I've been playing with the CODE 25 a little more lately, so I thought I'd share my impressions. This begs the question who I'm sharing with, but let's ignore that for now, shall we?
In case you don't get guitar magazines in your cave in Outer Lower Cockerspanistan, you know this is a recent series from Marshall, of solid state modeling amps, available in (I think) 25, 50, and 100 watts, with different speaker configurations. The test box (this makes it sound like Marshall sent it to me for review, even though I bought it just like everyone else) is a CODE 25, which is 25 solid state watts (tube watts are louder [I'm making this up]) into an 8"(?) speaker.
Let me get this out before I continue: Real Men<tm> use tube amps and combinations of 12" speakers. Now my testosterone will remain intact, hopefully til the end of this segment.
DISCLAIMER: this is my opinion; you will disagree. Put your opinions on yer own blog, Chief. Better yet, leave a comment and we can discuss it like guitar players (children with expensive toys). I have some expensive toys, so my opinions are informed by them and a long time listening to tones. I am not comparing this amp to a hideously expensive vintage amp unless that's what it claims to sound like.
FEATURES
It's small and light. This alone is worth its weight (sorry).
There's built-in effects.
You can control more than is apparent with the Bluetooth app, via your phone. This is both handy and a gee-whiz, blinky light feature. If you have kids, let them play with the volume control on your phone, so that it makes your amp louder - they'll love it.
You can play with quite a few options, including basic amp, several cabinets, and lots of stompbox effects. I have not studied anything, so my experience is just twiddling knobs and seeing what the app could do. The variety of controls is pretty cool, and in theory, should be very helpful in setting up your tones for studio and gigging.
There's an MP3 player input, a headphone output (both 1/8"), as well as an USB connection.
Very bright, easy to read orange display
Warning: 25 watts is waaaay too loud for the living room
APPLICATION
The amp is used as a living room amp, so I'll see it there and continue to play often. The real amps are in the Amp Vault<tm>. There is no such thing as an Amp Vault<tm>, and even if there was, I couldn't afford one. The last amp to sit in its spot was a Fender Mustang I, an earlier version and Fender's offering of the modeling special. It will not leave the house or sit anywhere else.
TEST EQUIPMENT
C'mon - I plugged a guitar or two into it (mostly a Strat). WTF else do you want from me - see how it sounds in the bathtub? With the toaster?
SOUND
This is where the excrement hits the rotating device. I don't have an equal with which to compare it, so I have to put it up against what it claims to do and how it claims to sound.
The amp suffers from some sort of tonal adjustment malfunction throughout the presets, of which there are 99. It's very trebly, to be polite. You'll have no trouble cutting through the din. Unfortunately I don't like this, so there was a lot of playing with the Bass/Mid/Treble knobs. Perhaps it's different with a different speaker in the 50 or 100 watt models, but I'm not going to find out.
There have been serious advances in digital sound and tones over the years. Don't forget - the first digital devices suffered horribly from latency... it took an amount of time for your signal to get from the guitar to the amp (or MIDI device), so there was an appreciable delay. The delay is gone, thankfully.
The amp models in the presets are largely Marshall simulations, as one would expect. They have some resemblance to their namesakes, but not a lot. Usually the presets are the most gee-whiz, over the top sounds you can find, which wasn't really the case here. I have to admit there are some really cool heavily saturated tones, for sitting in the living room and plinking away.
I suspect this would be a good amp to have when you're recording at 1am and have to get some sound to 'tape' with moderate tone. Some of the tones might fit well into tracks, but I haven't tried as yet.
Does it like effects?
No.
Correction: it likes its own effects just fine. I tried a Hughes&Kettner Rotosphere (Leslie emulator pedal) and a Lovepedal Superlead. Ironically, the Superlead is intended to mimic the tone of a cranked Marshall, which it does pretty well (better than some of the amp patches). Gain pedals are just not going to work, whether using a clean or dirty patch, because the amp distortion is all generated digitally, inside the amp, which doesn't operate the same way we're used to with our 'regular' amps. The Rotosphere fared better. I guess if I were into the whole low weight, high convenience thing, I'd use the internal phaser instead, and leave the pedals home.
Is it sensitive to input? Can the guitar's volume make a big difference in tone?
Not really.
I tried a heavily distorted patch that I liked, then tried backing down the guitar's volume. I had to back it down really far and the tone just got skinny and plinky. A less-distorted patch had greater success, but not what I'd prefer to hear. Some of the patches are sensitive to which pickup you use. Let's say that when you use the front pickup of a Les Paul and the amp sounds like an icepick, you might want to avoid the rear pickup. You also might want to re-engineer the patch.
The amp has a noise gate, which is very tricky to adjust. With a high gain patch, there will be high gain noise (it's physics). The gate starts out adjusted to shut down the signal pretty early, which is a good thing. It's worth playing with, though, because you don't want to shut down too fast.
How does it SOUND, stupid?
For sitting in the living room, it's just fine, thank you.
Against any of my tube amps - NFW. The amp needs to be more responsive. There's a certain 'give' in a tube amp, where you can alter tone with the way you play and by adjusting the guitar's volume. This is missing entirely. There's no give, no air. If you were to put this amp up against any of my regular amps, you'd hear and feel the difference. There's no dynamics... just a patch. Stated differently, it mimics amps but doesn't do the full impression.
The above is my complaint about non-tube amps from day one.
You can call me a Tube Snob all you like, but why do you think all the manufacturers are trying to make their modern, non-tube amps sound like tube amps? It's part of their advertising pitch - "You get all the tube tone with none of the heat and weight."
Mind you, they've come a long way, and it's perfectly suited as a living room or basic practice amp. If you like the tones, it's just fine for you, even playing live. Make sure you have your patches set up on a footswitch, because you'll need different ones for lead and different songs.
It has long been said that the most difficult tone to emulate is a slightly dirty tube amp - between all out stack and clean. This is absolutely correct and you cannot make that happen with this amp.
LIVE
Would I gig with this amp?
Are you out of your f#&@ing mind?
Obviously I'd need the higher watt version, but that's less a problem than the sound.
I did gig with this amp, sorta. I did one song as a special guest and didn't want to bring a Serious Rig. I instantly regretted it. The top end emphasis didn't translate well through a p.a. (or onstage).
If you're interested, play one. Your opinion may differ from mine. It may be a godsend to you (and your back).
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