How the Marshall Amp Changed Rock—and the Meaning of 'Loud'

[SEAWOLF97]

Jim Marshall's famous black box allowed bands to be heard by larger crowds than ever before. Now, though, it's more a symbol of arena concerts than a necessary component of them.


http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/how-the-marshall-amp-changed-rock-and-the-meaning-of-loud/255705/

[DavidF]

"Four years later, The Who took the title when the band's loudage reached 126 db (by this time they had switched to Hiwatt amps, due to a misunderstanding with the Marshall family over a bill)."

Hmmm. Could this misunderstanding be due to a pileup of damaged equipment that had not even been paid for yet?

Jimi Hendrix ALWAYS comes to my mind when I think of Marshall stacks. He didn't play guitars, after all. "He played amps."

[Doctor_Electron]

I once attended a red-hot blues show in San ta Barbara, Ca. where the red-hot guitarist Cash McCall was playing through a rented Fender Twin Reverb, a non-descript, silverfaced beater. The tone and power he produced was incredible. Being a tube amp nut, during a break I checked out the amp. Every knob on the rig was turned completely up!
Then it finally occurred to me what the Twin Reverb Amp, with often "muddy" tone, (when used at low power settings) was really about. BALLS!
And it couldn't have sounded any better in that setting.

[louped garouv]

I once attended a red-hot blues show in San ta Barbara, Ca. where the red-hot guitarist Cash McCall was playing through a rented Fender Twin Reverb, a non-descript, silverfaced beater. The tone and power he produced was incredible. Being a tube amp nut, during a break I checked out the amp. Every knob on the rig was turned completely up!
Then it finally occurred to me what the Twin Reverb Amp, with often "muddy" tone, (when used at low power settings) was really about. BALLS!
And it couldn't have sounded any better in that setting.

I think this may be at least partly the reason we are seeing more lower powered guitar tube amp rigs...
that way, you can drive the 3-8 watts the amp produces hard, but it's still not too terribly overbearingly loud....

[4343]

No need for a stack. The last show I took my son to was Los Lobos, and the lead guy had a cold. So all night long, he had trouble hearing himself, the rest of us, not so much...:crying: