I recently stumbled upon several forum threads talking about the Marshall Lead 12 practice amp. People were going nuts over these things. I picked one up used and I can believe the hype. For a little 12 watt solid state amp this thing packs some serious tone. The circuit looks to be pretty simple. And it’s remarkably similar to it’s bigger brothers the lead 30, 50, and 100.
However, there are some short comings, the tone is extremely bright. You have to dial the treble down to nothing when playing at lower volumes. And it’s somewhat difficult to get a good clean tone to use distortion and OD pedals with.
I feel like this little amp would make a fantastic amp kit. It’s simple SS design and small cabinet would make an affordable entry level amp kit. Plus, if you could add features like clean/OD channel switching or something similar to Marshall’s FDD control. Output around 20W and have a micro stack setup available with a straight and angled single speaker cab for 10” or 12” speakers. I would build a miniature wall of doom with these things. But the real ones are becoming expensive and hard to find in decent condition.
Anybody have any thoughts on these little solid state stacks?
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