I wanted to start a club for a unique Marshall combo amp that was prevalent in the 80's and early 90's. I actually learned about it accidentally from some posts in the Pathfinder Club, along with some extensive reading over on the MLP forum. Known as either the 'Marshall Lead 12' or 'Marshall 5005' combo, this little guy is an unlikely source of some genuine Marshall tones. Observe the following highlights:. Solid-State (not tube, not 'Valvestate') 12-watt combo amplifier. Manufactured in the UK, mostly in the 1980's.

1. Marshall Lead 12 Schematic
2. Marshall Lead 12 Combo Amp

10' Celestion G10-20 Ceramic Magnet 8-ohm speaker (also made in UK). Single channel, but options for hi or low sensitivity inputs, which can also be 'jumped'. Controls include Volume, Gain, Bass, Mid, and Treble. Versions 2 and 3 feature a Headphone/Line Out jack Interestingly, there are three different versions of this amp. The kind that I have is pictured below and has only the two input jacks on the left, with no headphone or line out jacks on the right side: As a prior owner of a Valvestate 30W that I thought was basically terrible, I was prepared to be disappointed.until I plugged it in.

9 user reviews on Marshall 5005 Lead 12. 12w tube amp with a nice bowl celestion 12 inch inside. 3-band EQ very effective gain and volume.

The version I have apparently has something like a fuzz circuit built into the preamp, which makes it unique from the other two. However they do it, the amp is pretty amazing. The Celestion easily handles the output of this amp, so the best way to use it is to crank it louder, and back off the treble.

These amps were UK-made and share a kinship with the JCM series - in fact, this little solid state practice amp does a better job than many tube amps of capturing JCM tones at home/studio volume levels. It also cleans up amazingly well - I read a lot of people complain that the clean tones were quiet and thin. This is true if you just try to turn the gain down and run it clean. But if you find a nice crunch or overdriven tone, you can nice warm, mostly clean tone by rolling off your guitar's volume knob. The Lead 12's are hardly 'rare' on the used market - I got mine for $100 at Guitar Center, which is a decent price.

They run for about $125 pretty routinely on eBay/Reverb. Mine seems to be in remarkably good shape given these amps are probably about 25-35 years old. Oh, and Billy Gibbons apparently used one to record several songs and is quite proud to have done so.

It's really an amazing, fun little amp that was built to be durable and affordable, instead of just cheap. I thought it was deserving of its own owners club, and would love to hear if anyone else has memories of the Lead 12 either as a 'first amp' or something you still play years later. Click to expand.Cool! Ragin Cajun is worth $70 on its own, so that's a nice package deal! I bought it thinking that I would maybe swap the speaker out (perhaps the Eminence Ramrod), but I think the original Celestion is pretty good for what this amp does.

And the other two versions of this amp (including yours) have the line out so you could run it into the FX return of an amp with a larger speaker. Marshall made a ton of crap solid state combos over the years, so I was pleasantly surprised how good the Lead 12 was. I think one of my old friends and bandmates had one of those as a head/10' cab micro-stack.

We set it on top of an additional old no-horn PA cab we'd used to house an oddball 15' speaker we had laying around and he loved that rig.almost as much as he'd loved the Bandit he'd lost a few years prior. Oh, and I also converted a similar vintage SS Marshall to a tube amp.once I'd pulled it apart I realized why it never seemed up to the task-it was rated for 50 watts/4 ohms, but had an 8-ohm speaker installed as stock (I was original owner). If I'd straightened that out, I might've left it alone! Click to expand.Haven't tried that yet!

I'm still too new to the amp to form lasting opinions, but it's a strange EQ section. What makes this amp different from what you'd expect from a typical 'solid state' amp is that it seems to be able to handle extreme settings of different kinds without crapping out.

It's 12 watts into a 10' Celestion speaker, so you can nearly dime the volume and gain and while it gets decently loud, I don't get the sense that the cabinet or speaker are being pushed beyond their intended capabilities at all. Which is cool because it definitely adds to the 'Marshall-ness' of it. My settings right now (with a Les Paul) are: BASS at 8.5, MIDS at 4.5, TREBLE at 2 or 3. I actually read that other people had used similar settings to that, so I knew not to just leave everything at '5' and be disappointed. The treble actually doesn't do that much, except that there is a bit of a fuzz/fizz artifact that is most pronounced if you run low gain settings on the High Sensitivity input, or leave the Treble up too high.

