ENGL fireball 100 or what? update: NAD content... :)

[dheim]

at the moment i'm pretty poor (had to trow away a lot of money in useless taxes...), but i'm starting to feel a massive ENGL GAS.
in particular i suspect that my life would be much, much better and a lot of wars would cease if only i had a Fireball 100.
but i didn't ever manage to get my hands on it. of course...
did anyone of you ever try it? i read almost everything about the differencies between it and a powerball, and of course everyone disagrees with everyone else.

i know that the easier thing to do should be to get my arse off the chair and go and TRY it. but no shop around seems to have it. so i'm asking!

mind that i'm looking for a punchy and tight but not overly tight sound, with an organic feel that the powerball seems to sacrifice to precision... the fireball 60 seems to suit me better but the shared gain doesn't!
i heard many times the PB but never actually played it, so my impression could be influenced by the settings used.

[Lew]

If it sounds anything like the Screamer it gets a big thumbs down from me. I've been using a mates in the studio the last couple of weeks as I haven't lugged my rig down there. The clean aint too bad but the gain is yukh, super compressed,. I don't know if that's representative of all ENGL voicing though.

[dheim]

uhm... the screamer should be completely different. i tried it and didn't dislike it, but it's a totally different style of amp.

[Nolly]

The Fireball 100 trounces the 60 in my opinion. It's more focussed, slightly darker and also meatier. It's more refined, but without sacrificing the brutality. The Powerball is extremely compressed in comparison, and saturated to a point I've not come across in any other amp.

[Jonny]

The powerball is great when i played it. To an extent i had to try and get a sound that i didn't like from it. It is a great metal amp. Sadly i can't say anything for the fireball but I've generally disregarded it because of its simple upgrade from its little brother but if i do come across one. I shall rip into it for you.

[invader_24]

I have an ENGL InVader 150 and it is amazing. The amount of precision gain that comes out of this thing is insane! I'm just waiting for funds to chuck a painkiller in my Custom 24 and see what it sounds like...

Our other guitarist has a Powerball and it's decent as hell! The cleans are much nicer on his than the InVader, but the gain is rather compressed - that said, it's not a bad sound.

[dheim]

finally (some week ago, to be honest) i decided to buy a Fireball 100 - and subsequently did it...
now i'm much, much poorer than before, but i'm also happier...

unfortunately i had very little time to play it (i had to leave it in rehearsal room immediately and played just 2 times with the band... :( ), but my early impressions are excellent.

1) cleans are very nice. absolutely NOT the cold and sterile tone that many describe... not warm either, but surely not sterile... it sounds a bit like my solid state Fender combo (FM212R), sharp, clear and  a bit percussive, but is very dynamic and bites hard on heavily strummed notes... not the Blackface tone i like best, but surely a good clean tone. separate gain knob allows to go from the cleanest solid state cleans to a real crunch.

2) lead channel is AWESOME. i'm playing with gain between 1 and 2 o'clock (70-75%) and it's more than enough... and NO, i'm not playing rock'n'roll but a blend of gothic and melodic death metal. so not exactly a mid scoop fest a la Nile, but some serious distortion is needed. ah, it's very tight, of course, but the deal is that it has got a great TONE. very peculiar, and very much different from the actual Mesa and Peavey trend. i heard many people complain about its "scooped" tone. between "bass" and "treble" there's another knob. just turn it clockwise and your mids will magically appear... :)

3) shared EQ is not an issue. both channels can enjoy a bass boost that gives more punch withoud mudding the tone. if you need a sharper clean tone a bright switch (inactive on the lead channel) can balance things, but i don't think i'll ever use it...

4) i can't judge for the old 60W version, but clean/lead volume balance is not an issue on the Fireball100. cleans seem to be louder, but there's a "lead volume" knob. turning it on 100% gives a perfect balance... just i can't understand the need for an extra knob... they could have set it on 100% by default, i can't imagine who would like a volume drop switching to high gain!
the direct consequence is that you can use the two masters to switch between rhythm and solo volume without the need for a booster... my first impression is that the "mid boost" switch (controllable via footswitch) boosts volume enough for solos. and it - of course - boosts the frequencies that makes the solo guitar jump out of the mix.
maybe the fact that the rhythm guitarist has got a very scooped tone helps, but i don't think i'll need to switch masters for solos.

5) it doesn't like too much my overdrive, but i won't use it anyway on the lead channel... there's no need at all to overdrive anything.

maybe i'm still on honeymoon, but i haven't yet found a reason to dislike the Fireball, just many to love it!

[hunter]

It's always a matter of taste, but for me the Engl stuff doesn't do much. Great on the first impression, but not very expressive, i.e. it will always sound more after Engl than after yourself. I have tried many of their amps, but not the Fireball 100 I gotta admit.

I would definitely try extensively and also look at other brands in that price segment, like Marshall, Orange, Blackstar, ...etc

Edit: ooops, I didn't read your last post, so in fact you bought it already ... well HNAD then !!! :O)

[dheim]

this IS my first impression, but i hope that i won't grow tired after playing it for a while! anyway i already got a tone that's quite close to my usual sound (but of course sounds very different from my previous rigs)... i feared that the ENGL sound would bury my personal tone, but fortunately i didn't have this impression in my first hours of playing... i read many things about ENGLs lost in the mix, but my first impression was very different. maybe the fact that the other guitarist plays a JCM900 using a Metal Zone as a preamp (weird but it works very well for his playing style) and our tones are A LOT different helps.