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[quote=”1bassleft”]Here’s a very nice CMI 50W PA that sold on eBay today for £155, not very much compared with the prices Marshall valve PAs fetch. I bid myself, but couldn’t keep up with the bids as money is a bit short right now. Ironically, this thread probably helped push its price up. If the winner looks in, say hello and let’s have more pics, please 🙂
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid214/pf4f83bbe3478c2e2e87c816212350d38/ed0a5ce1.jpg
NB, in common with other CMI valve amps, there’s no standby switch. A bit of Marshall cost-cutting that’s not great for valve life, unfortunately. Still, the Mullards in mine lasted a decade and so have the St Petersburg Svets. That’s on a weekly rehearsal/monthlyish gig basis.[/quote]I also bid but didn’t win. I wrote to the winner and will hopefully get some more photos soon – this will be key in my refurbishing of my own “Marshall-ized” CMI 100w head.
Thanks for the quick reply, 1bassleft. I was very pleased to find some serious info about CMI gear – your post (linked via Google) was about the only sign that they ever existed!
I have done shamefully little with the PA since receiving it, but as I now know more about it I think I’ll do some rehab work on it. To start with, I’ll have the thin carpet covering stripped and put some Marshall-esque tolex on it. The knobs look to be original but the faceplate was stripped and cheesy stencils done on the indicator knobs. I suspect the Marshall logo was just pasted there because the previous owner figured that Marshall looked cooler than CMI. I think that I might be able to get a repro logo stenciled or screen-printed on (with new numbers too) although that might take me a while. I would very much like to get this thing into as close to original condition as possible.
Once I take it in to my amp-builder buddy’s shop I’ll take more detailed photos of the tubes and general set-up. I’ll do another posting once that’s done.
A few months back I grabbed a mystery “Marshall” amp on ebay.de. The price was great so I figured I’d buy first and ask questions later.
Turns out it was a CMI PA with some mods that had been done to it over the years to make it look “more” Marshall-esque. Sounds great, and now that I’ve actually started to get a grip on its original appearance, I’m going to set about restoring it to as close to stock as possible (and reasonable).
And here’s the catalog scan of the unit:
