“The amp that’s one in a hundred”: Marshall is celebrating 100 years of iconic British speaker firm Celestion with this stunning, limited-edition hand-built head and cab
The UK amp maker has teamed-up with its collaborators at Celestion for a special run of handmade Studio JTMs
(Image credit: Marshall)
Marshall Amplification has announced a new, extremely limited-edition hand-crafted Studio JTM head and cab, developed in celebration of Celestion’s 100 anniversary.
If you’re not familiar with the Studio JTM, it is Marshall’s down-sized 20-watt take on its iconic JTM45 head. This version incorporates the same tube combination – two ECC83 tubes in the preamp, two 5881 power amp tubes and an ECC83 phase shifter – with Celestion’s 100 Alnico speaker in a matching 1x12” cabinet.
This limited-edition take has been hand-built in the UK and refinished in a fetching cream covering, with period touches like a poured enamel ‘coffin’ logo paired with new white control knobs. It is, appropriately, capped at a run of just 100 units – as Marshall notes, it’s “the amp that’s one in one hundred”.
The Celestion 100 speaker was debuted back at NAMM and is intended to commemorate the firm’s centenary with a design inspired by the G12 (e.g. the famed Alnico Blue) and T652 speakers that propelled its successful collaborations with British amp-makers – including Vox and Marshall – in the 1960s.
(Image credit: Marshall)
“The tone of Celestion 100 is very much based on those really early Alnico guitar speakers,” says Celestion’s John Paice.
“We spent a lot of time listening to several of them just to get the right tonal benchmark... We believe we made these hundredth anniversary speakers into something truly special.”
"Celestion has been part of the Marshall family right from the very beginning, and more than six decades later that union is still thriving,” adds Marshall’s Steve Smith.
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“Over the years we have cultivated a truly genuine relationship built on our shared passion for British craftsmanship and world-class sound… I can’t think of a more iconic way of celebrating this 100-year milestone.”
(Image credit: Marshall)
Celestion also teased the arrival of the Marshall Celestion 100 back at NAMM, sharing a closely cropped pic of the Celestion 100 union flag badge – on what we now know is the limited-edition Marshall cabinet.
Marshall, meanwhile, has invested heavily in its UK amp-making facility since its 2023 takeover, shoring up its legacy credentials with an immediate focus on reformatting its legacy tube builds in smaller, home-friendly formats.
Matt is Features Editor for GuitarWorld.com. Before that he spent 10 years as a freelance music journalist, interviewing artists for the likes of Total Guitar, Guitarist, Guitar World, MusicRadar, NME.com, DJ Mag and Electronic Sound. In 2020, he launched CreativeMoney.co.uk, which aims to share the ideas that make creative lifestyles more sustainable. He plays guitar, but should not be allowed near your delay pedals.
