NAD for me!!! (Powerball goodness)

[BigK]

Well I've picked up my Engl powerball yesterday and I'm very pleased with it so far (although im using the G12k-100 in my thunder 50 combo as a speaker untill my Framus 2x12 turns up. I got it for £800 and its got a fresh set of JJ 6l6GC's in it. It sounds positively brutal.

 PDT_003

However... When I tried one out before their seemed to be more of a gain difference between the lo and hi lead channels but It has been a while since I tried one out so I might be imaging it, but there seems to be very little variation (if any) between the Hi and Lo channels, if any of you powerball (MDV I know has one) users can shed any light on this it will be much appreciated.

The only other niggles is that the red LED's seemed to have lost there Red colour and become amber coloured LED's and during cleaning it up the Powerball lettering decided to remove itself from the amp - but I dont care about that its just cosmetics.

I'll give a proper Review and some pics when my cab gets here from Thomann.

[dave_mc]

my red lights (not a powerball) are fading as well. not much you can do about that, i don't think (well, unless the newer ones have leds rather than lights). i think they're lights rather than leds, leds don't fade (at least, that's what they seemed to think at the engl forum).

when you say lo and high channels, do you mean channels 3 and 4, or between, say, channels 2 and 4? I don't own a powerball, but i've tried one a couple of times, and there's a BIG difference between the clean/crunch channels and the lead channels (assuming that's what you mean); maybe a dodgy preamp tube or two?

EDIT: if you mean the lo and hi lead channels (i.e. channels 3 and 4), then yeah, both have an absolute ton of gain. you should be able to dial them in a bit differently... maybe mess with the mid open/focussed (whatever it's called) knob a bit?

[BigK]

They are deffinately LED's and I think the plastic lense on them fades due to the heat from the power tubes after some time by the looks of it. So I dont know what the people on the Engl forums are talking about, but they obviously dont understand the effects of heat on plastics.

It was the difference between channels 3&4 (AKA Channel 2 lo and hi gain modes) I was refering to In that there isnt that much difference in gain between them (i.e 3 has less gain than 4) It just sounds like channel 4 is a little more compressed, slightly fatter and slightly less treble. But then I havent had the chance to krank it through a proper cabinet yet.

The only annoying thing is that the 'bottom' switches arent footswitchable only the open/focused mids which seem to be quite useful. But overall I am rather made up with it.

[dave_mc]

i thought LEDs emitted a specific wavelength of light (or at least a very narrow band)... which means the plastic coating (presumably) isn't coloured. Which'd suggest they're lights rather than leds?

I think so, anyway. i guess they could have white leds with a red cover, but that'd kinda defeat the purpose, surely using a red led would be easier?

i'm far from an expert on leds, of course, but what the engl forum said (and what little i've gleaned from wiki) would back up that they aren't leds if they fade. I could easily be wrong of course.

Regarding the channels, from what i remember, channel 2 lo and hi lead sounded pretty similar... calling them lo and hi is pretty misleading, as both are extremely high gain- the lo part has more gain than many other high gain amps... :lol:

[Antag]

there seems to be very little variation (if any) between the Hi and Lo channels

My Savage 120 does the same - have a listen to my 4 channel Holy Diver clip - both channels share a gain control & EQ, so you have to dial in the high gain sound you really want & live with whatever you get from the other channel.

It really doesn't bother me - I hardly ever use Ch3 - but yes, both CH3 & 4 have a LOT of gain :twisted: & you simply can't go from JCM800/NWOBHM/Rawk to Mega-Metal at the touch of a button.

[BigK]

i thought LEDs emitted a specific wavelength of light (or at least a very narrow band)... which means the plastic coating (presumably) isn't coloured. Which'd suggest they're lights rather than leds?

I think so, anyway. i guess they could have white leds with a red cover, but that'd kinda defeat the purpose, surely using a red led would be easier?

i'm far from an expert on leds, of course, but what the engl forum said (and what little i've gleaned from wiki) would back up that they aren't leds if they fade. I could easily be wrong of course.

Regarding the channels, from what i remember, channel 2 lo and hi lead sounded pretty similar... calling them lo and hi is pretty misleading, as both are extremely high gain- the lo part has more gain than many other high gain amps... :lol:

I retract my previous statement They are little light bulbs having had a closer look at them. Although many high power red LED's actually use an amber light colour very similar to the colour that the lights are producing which pointed me in that direction.  anyway I stand corrected. :oops:

I just cant wait for my Framus 2x12 to show up so I can give it a proper thrashing and put some pics and a review up.  PDT_001

And It is a little misleading calling them Hi and Lo, but hey They both kick ass. I will probably end up using channel three as my rhythm channel and have channel 4 as my lead channel with the bottom switch kicked in and a bit of a volume boost.

