Well folks - after owning Marshalls for nearly 25 years now I am, as of today, finally a boogie owner. It's insane I've made it so many years without ever owning one but am glad I finally took the plunge. I picked up a Road King today and am just blown away. I was a bit intimidated before buying because everyone told me the RKs are so hard to dial in, too many choices, yada yada - - but within 3 hours I've achieved incredible tones in every channel. All I can say is what a friggin amp!!!
For the last several months I owned the Marshall JVM which is Marshall's latest flagship amp. Below is a comparison I wrote on HC for anyone that's interested...
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Well - being a life long Marshall owner and until today having never owned a Boogie, it makes me a bit sad to write this but I figured I would. The JVM being Marshall's "flagship" amp and the Road King being Mesa's, I thought I'd break the bad news in a comparison. The news is there is no comparison.
For several months I owned 2 JVMs - a stack and a combo and while there were a lot of things I really liked about that amp, there were a lot of things I didn't like as well. The JVM is still the most versitile amp Marshall's ever made but it's "new found" super high gain channels were too noisy to be of any use, the amp in general was too thin and trebly, the effects loop was not very good and I had buttons break on both of my footswitches. On the flip side it's clean chanel was the best in any Marshall I've ever owned and it covered a wide range of tones. It was also several hundred dollars cheaper than the Road King.
I went out today and traded a JVM for a Road King and honestly cannot find a single thing that the JVM does better. Several people suggested I go for the Roadster because the learning curve was steep on the Road King but within a couple of hours I achieved better tones than I had in months with my JVM. The cleans are just as clean as the JVM except with a lot better bottom end. The mid range chanels / tones on the boogie are warmer than what I could get on my Marshall and have tons of balls. The high gain chanels have just as much gain as the marshall but keep more body to them and are actually usable without the annoying orange/red chanel hiss that the JVM has. The effects loop on the Boogie is much better and allows me to actually run some pedals through it without the massive tone and volume drop. While I have not really gotten too deep into it, the Road King offers more options for those that really want to get super technical with their rigs including multiple effects loops, selectable tube variations, speaker out options per chanel, etc.
Now JVM and other Marshall owners don't get all upset and start flaming me here as this is really a very non-biased post. I have owned Marshalls since the 80's and will continue to own marshalls until the day I die - they are amazing amps and have an undeniable place in rock and roll guitar history. At the same time what I am saying is that in the race of "next generation flagship amps" ie: JVM vs Road King Marshall definately has some catching up to do.
For the last several months I owned the Marshall JVM which is Marshall's latest flagship amp. Below is a comparison I wrote on HC for anyone that's interested...
---------------------------------
Well - being a life long Marshall owner and until today having never owned a Boogie, it makes me a bit sad to write this but I figured I would. The JVM being Marshall's "flagship" amp and the Road King being Mesa's, I thought I'd break the bad news in a comparison. The news is there is no comparison.
For several months I owned 2 JVMs - a stack and a combo and while there were a lot of things I really liked about that amp, there were a lot of things I didn't like as well. The JVM is still the most versitile amp Marshall's ever made but it's "new found" super high gain channels were too noisy to be of any use, the amp in general was too thin and trebly, the effects loop was not very good and I had buttons break on both of my footswitches. On the flip side it's clean chanel was the best in any Marshall I've ever owned and it covered a wide range of tones. It was also several hundred dollars cheaper than the Road King.
I went out today and traded a JVM for a Road King and honestly cannot find a single thing that the JVM does better. Several people suggested I go for the Roadster because the learning curve was steep on the Road King but within a couple of hours I achieved better tones than I had in months with my JVM. The cleans are just as clean as the JVM except with a lot better bottom end. The mid range chanels / tones on the boogie are warmer than what I could get on my Marshall and have tons of balls. The high gain chanels have just as much gain as the marshall but keep more body to them and are actually usable without the annoying orange/red chanel hiss that the JVM has. The effects loop on the Boogie is much better and allows me to actually run some pedals through it without the massive tone and volume drop. While I have not really gotten too deep into it, the Road King offers more options for those that really want to get super technical with their rigs including multiple effects loops, selectable tube variations, speaker out options per chanel, etc.
Now JVM and other Marshall owners don't get all upset and start flaming me here as this is really a very non-biased post. I have owned Marshalls since the 80's and will continue to own marshalls until the day I die - they are amazing amps and have an undeniable place in rock and roll guitar history. At the same time what I am saying is that in the race of "next generation flagship amps" ie: JVM vs Road King Marshall definately has some catching up to do.
