Marmac XL120 PA Amp Head

Sanitarium

I found this at in an old shed at the weekend and i'm just wondering if anyone has any information about it. So far, all I found is that it is a 1970/80's era amp head which was made in Sligo. I found a few threads on the web and it seems it might be a good head for guitar.

It had a few blown fuses when I first turned it on, and after I replaced them the power and standby LED's came on and then smoke started coming out of the transformer. I'm guessing there might be something wrong somewhere else in the circuitry. I'm gonna have a better look at it at the weekend, but for now does anyone have any useful information which I could use of if its worth restoring?

Cheers guys,
Colm

Paolo_M

I'll PM you the boring tech info that I have so far. I couldn't get a schematic so it's just my notes.
I'll also PM you some things to check for.

The guys who originally built still work for Joe O'Neills in Glenamaddy. It's a real shame that one of the transformers is gone, they are a real "don't build 'em like they used to" job. The guys used to wind them themselves back in the day.

I know it's a bit late now but it's always worth remembering not to turn on any amp that you are not sure of without some kind of current limiter between it and the wall. I built one for about €5 out of a double socket.
It works as follows:
You wire the first socket in series with the second. Plug a lamp in the first and the amp in the second. A healthy amp has a fairly high resistance so when you turn it on the lamp should only light dimly. If the amp has a short; the lamp will light as normal at full brightness and you know you have a problem. The beauty is that the lamp in this case is that it will limit the current to a level that can't damage any of the parts inside the amp. It has come in handy once or twice.

It sounds ok for guitar. As it is a PA guitar signal will overdrive the preamp fairly easily giving a kinda fuzz face like tone. The pre amp in the one I worked on was solid-state feeding a valve splitter and power amp so I guess that accounts for the tone. Not really my thing but hey, you might love it.

seanvox

If anyone has any technical info/schematics for this I would be grateful to receive a copy!

iamnotme

I played guitar thru an old Marmac back in the 80s. With MXR distortion pedal. I knew a guy then that was connected with Marmac, I'll sus him out next time i'm in Sligo, can't promise.

kzhus

I know this is very old thread... anyway, I'd appreciate if anyone could share some tech info / schematics of the Marmac XL120PA. Thanks.