Marsha Valve Live Test Drive

[vanhansen]

This weekend my BIL (brother-in-law) and I got together and jammed for about 5 hours.  He plays drums so this was the perfect situation to see how the Marsha Valve would perform in a live and loud situation.  Well, she passed with flying colors.  Holy crap it sounded sweet.  When I boxed it up I opted to put a 100k-A pot on the output.  Good move actually.  

Through the clean channel of my little amp, it added some nice grit and was not muddy at all.  Very pleasant sounding.  On the overdrive channel, well, it was pushing the daylights out that front end and added a nice Marshall type character to it.  I was pleasantly surprised.  

This is by no means a clean circuit but the dirt it provides is really nice.  The amp I was using was SS.  I have yet to try it out in front of a tube amp but I'm willing to bet it will work pretty nicely.  If anyone who has built it has used it in front of a tube amp, please share your experience/opinions.

[MartyMart]

Hi Erik, I've used mine with both Peavey Classic 30 and a Matamp valve
head/cab, its very sweet driving them into "submission" !!
The Matamp is quite a "dark" sound, so this livens it up very nicely !
Great little circuit, but I've yet to try the 16/24  !!

Cheers,
Marty.

[vanhansen]

Hi Marty,
Thanks for sharing.  It's nice to know that it works well with those amps.  I'll be able to slam the front of my Marshall with it this weekend hopefully.
What JFET did you use?  I have a NTE458 in it now but want to try a few others as well.  The only other one I used was a MPF102 and it's a nice really low gain sound.

[MartyMart]

Hi Marty,
Thanks for sharing.  It's nice to know that it works well with those amps.  I'll be able to slam the front of my Marshall with it this weekend hopefully.
What JFET did you use?  I have a NTE458 in it now but want to try a few others as well.  The only other one I used was a MPF102 and it's a nice really low gain sound.

I had one spare NTE458 so that went in, they are damed hard to find here in the UK .... any ideas ?
If you fancy swopping a few, PM me

Cheers,
Marty.

[vanhansen]

I got my NTE458's at Fry's Electronics here in the US.  They only had 2 left so I snagged them.  My last one is on the breadboard in the second stage of the Sixteen OD right now.  I'd love to trade but I don't have any left.

Circuit Specialists carries them as well as Mouser Electronics.  They are pricey though.