Initial JMD 100 thoughts and impressions

[surfnorthwest]

I have been playing for like 35 years, I have owned many amps. Through the years I have been able to buy what I need and always willing to try something new. The best rig I have ever owned was the one I gigged with years ago which was a JMP-1 going through two Marshall 9100s and a some rack effects.

I wasn't until some years later that I played the VM by chance and took it home with me the same day. You know when you have found a amp that can deliver.

I also wonder how Steve feels when people slam his amps or design, I used to think "man you got to have some big shoulders to listen to this shit" today I have a different opinion. I think Steve knows two things, the real sales numbers and how good his amps sound. If I were Steve I wouldn't give two squirts of piss about what people said negatively about the new JDM series, I know now what he knows. This amp could be the best all in one tone machine ever to hit the market. Steve you have hit a frickin’ homerun with the JMD 100. Congratulations to you sir and thank you for building a amp I am proud to say it is everything I could want in a amp for a great price.

OK you all think I am fricking crazy and just excited about this new amp that showed up.... wrong! This amp is as good as any Marshall I have played hands down and this includes the VM. For those of you who know me I do not make this statement lightly. I just spent the past 3 hours playing this amp non-stop and will post my initial thoughts, first some pics of her. Notice it does have a preamp tube just like all the a-holes on the internet said it didn’t.






OK let’s get the bad that I have discovered so far out of the way. Frickin Sweetwater shipped this without a cord and without the midi foot switch. That is all so far.

I used my Les Paul to stat to demo this amp. I suspect based on how the amp was set that this amp had definitely been out of the box before as its was already set to a very high gain setting. I will deal with Sweetwater later.
I switched the amp to preamp 1 (there are 16 total preamps.. 4 clean – 4 crunch – 4 Overdrive – 4 lead) to start trying the cleans. As I dimed the master I go WTF…. This amp is not very loud. Oh wait a minute there is another volume on the channel section…sweet. It is louder than the VM on the clean side of things without question… head room to die for.

I found I really liked preamp 2 on the clean channel so I started checking out the reverb, delay, and chorus, class effects all the way. I suspect Softube had their hands in developing these effects because they are as good as any of my pedals. Got a very cool 80s chorus very clean going with some delay I love.

Next was to try the four preamps on the crunch side, preamp 5 was my favorite all though I think the crunch section had my favorite preamps of all of them, I will probably use these four preamps mostly for my music. So with setting 5 I dialed off the modulation and open it up to see how the amp responds to my guitars volume….perfect. It cleans up like any great tube amp should, very responsive. I had sort of a vintage 1959 plexi tone going here so I wanted to see how much gain I could add to it. I was blown away by what I heard as I had the master only on 4 and the pre volume on 8 and the gain on 7. At the risk of getting to excited I will just say I don’t need my metro anymore, its all here. The goain it is able to produce negates ever having any kind of boost or OD pedal. If fact the only pedals I can see ever using with this amp will be my wah and univibe

At this point I do not believe what I am getting out of this amp, every preamp is excellent and very programmable. And here is the gods send for you guys. Many of these killer tones can come at reasonable bedroom levels. You will lose some of the gain and drive from the EL34s by turning down the master but it is very respectable all low volumes.

I didn’t spend much time playing around in the overdrive or lead section other than to figure out that two of the 16 preamps are heavy metal out of the gate, the one called detune was a very killer preamp. In fact I cannot think of a single genre this amp would not be able to do.

Guys the last test was to test the sustain and see how it would bleed off into harmonic feedback , this is very important to me as it suits my playing style. Slide down the A string and hold the b note and it bleeds into that wonderful harmonic feedback that digital amps cannot do worth a shit. Perfect harmonic feedback bleeds come with ease.

What my initial conclusion of the amp thus far is

- Very usable and realistic preamp tones, I cannot tell the amp has a digital preamp at all. Great job Softtube
- Great cleans with big headroom
- Very responsive master volume control, even sound when jumping between preamp with zero noise
- Amazing noise gate that works as it should with sucking only minimal sustain
- Great effects and the digital reverb is stellar
- Enough gain to satisfy anyone
- Very responsive to your playing and pinch harmonics and musical feedback come with ease
- Some killer Plexi and JCM 800 tones are all here, not just close but dead on.
- This is one loud amp but you will not lose note definition even with very high gain, amazing.

