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Combos don't come much cooler, or cuter than this

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You know the old adage: you wait for one cost-effective low-powered valve amp, then 58 come along at once! Or so it seems on the congested streets of Toneville, fuelled by our desire for better sounds, but less volume. So…

Welcome Marshall's Class 5, a five-watt, class A, all-valve combo that sings simplicity, tone and portability as its three-part battle song. It's powered by a brace of ECC83s in the preamp stage and a lone EL84 for power, making it good – according to Marshall – for practice, rehearsals and small or mic'd gigs. No messin' – just plug in, turn up, wig out: exactly as it should be.

Visually the Class 5 pays homage to Marshall's revered mid-sixties 'Bluesbreaker' and 18-watt combos, with its black vinyl, 'Plexi'-style top-mounted control panel and short front insert. The piping here is gold instead of white and we have and salt and pepper grille cloth instead of the Bluesbreaker's famous striped type.

We think it looks the business; serious enough so people won't laugh at you, yet still small enough to ride shotgun in your four-wheeled bandwagon of choice.

"The Class 5 is rudely loud – enough to upset your neighbours to legal action levels and then some."

The Class 5 is made here in the UK, and while it's not really Guitarist policy to politicise, the benefits of a potentially high-production-numbers amp being made in Bletchley are obvious in the current economic conditions. The trade-off for maintaining UK jobs is price, of course, yet with a quality birch-ply cabinet and generally high build quality throughout, Marshall has done well to bring the Class 5 in as low as this.

£330 for five watts, you might ask? Don't make the mistake of comparing this with a cheap, transistor combo, it's as much a serious tone machine in intention as many amplifiers five times its power and price.

The amp chassis is a fairly thin, bent aluminium box, but is bolted to the back and top panels so that nothing can flex or move. There's a single, no-frills PCB that houses most of the amp's components, including the valve bases, while the transformers, IEC mains connector, headphones and speaker outs are chassis-mounted. Everything is screwed very securely with the main board fitted on metal standoffs so that it all feels pretty secure.

The cabinet is ported slightly at the rear, which serves to keep the bottom-end tight and full, but releases enough air to stop the cab from sounding overly directional or boxy, which can be an issue with little amps.

To change valves you need to remove the whole back panel, which takes a few minutes. While we're round there, it's worth noting the headphone socket, which mutes the amp's output for silent practice – and the 16-ohm extension cab outlet, so you can hook it up to a 4 x 12 if you so desire.

Sounds

Hear the Class 5 put through its paces with a Strat and a Les Paul in the following clip: