Cheap DSL ressurected

[Hipster Salad]

Finally got time to sit down with this thing and make happy sounds.

Gave the board another once-over and found these two resistors (1w 1ohm and 100ohm) burned. Right by the last power tube, and they're right between the PT and heaters in the circuit. I bet the previous owner had a tube crap out and took these out with it. Makes sense since he said it all of a sudden went quiet, replaced the power tubes with new ones, and nothing improved.



Then trimmed down the entire shoddy wiring from the PT and OT install and made proper spade connections for everything:



And BOOM. Makes sound. Makes very nice Marshall sound. Me happy.

[rock flag and eagle]

Nice, seemed to have been a pretty easy fix.
I need to open up mine again and try to figure it out or just take to a tech. I had a ceramic cap burn that took out a screen resistor. I replaced the cap with one rated for a much higher voltage and replaced the screen resistor, amp works but it has nowhere near the amount of gain it should.

[Mike Oxhuge]

Nice! Glad you got it sorted. DSL's are my favorite master volume Marshall to use for gigging and they record amazing as well. Another one of my favorite top 10 tube amps I've owned. Congrats!

[GuitarBilly]

Great score on this amp. This is the last version of the JCM2000 so all the factory issues had been corrected. Now that you fixed it, this is going to be a really solid amp.

[RyanDistortion]

Great score on this amp. This is the last version of the JCM2000 so all the factory issues had been corrected. Now that you fixed it, how much do you want for it?

FTFY

[Hipster Salad]

Great score on this amp. This is the last version of the JCM2000 so all the factory issues had been corrected. Now that you fixed it, this is going to be a really solid amp.

Billy, you ever run your DSL's without the bright cap/C12? Tried it for a minute and didn't like how it made the amp feel like I had to fight to get the sound to come through. Knocking down the shrill highs is nice, but too high a price overall.

I do plan on putting a choke in at some point, and either tweaking the Deep switch value or just adding a Resonance control.

But man, I really missed having a DSL.

[GuitarBilly]

Great score on this amp. This is the last version of the JCM2000 so all the factory issues had been corrected. Now that you fixed it, this is going to be a really solid amp.

Billy, you ever run your DSL's without the bright cap/C12? Tried it for a minute and didn't like how it made the amp feel like I had to fight to get the sound to come through. Knocking down the shrill highs is nice, but too high a price overall.

I do plan on putting a choke in at some point, and either tweaking the Deep switch value or just adding a Resonance control.

But man, I really missed having a DSL.

No I never liked the DSL without the bright cap. Or any Marshall for that matter, for the reasons you just described.
The bright cap is part of the Marshall tone. If you take it off, you neuter the amp's attack and cut IMHO.

Now, with that said, you could try some different values in there. The stock is 4700pf IIRC. You could try something like 2200pf or lower. My custom 2203 has a 1000pf bright cap and it sounds great. Or maybe even put a 3 way switch with different values. So the are some cool things that can be done with the bright cap.
But taking it off completely does not sound good IMHO.

Also, try a 12AT7 in the PI, that works really well with the DSL.

[RaceU4her]

Also, try a 12AT7 in the PI, that works really well with the DSL.

i gotta try this still, i bought a mesa 12AT7 for it lol

[Zozobra]

Great score on this amp. This is the last version of the JCM2000 so all the factory issues had been corrected. Now that you fixed it, this is going to be a really solid amp.

Billy, you ever run your DSL's without the bright cap/C12? Tried it for a minute and didn't like how it made the amp feel like I had to fight to get the sound to come through. Knocking down the shrill highs is nice, but too high a price overall.

I do plan on putting a choke in at some point, and either tweaking the Deep switch value or just adding a Resonance control.

But man, I really missed having a DSL.

If you want to tame the highs a bit then add a plate bypass cap around the 3rd or 4th stage or add/increase the grid stopper resistor around there. I'm on my phone so don't have the schematic handy, but something like that will give it the nudge it needs. It's more about controlling the intermodulation distortion hash then big tone shaping at that point.

[Hipster Salad]

Great score on this amp. This is the last version of the JCM2000 so all the factory issues had been corrected. Now that you fixed it, this is going to be a really solid amp.

Billy, you ever run your DSL's without the bright cap/C12? Tried it for a minute and didn't like how it made the amp feel like I had to fight to get the sound to come through. Knocking down the shrill highs is nice, but too high a price overall.

I do plan on putting a choke in at some point, and either tweaking the Deep switch value or just adding a Resonance control.

But man, I really missed having a DSL.

If you want to tame the highs a bit then add a plate bypass cap around the 3rd or 4th stage or add/increase the grid stopper resistor around there. I'm on my phone so don't have the schematic handy, but something like that will give it the nudge it needs. It's more about controlling the intermodulation distortion hash then big tone shaping at that point.

What would something like a 500pf bypass cap on the first gain stage plate do on this amp? It's kind of a Friedman thing that sometimes I like it sometimes I don't. I have a hunch that the Pink Taco V2 is void of the first couple plate snubbers compared to the original version, which gives it the brighter slightly more aggressive tone.

[Hipster Salad]

Billy -

I have a few Tung Sol 12AT7s from a antique store find months ago. Box full of misc vintage radio tubes and lined with newspaper from 1963.

Gonna pop one of those in the PI when I put the choke in next week.