I sadly no longer own my old Marshall Lead 12. I for the heck of it put it up on Craigslist for much more than I got it for. One day someone contacted me and made me an offer. I really didn't want to sell so I refused to budge on the price. He made me another offer, and I told him I won't budge. Dagnabbit, he gave me what I asked, which was considerably more than what it was worth.

I also sold the LP pretty recently and bought my Tele the same day. I had a Marshall Valvestate micro amp that I bought while I was stationed in England in the 90's. The Lead 12 was much better. I miss the Tele shown in the above pic, but my new one is sensational.

I'll dissent on this one. My best friend growing up had one of these along with a sweet iridescent pearl Kramer Pacer, both brand new circa 1988. Aesthetically the amp is awesome.and I think that's what drives the continued interest in these amps. But the tones are thin. It had a nice little sparkle, decent crunch, but overall was boxy and fizzy, and responded nothing like a tube amp. It is what it is - a 12 watt solid state amp - no getting around that. In a beefy little package.

Using the chassis for a tube amp makes a lot of sense. I'll dissent on this one. My best friend growing up had one of these along with a sweet iridescent pearl Kramer Pacer, both brand new circa 1988.

Aesthetically the amp is awesome.and I think that's what drives the continued interest in these amps. But the tones are thin. It had a nice little sparkle, decent crunch, but overall was boxy and fizzy, and responded nothing like a tube amp. It is what it is - a 12 watt solid state amp - no getting around that. In a beefy little package. Using the chassis for a tube amp makes a lot of sense. Click to expand.I think it's possible to really like the amp (as I do), and still admit that many of those 'flaws' cited in your post are absolutely valid.

Part of it is contextual - my expectations for a used solid state amp from the 1980's (that I paid $100 for) were practically zero. When a piece of dramatically exceeds expectations, you come away very pleased, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is objectively 'good' - even compared to some of the equipment I already have. I would want not the Lead 12 as my only or 'primary' amp.

The cleans are good but not great and my 1st version model is going to be fussy with many pedals because it is basically a one-channel fuzz circuit. I guess I can also get on board with some people finding the amp to be 'thin', though it absolutely is not a 'bright' or 'shrill' amp by any means. The low end character of the Lead 12 is also very representative of a Marshall tone for that era. It's funny - when I was growing up and learning guitar, I just knew that AC/DC played Marshalls and a Marshall stack was supposed to be the baddest/meanest thing on the planet. Now, in 2015, I understand that there are different types of Marshall sounds, and the 80's JCM sound actually is a British-voiced sharper low end. It's meant to have low end clarity for higher gain playing, not necessarily overpowering 'thumping' bass like some modern amps.

This is in contrast to what Marshall originally was - basically a modified Fender Bassman that did have a thick low end, but was then pushed to the extreme to generate a gainy overdriven tone on top of that. Hendrix, AC/DC, Van Halen, etc.they used Marshalls, but not JCM 900's!

I think the Lead 12 achieves that goal quite well. As noted above - it also can require some pretty dramatic EQ settings to get a sound you like. Right now, mine has the bass around '8' with the mids and treble around '2' to '4'. It's also one the only solid state amps I would even consider running 'cranked', which I credit to the decision to put a quality 10' Celestion into a rock SOLID cabinet - fueled by only 12W of solid state power.

Not sure I agree with the 'boxy' decision, but there are some people that will say that about virtually any speaker box with less than a 12' cone. So I can accept that if people just prefer Marshall tones out of a bigger speaker. Finally, there's the complaint that it sounds 'fizzy' and doesn't 'respond like a tube amp'.

Both have a kernel of truth to them. The fizziness is a documented problem, but one that is curtailed by lowering the treble knob. It's also a big reason why these things sound best 'cranked', as much of the fizziness seems to lie in those 'in between' gain settings. But there aren't many solid state amps you can talk about that sound awesome cranked, but not as much clean - usually it's the other way around.

And it's a very warm, usable gain that backs off in realistic fashion with the guitar knob. So, there, I basically agreed with 85% of everything you said, and yet I still really like the amp. I think it's important to have balanced discussions about gear we like (even in an Owner's Club thread) because the truth is that ALL equipment has strong and weak points, and we can't own EVERYTHING, so people need as much information as they can before tracking down used gear from several decades ago! It is a great looking amp, too - pretty satisfying to click that big red toggle on, hear that little 'pop', and know that this little solid state beast is fired up and ready to go.

