Posted: 20th June 2023
When we brought out our Origin series, we went back to our roots and listened to what contemporary players wanted, just like Jim did at the beginning.
Designed to be the most expressive valve amp in the Marshall collection, Origin delivers organic and transparent clean and crunch sounds.
Read time: 3 mins
This single channel amp is unmistakably Marshall, using three ECC83 preamp valves alongside two EL34 power valves to generate classic British tones.
It delivers two inbuilt voices, tilt control, a 4 band EQ and Powerstem (power reduction technology) and forms the perfect marriage with FX pedals, opening your playing to new levels of expression. As well as this, the range comes with an effects loop and DI output.
The classically styled single channel amps generate rich and harmonic tones that are ideal for players to explore new possibilities and craft their sound. There is a 2-way footswitch available with all models so you can control the gain boost and turn the FX loop on and off. This series has something for players in the bedroom, at rehearsal or on the stage. You can find out more about how to use your Origin here.
Origin features two pre-amp voicings, normal and high treble, which can be blended to taste using the tilt control. Turning this knob all the way to the left will give you a warm and full tone whilst all the way to the right will give a brighter, more cutting tone - similar to the two channels of the classic Marshall. If the tilt control is set to halfway, it will provide an equal blend of both pre-amp voicings.
All amps in the Origin range have a boost feature, which gives your sound that extra bit of gain. This feature can be perfect for adding a bit more gain and generally fattening up the guitar tone. There are two ways you’re able to control this feature. Firstly, through the pulling the gain knob on the panel or, secondly, through pushing the gain control on the footswitch included with your the amp. Using this control will help you to add more saturation and body. Even at high gain settings the sound remains fully touch sensitive and responsive to all guitar adjustments.
As we mentioned earlier, the Origin also features Powerstem technology. This works by reducing the voltage rails around the power amplifier rather than using our traditional pent over triode method, allowing you to use this amp in various kinds of playing situations. There's a high, mid, and low power setting. On high you'll get the full 20W or 50W out of the amp. Switching it to mid will drop it down to roughly 3W on the 20 - 10W on the 50, and then the low position will produce roughly 0.5W on the 20 - 5W on the 50.
Whether you're playing at home, rehearsals, or even in a live situation, the Powerstem technology means you are able to push the master volume on the Origin to get the preamp valves working hard without having to effect your tone and having to turn the master volume down.
Aside from the output wattage the other big difference between the two combos is the speakers that they feature. the 20-watt featuring a 10” Celestion VT-Junior speaker and the 50-watt featuring a 12” Celestion G12N-60 Midnight 60 speaker.
Both combos offer the same inputs, outputs and effects loop. For more information about this please take a look at their product pages here.
In this video, we went into the Marshall Studio and plugged in some of our most iconic guitar amps, using a 1936V 2x12 cab loaded with Marshall Vintage speakers. We compared clean tones of these amps with boosted clean tones by using a vintage reissue Bluesbreaker pedal set to a slight clean boost. Watch now to see how the clean tone of the Origin 20H compares to some of our other amps.
