Preview: Marshall MG15FXMS - Micro Size with Full Stack tone

James Rushin

Posted 2009-07-04

MELVILLE, NY, July 1, 2009 -- The MG15FXMS Micro Stack is the latest offering in the popular MG4 Series of Marshall amplifiers, a part of Marshall’s effort to offer the full-stack tone at a small-stack-of-bills price. The three-piece micro stack (Read: The whole thing weighs in at around 40 pounds, so while it’s definitely small as stacks go, it’s not to be laughed at.) includes a 15-Watt compact head plus two matching 10” speaker cabinets - one angled, one straight. Put together, it stands a solid three feet high. The MG15FXMS can fit easily in any car trunk with room for a guitar and pedalboard.

Marshall is still sticking to its guns on this one, presenting the amp head layout in traditional Marshall fashion: Gain, three-band EQ (Bass, Middle, Treble), Reverb, Channel Volume, Effects, and Master Volume. These controls work four separate channels, Clean, Crunch (Original Marshall style), Overdrive 1 (Hard Rock), and Overdrive 2 (a more mid-scooped Metal tone). All of these channels are individually programmable even without a footswitch and “remember” the saved settings without any touch of knobs or dial, essentially giving the user four separate presets.

The digital effects include Reverb (a mainstay), and the big four: Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, and Delay. The delay is controlled via tap tempo on the front panel. The effects section rounds it out to make this a pretty fully-featured mini stack. It also provides a versatile array of inputs and outputs, including a Line In that allows players to jam along with an MP3 player, CD player or other audio source. The Line Out doubles as a Headphone Out and features speaker cabinet emulation to reproduce the full-range Marshall roar whether you’re recording or don’t want to wake sleeping roommates or siblings.

While I noted earlier that this head is fully functional without the optional STOMPWARE® footswitch, it can be particularly useful onstage or in the studio to provide seamless transitions from sound to sound, as well as tap tempo control and a separate display for the built-in tuner (It has a tuner, and those of you who have read my previous articles know how I feel about tuners. Thank you, Jim Marshall. Good call.). It connects via a standard guitar cable.

Marshall has released products like this before, including the somewhat popular MSII Micro Stack, which saw an almost novelty run in stores for a fair amount of time.

The MG15FXMS Micro Stack carries an MSRP of $510.00 and will be available in October 2009.

by James Rushin

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