Great versatility, quality, and value. Get one today!
This is a a great amp that provides a sampling of Marshall's greatest tones, all in one chassis. From a sparkling cleans with plenty of headroom, to classic Marshall crunch, to crushing distortion, this amp can handle a wide variety of tones and musical genres. And while it has more tonal options than most amps on the market, the front panel doesn't look (or feel) as daunting as the JVM410 amps, and the price is much closer to the "everyman" category.
What really pushed me toward this particular amp are the Marshall name and tone, the channel versatility, and MIDI capability. If you are a fan of the Marshall sound, this amp will not disappoint. That said, most people won't expect the extremes to which this amp will go. While the clean channel can be pushed to a lite bite/crunch, my favorite way to set it is for pristine, shimmering cleans, which it pulls off perfectly. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the overdrive red mode contains more distortion and depth than I've ever heard in a British amp. In between these two extremes is Marshall's bread-and-butter, where you can find tones ranging from Plexi to JCM800 to DSL. In fact, according to the manual (and confirmed by my ears), the clean/crunch red mode and the overdrive green mode are the exact same circuitry (based on the JCM 800), which can be set (and in a real-world application, must be set) differently to achieve either subtle or significant differentiation.
The front panel controls are easy to use. In classic Marshall fashion, setting the controls to any position yields a usable tone. To that end, "dialing in" the tone is not so much an exercise in finding the amp's sweet spot as is it playing with the knobs to find a tone that suits your individual style.
The features that I have not been impressed with so far are the XLR line out and the parallel effects loop. The line out is designed to allow for direct signal feed to either a PA or recording unit, which could be very useful. The biggest complaint I usually hear is that it doesn't sound enough like a mic'd 4x12 cab to be useful in the real world. In my case, I found the tone to be rather good (if not exactly real-world tone), but for the life of me, I could not get the level down to a point where it wasn't clipping the fire out of whatever board or recorder I plugged into. I may be missing something, but the level out is just entirely too hot.
Regarding the parallel loop, I have the opposite problem, where engaging loop drops the signal level considerably. This hasn't had as big an impact, however, as I prefer to run my effects rig (a Boss GT-100) through the series loop, using the Boss to balance the level.
In sum, the JVM210 boasts of high-end quality and tone, new-age versatility and technology, and a price tag that makes it a good value relative to other high-end amps. Add to this the fact that it is still made in Britain, and you have an amp that feels connected to the past with its eye on the future.Read full review
