Marshall 1959 - History

History

The 1959 (Marshall's identifying numbers are not years of manufacture), first produced in 1965 and made until 1981 (when it was replaced by the JCM-800), is an amplifier in Marshall's "Standard" series. One of its raisons d'etre was a request by Pete Townshend, who asked Marshall to make a 100 watt amplifier; Ken Bran and Dudley Craven of Marshall's development team complied. Its output was first channeled into an 8x12" cabinet, but that single, unwieldy cabinet was quickly changed to a set of 4x12" cabinets, creating the "Marshall stack." The amplifier also came as a PA and a bass version.

The Plexiglas panel led to the name "Plexi," and, while 50-watt models of the time are also called Plexis, the 1959 100 watt model is often referred to as the "original" Plexi.

In 1969, Marshall replaced the Plexiglass panel with one of gold aluminum. There were other modifications: in 1966, the KT66 tubes of the JTM-models were replaced with EL34. After 1976, the plate voltages were lowered slightly for improved reliability. But during the 1970s, Marshall's increasing exports overseas led to a problem: often the EL34 tubes would break during transportation, to the point where amps began being shipped from the factory with more rugged 6550 tubes, which are "stiffer and not as harmonically rich" as the EL 34 tubes.