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Rock Star
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But it basically is. Park was a brand Marshall used to try and get out of a shitty distribution deal. They’d also use the brand to test the waters on certain circuits. This is the 1210 Rock Head.
Been curious about these for years, it’s one of the late 70’s amps where Marshall were trying to get a grip on footswitchable channels, more gain, more effective master volume. Steve Grindrod (Marshall’s amp designer from that period, designed lots of the classic circuits like 2203) said this was his favourite circuit and Marshall should have sold this one. It has cascaded gain channels (each with its own pot), low input bypasses the first stage. Plate driven tone stack, PPIMV. It shares some similarities with the 2150 circuit, but is way gainier and bigger sounding. It’s actually more gainy and squishy than I was expecting. Possibly the biggest low end I’ve heard from a marshall and it feels amazing to play. Think i’ll take it in for a once over from Marshall but it mostly just seems that the preamp valves need replacing. V2 especially seems very sensitive to noise. Its voiced differently to what I was expecting, its deeper and thicker and more open sounding.
Mitch Colby has done some versions of these unde the current Park brand but the circuit is tweaked somewhat - not sure if it’s just the demos online but this feels way more “hot rodded 800” than plexi sounding.
Clips to come, but here it is:
back panel is interesting, the faceplate has a spot for a reverb footswitch that wasn't drilled out. I've owned a Marshall JMP2144 before which was a 2x12 version of a Park 1x12 combo, that was somewhere close to a 2204 with plate driven EQ and spring reverb. I wonder if this had some (abandoned) plans for reverb, or whether they just had a pile of unused faceplates going spare. These faceplates would have been too big for the combos and I'm not sure of too many Marshalls from that era having footswitchable reverb.
Been curious about these for years, it’s one of the late 70’s amps where Marshall were trying to get a grip on footswitchable channels, more gain, more effective master volume. Steve Grindrod (Marshall’s amp designer from that period, designed lots of the classic circuits like 2203) said this was his favourite circuit and Marshall should have sold this one. It has cascaded gain channels (each with its own pot), low input bypasses the first stage. Plate driven tone stack, PPIMV. It shares some similarities with the 2150 circuit, but is way gainier and bigger sounding. It’s actually more gainy and squishy than I was expecting. Possibly the biggest low end I’ve heard from a marshall and it feels amazing to play. Think i’ll take it in for a once over from Marshall but it mostly just seems that the preamp valves need replacing. V2 especially seems very sensitive to noise. Its voiced differently to what I was expecting, its deeper and thicker and more open sounding.
Mitch Colby has done some versions of these unde the current Park brand but the circuit is tweaked somewhat - not sure if it’s just the demos online but this feels way more “hot rodded 800” than plexi sounding.
Clips to come, but here it is:
back panel is interesting, the faceplate has a spot for a reverb footswitch that wasn't drilled out. I've owned a Marshall JMP2144 before which was a 2x12 version of a Park 1x12 combo, that was somewhere close to a 2204 with plate driven EQ and spring reverb. I wonder if this had some (abandoned) plans for reverb, or whether they just had a pile of unused faceplates going spare. These faceplates would have been too big for the combos and I'm not sure of too many Marshalls from that era having footswitchable reverb.
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