I will post some sound clips of each channel this weekend stay tuned. Guys this amp is a must have, call me crazy now but I will say in one year from now this amp is one of the most popular amps on the market. Thank you Steve for this one!!

[HarleyMan]

Well, stating that you don't need your Metro anymore is pretty strong, in fact, about as strong a statement as one could make, given the parameters here. I'm sitting here with a Kustom Double Cross that I bought to have an amp with multiple channel switching purposes and out comes this one. Damn. Sounds like it might be an amp to work a trade in with G.C. when they get in.

Sounds like Sweetwater had some fun with your amp before you got a hold of it. Not cool, but probably expected. Nothing's sacred anymore. They'll ship your other stuff. Happened to me on some very expensive gear as well. They're good for it.

Thanks Surf.

[surfnorthwest]

It was the first one they got (so they say) and in the box there was no owners manual, warentee card, midi footswitch, cord. Also the packing was not put back in correctly so ya, giving that and the setting that it was on when I got it someone had fun. I sent my sales guys a ass letter so I will play this one until a new unopened one shows up.

The plexi tones are really that good. If you go to SoftTubes web site and understand the pattented technoigiy they used to copy the sounds it will make sense. While the amp is not as loud as my Metro I was able to get a very respectible 1959 tone in the crunch section with more gain than my Metro can give me, seriously I was impressed.

I would tell guys to set the channel volume on 8 and the Master on 5 when trying the amp and flip through all the preamps, also adjust the gain control up/down on each preamp to see what it can do.

You try one you will buy one.

[HarleyMan]

I'm not sure there is any current real world situation where old school 100 watts worth of open power are useable except as a weapon.

Hey surf, there is one questilon. To my mind, there is that harmonic 'thing' that all great Marshalls do, in the clean range. I think of the band INXS and all their little clean riffs they used as hooks. They all had that character. It's why, even with any 1959, even if the ice pike wants to make your head melt and explode in a bad way, the very fact that it can do that lends itself to emit that certain mojo clean tone. Is that in this amp? And the this....

When you turn up, even a 50 watt JCM 800, the transformer seems to flatten out the frequency response and the midrange crank butterness thunder, it's just to die for and only found in that amp, takes away any brittlemess, even with a GT 75 Celestion. Is it in this one? Those two characteristics, found in one amp, would be almost unbelievable.

[surfnorthwest]

Hard to give a good answer yet given my limited time with the amp. Also I had the head going through my 4x12 of Alnico Golds.

All I can say with confidense right now on the plexi type cleans is the eq on the amp is very responsive. That eq will really allow you to fine tune the tone. Also the presence is very responsive, more so than with the VM IMO. Those controls should easily be able to smooth out any ice pick frequencies. The gain control also really changes the voice in a good way and will have that harmonic element you speak of. Of course ones playing ability and pickups are going to play a big part of that.

Cannot answer the other question about the JCM800 sound yet, all I can tell you is I have previously owned a JMP and a 2203 and those saturated 800 tones are there. I think you were trying to describe sag.

Again I am just suprised how real the tones sound and how well the multiple preamp voices interact with the EL34 power section. I think guys are just going to have to spend more time with the amp to see what I mean. I know Mety has also had a opprtunity to play the amp so maybe he can chime in.

[bluesbrother]

Hi Surf,

From what i understand is that the clean and crunch sounds are
outstanding as well as the reverb.

With a digital preamp there is no tube sag but the decay time
of the reverb you get a similar effect but not the same.....

Its no secret there is a preamp tube EC83 ( look at specifications
marshall site) but as in many digital preamps ( my zoom GT9.2tt
had two of them) its purpose is ony to give warmth to the sound
but the distortion is not from the tube !!! Even though there is a
preamp tube it stays a completely digital preamp.

The layout of this amp and the pricepoint might make this marshall
best selling amp ( only when the combos do not rattle )
Good work marshall
Thanks Surf for your honest impressions and nice pics!!

[surfnorthwest]

I do not know what the reverb type is on the JMD but I like it a lot, no pedal required. It doesn't sound cheesy at all. I am going to try and run the digital preamps from the fx send into the VM to see how it sounds with a KT66 power section, just curious.

