History of the Marshall Silver Jubilee
Originally issued in 1987, the Marshall Silver Jubilee 2555 was released to celebrate 25 years making amplifiers (and 50 years in the music industry). It was produced for only a single year but during the Silver Jubilee was quickly adopted by virtuosos such as Slash and Joe Bonamassa who were able to coax some of Marshall’s most lyrical tones from this amp.
Several years after the original release Marshall put out a Slash signature amp which was based on the Silver Jubilee, increasing the demand and allure of the amplifier.
In 2015 Marshall reissued the Silver Jubilee as the 2555X. Some updates were made, they updated the switching circuitry was updated to help with flickering when channel switching, and external bias points to help with re-tubing.
Older models also had two speaker jacks and an impedance selector, while the reissue has five speaker jacks, which range from 4 to 16 ohms.
You can hear a comparison of the original vs the reissue here:
Silver Jubilee Tone
The Silver Jubilees were modelled after the JCM800’s 2203 and 2204 models, adding more gain and a half power mode so that great tones could be achieved at lower volumes. It uses four EL34 power amp tubs and three ECC83 preamp tubes, as well as diode clipping to assist with achieving extra gain.
This is advertised as a two channel amp but it’s really closer to a 4 channel amp. There is a straight forward, very useable EQ, (bass, mid, treble), a presence knob that can help to brighten up a boxy sound and make if feel more open and less compressed, an output master, lead master and input gain knobs.
The output master and input gain knobs are both a push/pull switch. When both are pushed in you can achieve a great clean sound. Pull the input gain out to engage the rhythm clip circuit and you get a crunch channel. Pull the output master out and you get a more distorted channel, and if you push the input gain back in while output master is pulled out then you get a fatter distorted channel.
It comes with a one button foot switch that allows you to switch between the clean and dirty channel (emulating pushing in and pull out the output master). Unfortunately there is no channel switching option for the input gain/rhythm clip knob.
Check out Jeff Kollman’s excellent tone demo of the 4 channel possibilities of the Silver Jubilee:
The Silver Jubilee is considered by many to be Marshall’s best sounding amp. It is a bit more compressed sounding than the JCM800 but is more flexible, has a beautiful clean sound, and more gain on tap. It can achieve great tones at low volumes and for medium gain players it may not even need an overdrive in front of it (though it takes pedals incredibly well and benefits greatly from the extra gain you can add with various overdrives).
With the ability to switch between 100 watt and 50 watt modes, or 50 watt and 25 watt modes on the 50 watt model, this amp really offers a ton of flexible ton options at many different volumes.
Marshall Silver Jubilee Features
The Marshall Silver Jubilee comes with a variety of features that enable you to craft your tone at various levels of volume, starting with a power reduction switch (on the 100 watt model you can reduce power to 50 watts, and on the 50 watt model you can reduce it to 25 watts).
It’s powered with 4 EL34 power amp tubes, 2 ECC83 and 1 ECC83 (phase splitter) preamp tubes.
What does the phase splitter preamp tube actually do? In our example of a 100 watt amp, which has 4 power tubes the phase splitter preamp tube splits the pre-amplified signal just prior to the power amps into 2 sine waves which are 180 degrees out of phase. This results in a “push/pull” signal which is needed to drive the power amp tubes.
The front panel gives access to the presence, bass, middle and treble tone controls, as well as the ability to switch from the clean to dirty channel, which is foot switchable with an included foot switch.
There is an output master for controlling the amp’s overall volume, a lead master for adjusting the volume of the lead channel and an input gain for adjusting the amount of gain available in the signal. The input gain control has also has a rhythm clip mode (engaged via a push/pull switch in the control knob) to create heavier tones.
The back panel gives access to the FX loop, a direct out and various combinations of speaker output jacks in different configurations of ohms and number of cabinets.
Demystifying Silver Jubilee Model Numbers
So what’s up with all the different model numbers? Marshall model numbers are a bit difficult to track down information on, but here are the model numbers associated with the Silver Jubilee:
2555 – This is the original Silver Jubilee from 1987, 100/50 watt
2550 – This is the original Silver Jubilee from 1987, 50/25 watt
2554 – This is the original Silver Jubilee from 1987, 50/25 watt combo, 1×12
2553 – – This is the original Silver Jubilee from 1987, 50/25 watt “small box”
2555X – The Silver Jubilee reissue, 100/50 watt