MA's new look....

[Nebulozny]

I always thought that one part of the iconic look of Marshall amp is the red power switch, which MA lacks, so after checking out mods at JMD part of forum I decided to do it myself. Bought the JCM switch for 5$ , and replaced the old one, a bit tweaking with wires since you have to swap position in order to have the light function properly and here you go...a cooler looking MA front.

[SteveD]

Cool!

Now maybe some white piping...

[Nebulozny]

Cool!

Now maybe some white piping...

White piping is allready shipped to my adress , so new pics coming soon.

[guitarest]

Cool!

Now maybe some white piping...

Yeah white piping for sure; it made my JMD look loads better also.

[Phano36]

Wow Men ! she look sexy now !

[noise5150]

hey thats cool! I am curious. If any of you guys could compare the MA to the DSL or JVM tone wise (I own the DSL & my brother owns a JVM) for me I would appreciate it.

[txslowhand]

I always thought that one part of the iconic look of Marshall amp is the red power switch, which MA lacks, so after checking out mods at JMD part of forum I decided to do it myself. Bought the JCM switch for 5$ , and replaced the old one, a bit tweaking with wires since you have to swap position in order to have the light function properly and here you go...a cooler looking MA front.

Nebulozny,
I just got my MA50H in yesterday. I also don't know why Marshall didn't go with the red lit power switch on the MA series. I too bought a replacement JCM 4 pronged red power switch to put in my MA50H but didn't realize there was some wiring changes (which I guess shouldn't surprise me since you have to get power to the light portion of the switch). Would you mind telling me how the wiring needs to be on the red power switch or send me a link with the diagram/instructions? Would really appreciate your help.

[Nebulozny]

Hi there, welcome to the MA club, and try some of sound tricks we posted here on forum to make it sound even better
Well I guess one of ways to put this amp to lower end shelf is a black power switch in it...just cosmetic downgrade to make it look less like JCM's and other big brothers.
And it's a piece of cake to change
I am borrowing pic from another thread but this is what you will see when you open the amp, power switch on the far right. Now, you replace it with new one, and put the wires in same places as they were layed out in original switch, brown - blue on the top are ''live'' wires which bring power to switch, and low ones are going to the amp. My problem was that light was on all the time even when amp switched off, switch is working ok , so I just changed order of these wires, so now ''live'' wires are down and those going to amp are up, I hope you understand me.
Do this only if you have same issue as me, could be that your switch would work ok on original wiring but if not , just change them like this and no problem, switch works the same wires down or up, but light is a bit different wired I guess in my switch.



Here is a drawing of switch as you look it from the back ,and to show you how to change wiring, what was up is now down.

[txslowhand]

Hi there, welcome to the MA club, and try some of sound tricks we posted here on forum to make it sound even better
Well I guess one of ways to put this amp to lower end shelf is a black power switch in it...just cosmetic downgrade to make it look less like JCM's and other big brothers.
And it's a piece of cake to change
I am borrowing pic from another thread but this is what you will see when you open the amp, power switch on the far right. Now, you replace it with new one, and put the wires in same places as they were layed out in original switch, brown - blue on the top are ''live'' wires which bring power to switch, and low ones are going to the amp. My problem was that light was on all the time even when amp switched off, switch is working ok , so I just changed order of these wires, so now ''live'' wires are down and those going to amp are up, I hope you understand me.
Do this only if you have same issue as me, could be that your switch would work ok on original wiring but if not , just change them like this and no problem, switch works the same wires down or up, but light is a bit different wired I guess in my switch.



Here is a drawing of switch as you look it from the back ,and to show you how to change wiring, what was up is now down.

Thanks, appreciate it. It does look pretty straight forward. Will probably try this out after my preamp tubes arrive in the mail. I love the clean channel on the MA50H but the OD channel could use a little TLC so I've going to swap out the preamp tubes in the quest for a little bit better tone (and less hiss/white noise). The stock preamp tubes are really noisy. Can't complain about the power tubes being that they're =C= EL34s. I'll definitely check out the forum to see what mods/tricks people have tried out on their MA amps. I'm a sucker for trying out mods on my amps.

[Nebulozny]

No prob mate.
About preamp tubes, I have changed them to Tung-Sol's, really nice overdrive.
There are no real mod's on the forum, just some tricks to use with MA... please check this link below for details, basically you put overdrive pedal in effects loop and use it as a master volume control, I think you will be surprised by the sound.

http://marshallvintagemodern.com/viewto ... 6&start=15

[txslowhand]

No prob mate.
About preamp tubes, I have changed them to Tung-Sol's, really nice overdrive.
There are no real mod's on the forum, just some tricks to use with MA... please check this link below for details, basically you put overdrive pedal in effects loop and use it as a master volume control, I think you will be surprised by the sound.

http://marshallvintagemodern.com/viewto ... 6&start=15

Thanks again. I'm definitely going to try something as a master volume in the effects loop. Didn't occur to me to try a OD pedal as a master volume when I was ordering a passive attenuator for my MA50H (still waiting for it to get here). The place I bought it from claims it won't color the tone but we'll see since we all know attenuators are notorious for being tone soakers. If the attenuator doesn't work out, what would be a good pedal to use as master volume in the effects loop? It looks like you favor the SD-1.

[Nebulozny]

Well I had SD-1 to try out and like the sound really, Phano here on the forum uses Vox Ice 9 pedal, but cheapest are SD-1 or Digitech Bad Monkey.

[txslowhand]

Well I finally got the time to put in a lighted power switch into my MA50H. Piece of cake with Nebulozny's instructions and pics. The picture is a little grainy because I took it with my iPod.

[Nebulozny]

Nice work

[washburn 1]

Hi everyone, appologies if i am not posting this question correctly as i am new to this great forum and therefor its my first post. I have recently purchased a secondhand MA50 head in AS NEW condition for a very good £200.Only 10 months old but manufactured in 2009. This head has been revoiced, possibly from a new recall. Have put in 3x jj ecc83s, and re-biased bias now 38mv from 41 & 48mv.(just as well i did!!) White piping and black cloth inside back panel blocks out the see-through effect. Great! Have bought a new Marshall red mains switch but whichever way it is connected the neon is lit! switch still operates mormally and tested for correct continuity. Any ideas from anyone would be very much appreciated. Running it through 2x 1936 one being a vintage(on top) sounding good but still getting used to it.Any ideas on other pre-amp valves and in which positions would be food for thought.Sorry to ramble on. Cheers, Kev.