MUSIC GEAR
AUGUST 18, 2021
The Sound Of Marshall Amplifier
The sound of Marshall amplifier is an iconic masterpiece from great passion and dedication.
Marshall company is a British company that designs and manufactures music amplifiers, speaker, headphones and earphones. The company started when Jim Marshall (born July 29, 1923), a drummer and a drum teacher opened a small shop in London.
According to Marshall official website Jim opened a family run music store with his wife Violet and son Terry on July 7, 1960. The name of the store is “Jim Marshall and Son” and located at 76 Uxbridge Road, Hanwell, London.
At the time there were three guitarists who often came to his shop : Ritchie Blackmore, Big Jim Sullivan and Pete Townshend. They were young rock musicians and wanted to get the tone they wanted from a guitar amplifier. Apparently, the amplifiers in the market at the time didn’t satisfy their needs so Jim and Terry decided to try to build their own.
Jim Marshall then expanded his business, started making guitar amplifiers and set target to compete with other already existing brands. The primary one at the time was Fender from United States. Their amplifiers were very popular yet very expensive.
After many experiments and hard working they created the first guitar amplifier called JTM45, stands for Jim & Terry Marshall. The 45 stands for the RMS (Root Mean Square) value. Of the first 23 Marshall amplifiers made those three guitarists were among the first customers to use it.
The first amplifiers now known as “Number One” were on the first day in store in September 1962. Until 1968 the first Marshalls were made, the era of classic JTM series.
With the success of the first amplifiers Jim opened the second shop at 93 Uxbridge Road in March, 1963. A year later when demand exceeded supply Marshall opened the first factory on Silverdale Road in Hayes in June 1964.
An important milestone came up in 1965 when Pete Townshend wanted louder sound and more physical presence on stage for the amps. The answer was the Marshall 8×12″ cabinet, but Jim quickly replaced this monster with two stacked 4×12″ cabinet which marked the birth of the legendary, iconic Marshall stack.
In 1966, Jim Marshall met a relatively unknown American guitarist after the musician played through the stack of Marshall amps. Mitch Mitchell, a local drummer and former student of Jim arranged the introduction. The guitarist then became a legend by the name Jimi Marshall Hendrix. From then Marshall became an international brand
Marshall continues to produce various high quality guitar amplifiers in the next decades. JCM 800 was launched in 1981 and offered bold new look and aggressive modern sound with affordable price for young bands in Heavy Metal or Rock genre.
In 1987, Marshall released the Silver Jubilee amplifiers to celebrate 25 years in the amplifier business. The DSL range was launched in 1997 to mark the 35 years of Marshall. A very limited edition, only 250 units manufactured.
Marshall branched into the headphones market in 2010 when they launched the Major and Minor headphones bringing Marshall to a wider audience and a new range of products.
When the Hayes factory and Hanwell shops couldn’t take anymore demand, Jim moved the facility to Bletchley, Milton Keynes in 1967 and has remained the home of Marshall to this day.
Jim Marshall died at the age of 88 years old in 2012. He is known as “The Father of Loud” for inventing the amplifier and giving rock and roll a remarkable sound, the sound of Marshall amplifier.
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