Marshall DSL1CR

Just to be clear - in my case, this amp is used as bedroom practicing amp. Tested with both singlecoils (Fender Vintage '52 Telecaster and Stratocaster with noiseless pickups) and humbuckers (Duesenberg Starplayer Special).

First notable thing - compared to limited 1W edition it's slightly smaller, which is understandable considering it's 8" vs 10". As much as I can see myself (and also stated in official Marshall documentation) it's having 3 valves in total, not 5 as stated in product description.

Sound is actually way better then I expected it. It's not 'boxy' as I thought it's going to be (having 12" external speaker as well) and there's definitely not same level of headroom compared to something bigger than 8", but that's also to be expected.

On clean channel, you can turn it up to max and still enjoy playing inside your bedroom. 0.1W is of course welcome in case you are using humbuckers at midnight, but even in that case it's very acceptable for my taste. If you are telecaster fan then you are really going to enjoy clean channel with it. That's 'the' sound as I imagine it when I think about telecaster.

On OD channel, you can play a lot with both gain and volume. 1W there can be little bit loud, specially with humbuckers, but I think 'the issue' here is just perceived loudness since I was still able to talk over it, specially if you are not really sitting on it.

Footswitch is quite simple, it's letting you only to change the channel, not to turn on/off reverb or fx loop as advertised on other models, so don't be confused on this.

All in all, this looks and sounds really cool, and I'm quite sure I'm going to keep it.

Bottom line: this amp kicks ass, it’s more brutal than the 1 watt-8 inch speaker might make you think.

More elaborate:

I hadn’t played electric guitar since a while, but decided to pick up my Tele again.

Since I don’t own an amp since a long time, and since I live in an apartment, I was looking for something small, affordable and preferably good sounding. Other features I was looking for: headphone and aux in ports.

This amp checks all of these things. I considered solid state amps, like the ones most of us start with. But having a full valve amp seemed tempting. This thing looks almost exactly like the 15 watt transistor Marshall that was my first amp, they weigh pretty much the same, but the quality of the sound of this DSL1 is just so much better, incomparable in my opinion. From the moment I plugged it in my Tele I was getting good sounds of it on both channels.

I was a bit concerned that it would not have enough headroom to stay clean, but you with single coils at least it takes a bit on the first channel before you enter crunch territory. The cleans even sound really quite good in my opinion.
On the second channel I’m able to get slightly crunchy tones to roaring high gain. This thing really is a tube Marshall.

Some users are a bit critical of the included reverb. In my opinion: it’s nice that it has a built in (obviously digital) reverb, I rarely like a fully dry guitar tone, but its true that it is not necessarily the best sounding one. And also: there’s just one control knob for the reverb, allowing you to dial in more or less reverb. There are no other reverb parameters you can change. So chances are I’ll be getting myself a reverb pedal, but as said, I still find it a nice touch to include that reverb which I still find useable for home practice.

Another nice touch of Marshall: this amp comes with a footswitch. It doesn’t allow you to engage or disengage the reverb, but you can change channels by foot. Nice that this is included, and the footswitch is pretty well built by the way.

Another nice feature is the attenuator that allows you to go from that brutal 1 watt to 0.1 watt. I use this feature literally all the time and even then, I find this amp to be pretty bloody loud for apartment playing. Don’t let that 1 watt fool you: if you live in an apartment with thin walls, this amp might not be for you. It’s obviously far from being loud enough to keep up with a drummer, but still. Also: I find the amp sounds as good in 0.1 watt as in 1 watt.

The good thing is: despite this being a full valve amp, there’s a port for headphones. All you need to do is disconnect the amp from the speaker, plug in your headphones and you’re good to go fully silent. Now, all of this ain’t of the greatest quality. Maybe it’s my headphones, but there is some noticeable noise when playing through headphones. And the built in cab sim is perhaps not the most convincing. But it certainly is good enough for what I use it for, and if you just wanna have some fun in the middle of the night I think it should be good enough. I haven’t tried recording silently using this port yet, but that’s another thing one can do.

I do wish that Marshall placed the headphone port on the front panel instead of in the back. Kinda the same for the auxiliary input. But then again, I’m already happy that it has that 3.5mm input, which allows me to plug in anything I want in a straight forward way, so I’m able to play along with music and backing tracks without the need of fiddling around with Bluetooth, adaptors or other stuff.

I haven’t tried out the effects loop yet, but it’s nice that it has one.

And then this still: I find that 8 inch speaker sounding not that bad at all. You can hear immediately it’s not a 12 inch but somehow it sounds bigger than it is. Depending on the guitar you’re using, you might wanna tweak some EQ settings. But definitely a pretty nice speaker for an 8 inch, no regret there.

To conclude: I think this is a brilliant practice amp for people who want a small package with a sweet, warm tube sound that’s drenched in a Marshall sauce.

There’s plenty of choice in this price category and this could be a good one.

I'm a house guitarist, not performing or touring. This is my 4th amp and my second Marshall. Before that, there was a transistor Ibanez, a mini portable Marshall, modeling a Vox combo amplifier. I'm used to playing Vox. When switching to the Marshall tube, I realized what an attack and sound production are. Who is afraid that 1 Watt is quiet, do not worry. It's louder than my Vox GT 15 watts. For the house- more than enough. I don't have a music store, but I have several different guitars with singles and humbuckers (Epiphone SG, Epiphone LP, SQ Fender 3 singles, Ibanez RG). From everything I got a new feeling from playing the guitar. From clean to heavy enough. I highly recommend it for development - I really liked this amplifier.