MusicRadar

• Manufacturer's Description

Manufacturer's description

Weighing in at 40 Watts and housing two independent, footswitchable channels, the compact, EL84-powered DSL401 1x12" combo is the smallest model of the impressive, eight member JCM2000 family. Don’t let the relatively small size fool you though, it packs a powerful punch. In fact, the DSL401 made such a big impression on Art Thompson, the technical editor of Guitar Player magazine, that he felt compelled to write the following: ‘Their tight, punchy tones are Marshall through and through, these new combos are the mightiest minis that Marshall has ever made.’ Like its bigger brothers, the Clean channel of the DSL401 produces a wide array of crystal clear yet complex, clean sounds. It also gets big ‘n’ bluesy when the channel’s Gain control is cranked up. As Mr Thompson so aptly put it in his Guitar Player review: ‘The clean channel yields sparkling tones at low settings and increasing levels of fat grind as you turn up the gain. With the Gain knob maxed, you get a throaty lead sound that cleans up nicely when you roll down your guitar volume. Strats and Teles sounded particularly rich and aggressive.’ Sticking with Art’s much-respected eloquence, here’s how he described the Overdrive channel of this amp in his rave review: ‘Depending on how you set the highly interactive Gain and Volume controls, you can dial in anything from pert overdrive to perpetual sustain and beyond.’ The DSL401 boasts the following rear panel attributes: dual speaker jacks (with an 8 Ohm/16 Ohm impedance selector switch) for driving external cabinets and an optional Reverb on/off footswitch jack. The most significant ‘extra’ of them all though is this, the DSL401 has three footswitchable sounds – Clean, OD1 & OD2! The difference between OD1 and OD2? A massive 20dB boost which is instantly accessible with a mere tap of your foot on the supplied 2-way (Clean/OD, OD1/OD2) LED footswitch.