[dave_mc]

there seems to be very little variation (if any) between the Hi and Lo channels

My Savage 120 does the same - have a listen to my 4 channel Holy Diver clip - both channels share a gain control & EQ, so you have to dial in the high gain sound you really want & live with whatever you get from the other channel.

It really doesn't bother me - I hardly ever use Ch3 - but yes, both CH3 & 4 have a LOT of gain :twisted: & you simply can't go from JCM800/NWOBHM/Rawk to Mega-Metal at the touch of a button.

you can on my savage se... :twisted: certainly the amount of gain available on my channels 3 and 4 is noticeably different (or, at least, it can be dialled in to be noticeably different; i guess you could dial it in to be similar if you wanted that, too.). channel 3 is my 80s metal channel, channel 4 modern metal. i was under the impression that the savage and savage se were similar in terms of amounts of available gain (but the tone was a little different), but i haven't tried the savage, so i can't say for sure. Certainly at lower volumes, channel 3 only has just about enough gain for 80s metal with the gain dimed, and with reasonably hot humbuckers (you can dial it back to a similar amount of gain as the crunch channel, but then that affects the amount of gain you can get from channel 4). at higher volumes, things get a bit heavier...  :lol:

but i agree, you do kinda have to dial in the eq for one channel, and put up with it on the other.

I retract my previous statement They are little light bulbs having had a closer look at them. Although many high power red LED's actually use an amber light colour very similar to the colour that the lights are producing which pointed me in that direction.  anyway I stand corrected. :oops:

I just cant wait for my Framus 2x12 to show up so I can give it a proper thrashing and put some pics and a review up.  PDT_001

And It is a little misleading calling them Hi and Lo, but hey They both kick ass. I will probably end up using channel three as my rhythm channel and have channel 4 as my lead channel with the bottom switch kicked in and a bit of a volume boost.

haha, no worries about the lights/led thing, i just assumed they were leds too until someone on the engl forum said they were lights a while back. :lol:

you're right about the lo high thing. as i said, the lo lead channel is higher in gain than many high gain amps' high gain channels. :lol:

[Antag]

there seems to be very little variation (if any) between the Hi and Lo channels

My Savage 120 does the same - have a listen to my 4 channel Holy Diver clip - both channels share a gain control & EQ, so you have to dial in the high gain sound you really want & live with whatever you get from the other channel.

It really doesn't bother me - I hardly ever use Ch3 - but yes, both CH3 & 4 have a LOT of gain :twisted: & you simply can't go from JCM800/NWOBHM/Rawk to Mega-Metal at the touch of a button.

you can on my savage se... :twisted: certainly the amount of gain available on my channels 3 and 4 is noticeably different (or, at least, it can be dialled in to be noticeably different; i guess you could dial it in to be similar if you wanted that, too.). channel 3 is my 80s metal channel, channel 4 modern metal. i was under the impression that the savage and savage se were similar in terms of amounts of available gain (but the tone was a little different), but i haven't tried the savage, so i can't say for sure. Certainly at lower volumes, channel 3 only has just about enough gain for 80s metal with the gain dimed, and with reasonably hot humbuckers (you can dial it back to a similar amount of gain as the crunch channel, but then that affects the amount of gain you can get from channel 4). at higher volumes, things get a bit heavier...  :lol:

but i agree, you do kinda have to dial in the eq for one channel, and put up with it on the other.

I think we're basically saying the same thing :) but either way, you're really limited with a Powerball as there's only one gain control for Ch3 & 4...

[MDV]

You can use channel 2 for the medium gain crunch - it has enough to get into JCM800 territory.

Also, word to the wise - get an EQ in the FX loop. If you arent using good cables then cut some 6khz to tame some fizz and the simple presence (no eqing) of the EQ with the FX loop at about 2/3 widens the sound out and thickens and deepens the low end tremendously.

I must try it tonight with the in-line, no boost setting (plus 4db). I have a feeling its because its actually a bad EQ, and has its own sound, but its bad in SUCH a good way. I love it. Sitting in front of the amp it makes your skeleton shake at about half volume. Devastating.


V1 powerballs had bulbs
V2 have LEDs, a logarithmic treble control and improved noise gate.

[dave_mc]

I think we're basically saying the same thing :) but either way, you're really limited with a Powerball as there's only one gain control for Ch3 & 4...

yeah. :)