Marshall JCM800 2203 Vintage Reissue Guitar Amp Head

The Marshall JCM800 2203 Vintage Reissue Guitar amp head is a perfect modern recreation of the amp which revolutionised the world of rock. The legendary JCM800 2203 is now available from Merchant City Music – Glasgow’s longest established guitar specialist. Visit us in the shop, where a member of staff will be happy to talk you through its features. Alternatively, buy online for fast delivery to the UK, Europe and beyond.

Marshall JCM800 2203 Vintage Reissue 100 Watt Guitar Amp Head

The all-valve 2203 is one of the most highly respected and revered 100 Watt Marshall heads in the company’s long and illustrious history. Evolving from the legendary 100 Watt ‘Plexi’ head, it was also Marshall’s first amplifier to house a Master Volume (MV) control. This simple but groundbreaking feature allowed the user to overdrive the preamp valves into desirable distortion without having to turn the amp full up. This proved to be incredibly popular and practical because, as you probably know, a 100 Watt Marshall is extremely loud when on full volume! Furthermore, thanks to its cascaded preamp design, the 2203 was capable of producing a level of distortion never heard from a guitar amp before.

The very first 2203 was actually introduced to the world in 1975. The JCM 800 version that surfaced some six years later, in 1981, was merely a cosmetic redesign of the original. The circuitry remained exactly the same (as the saying goes, “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it!”), but the amp’s appearance got much bolder with a full-width control panel (the 2203 of 1975-1981 had a shorter front panel like a 1959SLP), grille cloth over the front baffle (the original 2203’s baffle was covered with vinyl), white piping, and ‘JCM 800’ written in bold letters on the front panel, together with Jim’s signature. If you’re wondering about the origin of the JCM 800 name, it’s an interesting tale – it came from the registration/license plate of Mr. Marshall’s car which was, wait for it, JCM 800! The ‘JCM’ part of it referred to Jim’s initials (James Charles Marshall), the ‘800’ was merely the number on the plate – no more, no less!

As guitar amplifiers go, the 2203 is the very essence of simplicity – it’s a one channel amp with no reverb or built-in effects and its all-valve design produces a sound that, as Mike Doyle so aptly describes in his excellent ‘The History of Marshall’ book, is “crunchier than a lorry running over a hedgehog!” As a result of its idiot-proof interface, distinctive roar and larger-than-life ‘edge’, the 2203 immediately set the standard by which all other rock amps were judged and it remained the ‘industry benchmark’ throughout the entire 16 years of its production life.