Marshall Amps Wildwood Limited SV20H Studio Vintage

Vintage Marshall Tone For the Modern Age

Ever since the dawn of rock and roll, the Marshall name has been synonymous with face-melting volume. This was a necessity in the sixties and seventies because anemic public address systems didn't have enough power to project a guitar signal across a huge arena or outdoor venue. So, the amp had to do a lot of heavy lifting. It had to sound great, but it also had to be loud enough to wake the dead. To meet the needs of players like Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Jimi Page, Jim Marshall engineered the Marshall Super Lead 1959, an amp that provided the soundtrack to the late sixties and early seventies. As hard rock and metal became more popular in the eighties, Jim adapted and built the JCM800, a hundred-watt head that could fill a stadium with blistering high-gain sounds.

But, Marshall Amps have never been just about volume. They're all about meeting players' needs, and times have changed. Modern PA systems have finally caught up, and most of the time when you play live, the sound guy mikes your amp up, so you really only need it to be loud enough to hear yourself on stage. Furthermore, smaller amps have found favor in the studios because they lend themselves so well to recording, and sometimes a hundred-watt amp can be a tad impractical for home use. Marshall listened to players, and they went back to the lab. Their mission? To capture the iconic sound and feel of their hundred-watt amps in smaller packages. Thus, the Studio series was born, and the finished product is spectacular.

Pugnacious Plexi Tones

This particular entry in the Studio series, the SV20H, is an attempt to distill the classic vintage crunch of the Marshall Super Lead 1959 into a smaller package. They captured the vibe perfectly, and the SV20H has the same sort of tone that made big 'ol hearts dance in the eyes of Hendrix, Clapton, Page, and Townshend. The midrange sounds warm and punchy, the trebles are full-bodied, and the lows are warm and robust. When you crank it, you get classic Marshall crunch in spades. At lower volumes, you get a beautiful warm, lush clean sound. Most importantly, it still responds like a big amp does. Few twenty-watt amps have the power to make you feel like you're playing Wembley when you hit a big E chord, but the SC20H does. As an added bonus, you can drop the power down to five watts if you want the same sort of response at bedroom-appropriate levels.

Best of all, it's really easy to dial in iconic tones, because there are no frills to be found anywhere on the SV20H. It has a 3-band EQ and a presence knob that allow you to summon whichever flavor of Marshall tone you need by dialing in your preferred frequency response. The only real trick to using it is jumping the two channels, which gives you additional ways to shape your sound.

To that end, the SV20H has two channels with two inputs apiece: a brighter Lead channel and a warmer Bass channel, each with high- and low-sensitivity inputs. If you plug into one channel, you can plug a small patch cable into the other input on the channel you're using and "jump" to one of the inputs on the other channel. When you do this, you can blend the two channels using their separate volume controls. No matter what settings you use, no one will mistake the SV20H for any other amp, but, when you jump the inputs, you can find all sorts of subtle hues and shades of sonic color within the classic Marshall sound.

We're proud to showcase the Marshall SV20H, a small amp with the punching power of a giant. It delivers classic Marshall tone without stadium-sized volume, and it is tailor-made for the discerning modern player. We invite you to take one of the twenty-watt terrors for a spin and experience the magic of a modern Marshall full of vintage tones. Once you do, we're sure the SV20H will make you want to play until your fingers bleed!

Model: SV20H
Range: Studio
Channels: One
Technology: Valve
Output wattage: 20 watts with power reduction to 5 watts
Outputs: 5 x 1/4" jack sockets (16Ω load / 8Ω load / 4Ω load), DI
Inputs: 4 (2 x high, 2 x low) "Lead and Bass"
Controls: Low/High power mode selection switch, presence, bass, middle, treble, high treble/loudness I, normal/loudness II
Effects: None
Effects Loop: Yes, series, send/return
Preamp valves: 3 x ECC83 (Two preamp tubes, 1 phase splitter)
Power amp valves: 2 x EL34
Cable: Detachable power cable and speaker cable included
Weight: 9.25kg / 20.4 lbs.
Width: 500mm / 19.7"
Height: 240mm / 9.4"
Depth: 230mm / 9.1"