Solid Solid State: Marshall Lead 12
Today we have a super clean 1986 Marshall Lead 12 (5005) amplifier. It is styled liked its JCM800 series brother’s and sisters and is quite a handsome little unit. I remember these fondly from way back when they first appeared in the early 80s. Back then I didn’t have a whole lot of experience with Marshall amps but I do recall thinking that these did capture the Marshall essence.
I’ve run into these in pawn shops for ridiculously low prices in the past. Like 35.00 or so. The shop owners most likely mistook these for the later shitty Marshall practice amps. I don’t why I never snagged one then. This one ran me a bit more but it was still about the cost of your average stompbox which is a pretty great deal for a solid, made in England practice/recording amp.
The box appears to be birch plywood just like the bigger tube units and the insides are tidy and super solid with all through-hole electronic bits. The resistors look like carbon composite which is something we tube amp people often blather on about as sounding warmer etc. etc.. Overall, it’s put together quite well. The single 10” Celestion G10D-25 speaker is thought by many to be the weak link in these amps. Many folks swap them out and claim to experience a big improvement. I’m curious myself but not curious enough to make a cheap amp an expensive amp. Not yet at least.
I have about half a dozen tube amps ranging from 5 to 50 watts. This is my only solid state number. When I first plugged it in I was taken aback a bit by the thin, shrill solid state sound that greeted me. None of that warm, fat Champ sound anywhere. Upon twiddling the knobs a bit I then recalled why I dug these amps all those years ago. It has a great – and very musical – overdrive once you get the gain up a bit. The e.q. and volume controls are some of the most interactive I’ve encountered. Just a tiny tweak or combination of tiny tweaks yields extremely different tones and characteristics. This also makes it super easy to make it sound like shit. With the gain backed off you definitely get a hint of that classic opamp clipping fart and fizzle on the note decay. No big deal for me. I’ve found lots of usable sounds in the amp.
One thing this amp excels at is getting a sweet overdriven sustain at whisper levels. Before I got this I’d use my Champ and a Rat pedal to work on riffs and parts at reasonable levels. This does that a little better with fewer parts. Just guitar > chord > amp and go. These amps are pretty hyped on the www. Some folks claim they sound just like a Plexi or JCM800 or whatever. I wouldn’t go that far. One cat who is a big fan of these has a number of Youtube videos featuring them.
I think these videos probably singlehandedly caused the price to quadruple (All of this guy’s videos are great BTW!).
They also made a Lead 12 mini stack with 2 – 1 x 10 cabs. I’ve never heard one of those though. Bottom line is the Lead 12 is a cool cheap amp and taken on its own terms it can be very fun, inspiring and useful. Looking like it fell off of Def Leppard’s tour bus in ’85 doesn’t hurt one bit either.
Update 02/13/2020
Well…curiosity got the best of me and I found that I simply had to try a speaker swap. I went down a 10” www rabbit hole and was considering a Greenback which would have been great aesthetically – and most likely sonically – but once again I was a little hesitant to up the investment level in this borderline novelty amp too much.
I ended up going with an Eminence 1058. It kept the total amp investment just over the price of a new guitar pedal and it did the trick. Here’s my experiences for anyone who might care:
The original speaker was super trebly and harsh. It sounded great at very low levels and somewhat ok with the treble rolled back at higher levels. The cleans were not usable (for me) but it was still a fun amp for getting vintage overdriven rock tones at quieter levels. Very much a one trick pony
The 1058 instantly made the amp usable over a much wider range. Before the swap I wouldn’t have considered plugging in a Fender. It was just too thin. After the swap the Telecaster sounds great with a very inspiring twang or snarl depending on the gain level. The amp is louder and fuller overall. One thing I was a little concerned about was losing some of the honky midrange the amp had that I really dug but the Eminence retained that. There is still not a lot of bass. I’m guessing you’re never going to get much bass out of that tiny cabinet. That’s Ok by me. This amp has a great midrange not present in any of my other amps. I can see this ending up on some recordings in the future.
I recommend giving it whirl to anyone on fence about upgrading the speaker in these. This inexpensive Eminence made a world of difference and made a really fun amp a really fun and quite usable amp.