Yes, I mostly like to rock. I do some finger style stuff, like yesterday I jamming to RHCP Scar Tissue through the compressor on coil tapped neck PU and middle position PU's and it sounded so good even on bridge PU. Same for like U2 With or Without you that I was also jamming on last night. Sounded plenty clean to me with a little jangle. You just can't turn it way up because it will break up more quickly. Still can turn plenty loud for myself and stay clean and certainly enough that you could mic it if you needed to for a gig. I'm sure someone can make the Fender win in this clean and blues arena for that style of music, but I was very pleased with what clean I was getting from the new Marshall.
But then switch to the Crunch option (Clean channel 2nd option) and it is almost plenty of distortion for most needs. Go to the dirty channel for OD1 option and so easily get as much disortion as I can imagine ever needing. OD2 is just stupid distortion levels on steriods. I have a DS-1 pedal that I can set to very mild and run on the straight clean of the Marshall and get great distortion, but since the amp is 2 channel and the second channel OD1 is already truly as dirty as anything I can ever imagine needing, I'll likely never use the DS-1 again unless maybe strictly as a gain/OD for soloing is all I can think of. The DS-1 - while it sounds pretty okay and all, does not sound as good as the amp can all by itself. It was very useful in getting the Fender amp to tone down and get enough distortion between it and the dirty channel, but I was struggling to hit the pedal and footswitch at the same time when using on the Fender amp.
I love this new Marshall amp. Also, even though it shares EQ between the channels, it is more robust where I found the Fender to be dialed in right on clean channel, but then paper thin on distortion channel. If I tried to beef it up for distortion channel, the lows were way too pronounced and overpowering on the clean channel. It could just be me too and some other cat could find the balance and get great tones from the Fender with ease; but admittedly, I wanted the Marshall in the first place because that sound is my favorite.
I also played a VOX AC30 while test driving, but it wasn't 2 channel and no footswitch. I personally like it's crunch much better than the Fender, but not quite as much as the Marshall. I'm sure a pedal could make that thing sound so right though. It's clean was great too.
The Marshall is thick in every option and while I'm sure I can tweak between them, I can easily find one setting that is thick and smooth in every one of the 4 options.
Sorry for being so long. I'm not knocking the Fender. That thing will absolutely blow your ears out and can be made to sound incredible. It just isn't my favorite sound.
...I guess you can interpret that however you want.
What pray tell, is that roughed-up red Tele?
