Musicians Roadhouse

What do you think of these amps? Good and bad.

I like them a lot. Tom Morello seems to like them too. I own a 1987 model year 2205. IMO the 2205/2210 was one of the last really great sounding amps Marshall made. The overdrive "Boost" channel to me has wonderfully organic sounding mids with good note definition and a nice crunchy low end thunk. Also responds nicely to being juiced with a Tube Screamer type overdrive. Great for classic rock and 80's metal. The spring reverb unit is also nice to my ears.

The clean channel (at least on mine) is another story. With the right guitar (single coils) it's ok but otherwise it is pretty bland sounding. I bought mine used and it was in rough shape and it is probably long overdue for a cap job. Also I don't know if it was been modded at all so either of those may contribute to the lousy clean channel sound. I gig with it sometimes when I forget how much I don't like the clean channel.

There's also a lot of misinformation about these amps online concerning "channel bleed". Mine does not have this issue at all. The common story I've found is Marshall kept tweaking the circuit like every other year to cure the channel bleed but didn't solve it completely until 1987. But then I 've also seen it stated they continued changing things so the 1988/1989's don't sound like the 1987's either.

Personally I think if Marshall is ever going to release anything new in the future they ought to look to the 2205 as a starting point tone and function wise. Give the clean channel some more character, keep the boost channel and spring reverb as is, and put the whole thing in a smallbox or lunchbox head. Sold!

Big fan of the 2210, I think it was the best of the JCM800s.

I loved mine. I had a 2205 for years. I sold it because of the volume. It was just so flocking loud. I was destroying my hearing. It was a glorious amp turned up. That was the problem, it sounded so good turned up that I just kept rocking it loud even in a small room. I'm sure it is responsible for some hearing loss. If you have a place to play it though, it is a great amp. I don't knoe if links to the other forum are kosher, but a guy called New Religion has some great youtube videos of the 2205 and 2210.

I've had a couple of these. I think they sound good but lacks a bit in attack and liveliness. In the 80s i used to have a 10 band graphic to boost mids at 1KHz to get some sparkle. It can at times sound almost synthetic. The clean channel is ok but not great. I think the channel bleed wich i've never heard on any of mine was fixed very early on. There was also a first version of this amp with a very different circuit. I believe that was only made in 83 or possible 84.