In addition to the voltage being different in Europe, the ground runs at 50 cycles, thereby eliminating the annoying single coil hum wired in at 60 cycles due to American voltage. (I thought it was just the voltage, the ground current was suggested to me by Bruce Egnater as being an additional variable in why the Marshall sounded so different.) I was playing with Lil' Ed and the Blues Imperials on a 6 week tour and Lil' Ed still talks about how clean that Marshall was. Impressed all of us. Obviously, when you don't know what's going to be expected of you, versatility is the key (part of why I've been looking into the Egnater designed MTS series, a dozen or so different tube preamps to plug in) And I agree about the newer Fenders not capturing the character of the originals. They're like good imitations, close but not quite the original (notice, I play a pre-CBS Pro Reverb)