That's a nice idea too, but be careful before you label the original solid-state circuit 'crap'. They're not - this applies to the whole series, not just the Lead 12 - they're some of the best-built solid-state amps ever made, the construction and parts quality is identical to the later tube JCM800s, even down to the plywood cabinets (particle-board backs though, just like the big cabs). They're extremely reliable, the only problems that seem to occur is that the pots tend to go noisy, same as the tube amps - but some contact cleaner will sort that. And they sound good enough that many very serious players have used them as preamps for their main rigs, or for recording. Personally I don't think that the G10D-25 speakers are all that good - they're real British Celestions, but I think you can make a big difference to the sound with a better alternative like a G10L-35. Obviously that doesn't matter if you're using it as a preamp or running it through a 4x12'. The differences in the jacks on the right and on the rear are basically cosmetic - they all do the same things.

The earliest ones had a combined Line Out/Headphone jack on the front, the later ones had either the two separate jacks on the front or moved the Line Out round to the back (I can't remember what order these came in). The very earliest Lead 12 combos have slightly less gain too, but I think they'd gone to the higher-gain circuit before the stack came out. Call me weird if you like, but personally I much prefer it in the JCM800 cosmetics too - especially in white or silver (I've never seen a green one). The Plexi one is rarer than rare though, I'd guess it must be worth a fair bit more than even the colored ones. The later Valvestate versions aren't even remotely the same thing, BTW. That's a nice idea too, but be careful before you label the original solid-state circuit 'crap'.

They're not - this applies to the whole series, not just the Lead 12 - they're some of the best-built solid-state amps ever made, the construction and parts quality is identical to the later tube JCM800s, even down to the plywood cabinets (particle-board backs though, just like the big cabs). They're extremely reliable, the only problems that seem to occur is that the pots tend to go noisy, same as the tube amps - but some contact cleaner will sort that. And they sound good enough that many very serious players have used them as preamps for their main rigs, or for recording. Personally I don't think that the G10D-25 speakers are all that good - they're real British Celestions, but I think you can make a big difference to the sound with a better alternative like a G10L-35.

Marshall Lead 12 Schematic

Obviously that doesn't matter if you're using it as a preamp or running it through a 4x12'. The differences in the jacks on the right and on the rear are basically cosmetic - they all do the same things. The earliest ones had a combined Line Out/Headphone jack on the front, the later ones had either the two separate jacks on the front or moved the Line Out round to the back (I can't remember what order these came in). The very earliest Lead 12 combos have slightly less gain too, but I think they'd gone to the higher-gain circuit before the stack came out. Call me weird if you like, but personally I much prefer it in the JCM800 cosmetics too - especially in white or silver (I've never seen a green one). The Plexi one is rarer than rare though, I'd guess it must be worth a fair bit more than even the colored ones. The later Valvestate versions aren't even remotely the same thing, BTW.

Marshall Lead 12 Combo Amp

Well, since it's a Marshall, you can shorten the list by simply striking off anything that doesn't start with 'Celestion'. The only ones I've tried have been the stock G10D-25 - rather lacking in bass and body, and a bit buzzy at the top end, IMO; the G10L-35 - very good, maybe a touch midrangy; and some vintage 7442 model Celestions out of an old Marshall PA column, which were absolutely amazing, pretty much like small vintage G12M-25s - but you must have two, I made the mistake of putting one in a Lead 12 combo, and blew it. (Even though the power is reduced when running at 16 ohms.) I've always wondered what a really beefy modern speaker like a Vintage 10 (G10 Vintage I think they call it now) would sound like in one, but I've never owned both at the same time to try it. The funny thing about Lead12's to me is this: I always say that any amp I've played I always sound like myself, right? Way back when these first came out I was having a 'Tone Ranger' fitted to one of my Strats by Robbie Gladwell/Mick Dow (it took both of them, don't ask) and the first time I fired it up was through the Lead12 in Robbie's workshop - it was like instant Hendrix, believe me I don't nor have I ever sounded like Hendrix but that time. I'm still without one at this time despite the efforts of fellow Chapinista's on this site. Don't buy one of the recent iterations - not the same at all.