Another thing I would highly recommend doing before trying this amp is to watch all five videos Chris George did on the JMD that are availible on the Marshall website (theater). It helped me out a lot to understand the effects and other things so I was not lost when I was pitting the amp through it's paces.

[SteveD]

The ECC83 is actually the phase inverter so is really part of the power amp.

-- Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:14 pm --

With a digital preamp there is no tube sag but the decay time
of the reverb you get a similar effect but not the same.....

Sag has never had anything to do with preamps, analogue or digital.

-- Thu Feb 25, 2010 8:16 pm --

Congrats on the new amp Surf, hope you have many enjoyable hours with it!

[HarleyMan]

Steve, where break up/overdrive/distortion is created seems to be a topic bandied about a great deal, you know, Lockness monster, Saskwatch, what have you. There are those who suggest that PI is where saturation occurs. Are you of that opinion? if so, already, i see a cool jailbreak with this new amp. Please chime in, highest Grandfather. Signed....grasshopper

[Spotted Dog]

Thanks for the details Surf, this baby appears to have some awesome features... can't wait to see and try one at the local big box store. Having all those legendary Marshall tones in one head is very attractive.

And the effects...? Wow!

Don't ya know some will still find a need to use their pedals, not there there's anything wrong with that, but it appears like this amp does it all.

[surfnorthwest]

The reverb and delays are top shelf, seriously I can't imagine anything more there. The noise gate is good but perhaps more sensitive than the ISP, it will do the job but the ISP is better.

The chorus is very good and for my tastes I will use it. The tremolo is also very strong so no need for a pedal there either. The two effects I would rate as average in this amp are the phase and the flange, diffenitly better pedals for those two effects but by no means are they unusable.

Spent some time last night with the Strat and the amp. I will defenitly need to tweak my settings for the Strat different than the Les Paul. There is a preamp in the overdrive section that flat nails SRV with a Strat. Also one of the preamps in the crunch section was vintage Deep Purple. I love the four preamps in the crunch section the best with either guitar so far.

Also unless you need to gig with this amp I think the 50 watt version would be plenty, this 100 watt version can rock the house big time, I love it

[SteveD]

Steve, where break up/overdrive/distortion is created seems to be a topic bandied about a great deal, you know, Lockness monster, Saskwatch, what have you. There are those who suggest that PI is where saturation occurs. Are you of that opinion? if so, already, i see a cool jailbreak with this new amp. Please chime in, highest Grandfather. Signed....grasshopper

Ha ha 'highest grandfather' indeed

Certainly on older plexi era amps and up to the JCM 800s the phase inverter got hit hard as it does on the Vintage Modern also. However, later amps signal amplitudes were usually decreased going into the phase inverter (which is the input to the power amp really) and distortion tended to be generated more in the earlier preamp stages. The power amp operated in a more linear fashion which was especially conducive in multi channel amps to maintain equilibrium between sounds.

The JMD1 does not hit the PI as hard as older amps but it still packs a hard punch in order to get those plexiesque tones cooking!

[surfnorthwest]

More good news,

The emulated line out works to perfection, dare I say I can record these awesome tones now with just my studio monitors.... YES. No cabinets no setting up mics. Now I will loose some of that "live" speaker sound but it can easily be compensated for using some VSTs when mastering.

Ran a XLR into my RME Fireface 800 and selected the channel for the input audio into SONAR, I was having some major clipping issues at first with the amp. You have to adjust the Preamp volume on the amp to the sweet spot so it won't clip then you are good to go. Got the level set right and hit record on dual tracks..... fantastic. This amp is going to shine for guys that simply want to run it through the PA.

Also by recording direct like this you need to have the master volume all the way turned down unless you choose to moniter your playing from the cabinet instead of the studio monitors. Again adjust the preamp volume to set your levels.

Recording the amp like this allows you to monitor the recorded track through the studio monitors while you simply play along and record into the mix at any volume you wish.

-- Fri Feb 26, 2010 7:53 pm --

Just bought a second JMD 100, loving this amp for the price. :party

[Spotted Dog]

Just bought a second JMD 100, loving this amp for the price.  

OK I'll bite... "Why?"

[surfnorthwest]

Just bought a second JMD 100, loving this amp for the price.  

OK I'll bite... "Why?"

To take up to the cabin, I was going to get a Class 5 but that amp scares me and I love this one.