'Plexi' Stack Added to Marshall's Handwired Series
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1959HW Head and Cabinets
(Click for a close-up) |
January 22, 2005
Marshall unveiled the 1959HW at Winter NAMM, a handwired reissue of a circa 1969, 100 Watt, all-valve Super Lead 'Plexi' head, plus the angled-front 1960AHW and straight-fronted 1960BHW 120 Watt 4x12" cabinets. These are the latest additions to its line of handwired amplifiers and matching speaker cabinets -- a series that features some of the world's most sought after, vintage, all-valve Marshalls.
"The 100 Watt 'Plexi' head is considered by many to be the definitive rock amp and is the main reason artists started dubbing Marshall as 'the sound of rock' back in the late '60s," states Marshall's U.S. Product Manager, Nick Bowcott.
The so-called 'Plexi' era (late 1965 to July 1969) was named because of the Plexiglas material used on the model 1959's front panel. It ended when the company changed its front panel material from Plexiglas to brushed aluminum. During this relatively short period, many small but often significant circuit changes were made and the majority of them were in response to artists continually asking for the amps to be more aggressive sounding. After exhaustive research tracking the exact timeline of these changes and also finding many untouched examples of them, a pre-July 1969 SL/A head was chosen as being 'the one' to duplicate.
As with every amp in Marshall's Handwired series, all of the original components and materials were used or reproduced in the 1959HW, and the methods of construction employed in the late 1960s were revisited too. Both transformers -- output and power -- have been meticulously recreated by Dagnall Electronics to duplicate the electrical performance and characteristics of the originals while satisfying stringent modern safety legislations. As a result of this attention to detail, the 1959HW's handwired tag-board lives up to the slogan, 'Point-to-Point Perfection'."
Product Details:
1959HW Head. This handwired reissue, all-valve head (3 x ECC83/12AX7 in the preamp, 4 x EL34s in power amp) features two channels, I and II (labeled 'High Treble' and 'Normal' respectively in later renditions of the original 1959 model due to the differences in their voicing), each with two inputs -- high sensitivity and low sensitivity. Both channels share tone shaping controls for Bass, Middle, Treble and Presence.
1960AHW Cabinet. An angled-front, 120 Watt, 16 Ohm mono 4x12" cabinet featuring salt 'n' pepper grille cloth, metal handles, and loaded with the bass version of Celestion's reissue of the G12H30 speaker.
1960BHW Cabinet. Same as 1960AHW but with a straight-front.
These three new models join the rest of Marshall's Handwired series: the all-valve 1974X
18 Watt combo, 1974CX 1x12" extension cabinet for the 1974X, all-valve 2061X 20 Watt head and 2061CX 2x12" cabinet.
The 1959HW and 1960AHW/BHW will be available in March/April 2005 with pricing TBA. The other models in the Handwired series are currently available, with U.S. MSRPs as follows: 1974X -- $3200; 1974CX -- $850; 2061X -- $2300; and 2061CX -- $1100.
For more information, visit their web site at www.marshallamps.com. | 
