Marshall Studio JTM ST20H Head

Usually I am quite lazy to review stuff, but a few times something has an effect strong enough on me to enjoy doing it:

This amp is perfect. I have passed through all phases of guitar playing and gear aquisition, going from solid state amps to tube amps, from pedals to modelling plug-ins, from all-in-one 50w combos to one-knob amps. This amp represents the sweet spot of musical wisdom. Back to the basics: EQ, volume and presence. There is nothing more comforting as a guitarrist than to grab a cable and be able to play within seconds. No crazy menus, no channel selections, just pure crisp and beautiful raw tone.

The sound is gorgeous, crystal clear, full, warm. Buying the jumping cable is a must! The high-one channel produces in-your-face bright cleans, while the low-two channel is delicately muddy and dark, with a great deal of low end. By blending both you can arrive to tone heaven. Strum a 6-string chord and hear it ringing, perfectly balanced and rounded in all strings.

The headroom of the amp is immense, it only starts breaking up at loudnessess above 5, and even in the 5 watt setting, to reach 5 in an apartment is an absolute no go. But do not be dissapointed! If you wanna crank it up go to the studio or a field, but you can also use it as a fantastic platform for pedals! The serial loop is just great. You can either use the power amp alone by plugging in your favourite amp modeller directly into the return of the amp, or run a 4-cable method to use the pre-amp as well. The presence knob is very sensitive and offers a full palette of tones for the power amp response, even when the pre-amp controls are bypassed.

The amp is very quiet an feels so well built. British made, fantastic looks, sturdy switches, cool on/off light. The very last amp you need! Marshall scored damn high with this one, haven't seen this in a while...

Excellent sound. Very happy with this amp. The offering of features is fairly simple and a reverb dial would be nice - so I wouldn’t rate it highly on features - but that’s not what I bought it for as I have pedals for that.
Its volume should not be underestimated - I was very surprised at what it could produce through my 1x12 cab.

Only drawback is it’s not easy to quickly adjust the sound due to the dials being all one colour, but that’s very minor.

Would highly recommend this product.

That amp is a time machine. The look is amazing (perfect for your living room, your partner will love it) and the sound is crazy good. Amazing glassy clean sounds (I’m a strat player) until volume on 7, after the breakup start to take the show; with both the channels jumped and cranked, the sound become creamy and gritty with an incredible lo-fi vibe perfect for 60s rock or for a psychedelic 70s sound with an overdrive pushed into the front of the preamp. Throughout alle the volume levels the bass frequencies are well present (I set the bass around 3) but the sound is always equilibrate and round.
Overall quality is amazing in construction and feature (it has a send-return, top of the features for a JTM). Only minor issue is the pot of the presence, a little noisy and it is freakin’ loud, even in 5 watt mode is too much for a bedroom level, to be paired with a power soak.
Overall it’s a 10 out of 10, if you want a vintage sound and look this is the choice.