anyways, could you guys clear up how the Marshall amps sound, I have read some things that say Mashalls have good string note tone but no overdriven or distortion, and some reviews that say that they have lots of awesome distortion, which confuses me because I dont know who to believe. (Marshalls are tube amps correct?)
Any other recommendations for good tone and distortion that can be played over a drummer and another guitar player =)?

Also I found this techiniuqe that invovles plugging 1.A amp on the "clean" setting with the gain set to 10 and running out to another amp and setting the second amp on the "dirty" channel and setting the gain to 10 and then running to a Cabinet, kind of combining the best of both worlds for a cool sound. My question is could I buy to lower wattage amps (say 15w-30w) amps and do this setup but eliminate the cabinet? Would this even work, and would the second amp be creating both sounds out of its speaker? If its possible I thought it might be kind of neat to do this with some budget amps ($100-$200 range). What do ya think, maybe a cheaper Marshall (they have one for $179) and a Vox Pathfinder for $110 and do this combo? How exactly do you set this up (run a cord out of the output on the first amp to the other amps input?)? Also, you gusy were talking about PA cabinets, how do they sound, they didn't seem too badly priced (incase I need a cabinet) or would they sound too horrible to mess with in the first place?

[Edited by Erik2005 on 11-07-2001 at 12:52 AM]

I can understand how you feel about getting it right the first time and having your parents hassle you if you keep trading stuff in and buying different equipment. But I think they would also understand it if you explained to them that you would rather save your and their money by buying something cheap first and trading it in for what you really want, after you decide what that is.

If you have your heart set on spending all your savings on a good amp right away, I'd listen to PonyOne and check out Vox amps; Lordathastrings is always raving about his Ampeg, that might be a good idea; and the guy from http://www.guitarnuts.com also has an Ampeg, but lower wattage than Lordathastrings (hmmm...maybe they're the same person? I might have to start a new thread on that). Also, sometimes manufacturers put all kinds of knobs on an amp to disguise the fact that it has poor tone (My first amp - a Fender Frontman 25W, solid-state, had an inexplicable "reverb" dial, which did not at all alter the sound). If you like a feature, it can almost always be reproduced with a foot-pedal (distortion, graphic EQ, reverb, overdrive).

To answer your other question, not all Marshalls are tube. Actually, there are probably not too many tube amps in your local guitar shop (there aren't in mine). Marshall does make tube amps, but they also make solid-state. It would be a better idea to get a low-watt tube amp than a low-watt solid-state, since with solid-state, low-watt generally means it's a practice amp. Lordathastrings has already gone into quite some detail on this subject; take your time and read through this thread: http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=2086

Sorry for the long post, everyone. Hope that helps, Erik.