Marshall DSL 100 questions

JSP552003

hey i don't know if anyone can help but ill give it a shot anyway....i recently bought a dsl100 head....i LOVE the ultra lead channel, however i find the cleans to be lacking....at gigs and practices i have my lead channel volume on 5.5 to 6 and to balance the volumes between clean and lead i have to put the clean on 8....is that normal with dsl's? i also have the gain on the clean at around 4 to 4.5 and they tend to break up more than im use too (i like my cleans to stay really clean)but if i turn the gain down i lose volume...ive just heard so many good things about the cleans that i guess maybe i expected more...could it possibly be a tube issue? or do i just have to learn to live with this?

my settings in case anyone wanted to know are:

deep - out
pres - 5.5
treb - 6
mid - 5.5
bass - 4.5
tone shift - out
reverb - 3
Ch A volume - 8
Ch A gain - 4

Pacomc79

it's a marshall issue. You won't get a glassy clean from that amp. You can try playing with the volume and the gain to get a happy mix, you can also try using a very clean clean boost like the barber Launch pad to help your prescence. The EL34's are more wooly than 6L6's and they break up earlier.

Another fix might be to go with very high gain preamp tubes. Like the JJ 803's

but that might effect your love of the other channel, as would using stiffer speaker cones but generally JJ's are a happy blend in Marshalls.

You should have enough volume in that thing to give you a solid clean, especially if you run something like that barber. Boosts all increase gain, but the reason I say the barber is the internal voltage increase to 24 volts. That should give you the clarity you want.

It is normal to run the volume up that high to get the big clean tone with the gain down. You have to use the power tubes at that point. You're using a lot more of the preamp for your lead tones.