Marshall's Tube Amp Bargain: Is it really any good?

The Marshall Origin 20 is their tube amp bargain! Is it really any good? What's it really like? A close up of inside before I mod this tube amp in to a veritable fire breathing monster with the Head First Amps mods. Is this a Marshall Vietnamese bargain? or something else?

Contents:
00:00 Start
00:16 Intro & Preamble
04:19 What did it cost?
05:02 What we show
06:18 The Origin Chassis
08:08 Main PCB Overview
10:56 PCB Components Closer
15:59 Rear I/O
18:29 Front Controls
20:45 My Opinion so far
21:45 Observations
23:40 Let's be Honest!
25:11 The Score
26:56 A Few Other Points
30:28 Playing Use Headphones

What you will learn:
Does this amp have a great tone?
What is the cost of these amps currently?
Is this Marshall quality from Vietnam?
Is it worth buying?

Related websites:

My website: https://tonymckenzie.com
Fair Deal Music Website: https://www.fairdealmusic.co.uk/
Headfirst Amps Website: https://headfirstamps.com/
Evolve DIY Amp PCB's etc: https://evolvediy.com/
Marshall website: https://www.marshall.com
Marshall Factory Tour 2023: https://youtu.be/sjMgLOlc9e4?si=-wC8I1IL7KA3icvR
My original Marshall Factory Tour: https://youtu.be/WeerxAO3oRU?si=fRcaJEukPEp1DSEk part one!
My original Marshall Factory Tour: https://youtu.be/rhe7qXP08qw?si=97YOTSB_UyYNmWBF part two!

The Marshall Origin is in my opinion the forerunner to the studio series of tube amplifiers from Marshall. Often somehow 'down graded' because it bears 'Made in Vietnam' on the back of the amp, somehow many guys might just not even bother looking at the Origin 20. I bought this one from Fair Deal Music in the UK used.

But that would really be a mistake on their part. You see, Marshall do manage that Vietnamese company, and as you will see if you watch the tour above part one - even back then they were making exact designs for Vietnam to create from the designs from Marshall Milton Keynes in the UK. But being a little skeptical too, I really did want to check out this relatively low cost amplifier (especially second user) and see the quality and hear those tones for myself. I viewed the amplifier in an 'unbiased' way.

So what did I find? Taking a close look at the chassis, the power and output transformers, the tubes, the three PCB's and components I saw what is basically a very similar sort of internal design to something like a 'pre' studio amp. And while there could be questions about the Vietnam build, in fact everything I saw inside (and you can see it too) looked about the same as the Marshall amps coming from Milton Keynes - except for one weird anomaly.

On the amp under review, the Tolex seemed 'cheap' and was considerably different than that on say a Marshall 1959HW amp or even the studio series amps. It felt cheap. I don't criticize when its not necessary, but on this Origin 20 amplifier it did let the amp down a little.

However, its not why this amp is under review... this is an amplifier that is going to get modified like Headfirst Amplification do (those guys in Australia) and I wanted to show this amp before the mods. In part two of this video I will show how I modified the amp and the results I achieved from a simple Origin 20 tube amp from Marshall.

You might be surprised at the results and if you want a great rock sound then its probably worth looking at those headfirst amplification Jose (or not - maybe other HF mods) mods they show for the Origin 20 and indeed other amps too. Link above.

Listen to the playing at the end of the video, but use headphones to get those tones out properly - it is intentionally not over driven to show the clean tones with everything set at 12:00 on the knobs as shown on the screen. I did NOT crank everything to 10 (or was it 11?). Ha there's no Tonex pedal on here either! This is all Tony McKenzie Marshall!

Watch for part two (it will probably be linked when I create the video and that will show the mods I did to this origin 20).

I have spent considerable time creating this video entirely at my own expense:

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, RING THE BELL, AND THUMBS UP to give my channel a boost and thank you for watching - I hope the video is enjoyable for you and that you see the tings in it that other reviews NEVER show!.

(c) A B McKenzie and https://tonymckenzie.com 2009-2024
All Rights Reserved. All Trade Marks Acknowledged
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