ENGL powerball and ENGL in general...

[Lew]

Yo!... I've used an ENGL Screamer before now and have been really unimpressed with it, I thought it was really cr@p but a mate used his Fireball in the studio over the last couple of weeks and it's changed my mind on ENGL quite a bit, it sounded friggin great. Really tight and defined.

I'm quite interested in the Powerball but would like some more info about it if anyones familiar (iirc a couple of members own one)? Whats the difference between the black face and silverface model? How does it fit into ENGLs line up - they do so many amps its hard to know whats going on  - are they all made to the same standard but just with different features etc... or do the cheaper models have corner cutting? And just general info would be great.

Sorry for the essay!

Ta!  8)

[Alex]

It's a monster!
A lot of people like the ENGL Powerball more than the Mesa Rectifier, which it seems to be compared to a lot. I think they are quite different, though.

My favorite ENGL is the Invader though.



EDIT:
This band has recorded the guitars on those recordings through an ENGL Powerball. Please don't blame me for giving you GAS!
http://www.myspace.com/jamesontheband

[gordiji]

lew, i can only comment on the screamer and 'cr@p' they're not. bright yes, which means if you dial in normal settings of eq they can sound harsh. if you back off the treble to 9o'clock,bass the same and mid to about 2o'clock
it sounds great.the clean channel is beautiful.the second channel equally superb giving lovely crunch, and this same
channel overdriven is perfect.at low vol it sounds great and cranked it screams.channel one overdriven is the only
weak sound for me, bit thin .it's not a metal amp but very versatile with bags of gain for traditional rock.

.

[dave_mc]

^ agreed.

they're a bit love and hate in my experience. There's also a couple I'm not too fussed on, either (fireball, the older 60w one, and i suspect the powerball would be too metal for me).

from what i can remember from the powerballs I've tried (the earliest version), they were very much aimed at modern metal. if you want versatility, I'd be looking at the other engls.

[Lew]

It's a monster!
A lot of people like the ENGL Powerball more than the Mesa Rectifier, which it seems to be compared to a lot. I think they are quite different, though.

My favorite ENGL is the Invader though.



EDIT:
This band has recorded the guitars on those recordings through an ENGL Powerball. Please don't blame me for giving you GAS!
http://www.myspace.com/jamesontheband

sounds good, ta.

lew, i can only comment on the screamer and 'cr@p' they're not. bright yes, which means if you dial in normal settings of eq they can sound harsh. if you back off the treble to 9o'clock,bass the same and mid to about 2o'clock
it sounds great.the clean channel is beautiful.the second channel equally superb giving lovely crunch, and this same
channel overdriven is perfect.at low vol it sounds great and cranked it screams.channel one overdriven is the only
weak sound for me, bit thin .it's not a metal amp but very versatile with bags of gain for traditional rock.

.

Just to make it clear, I didn't try one in a shop and make a snap decision. I come into contact with it often and have spent a fair bit of time with it. And for my ears it is cr@p, but my understanding is it's a low budget ENGL. No offence meant :)

[dave_mc]

none taken. if you ask me, the dearer engls sound better than the screamer. but at the same time if you absolutely loathe the screamer... they still kinda all sound like engls. the dearer ones can get smoother, though.

[Lew]

Yea, thing is I really liked the Fireball (60W) it had a really nasty midrange, it was a dirty pig. I'm not too sure what all the differences between the versions are either, Powerball mk 2 has a better noise gate I think I read (?) and now there's a new Powerball 2 with black panel. Confusing! Oh and I hear ya on the versatility, I get the impression it's a one trick pony.

Ta!

[gordiji]

no offence taken lew 8) y' pays 'y money and takes y' choice.also i'm extremely unaware of the competition, that said my screamer i love

[Lew]

as does my mate. He swears by the thing and says the only amp he would be interested in changing it for would be the ENGL SE  8) and to be fair, the clean is nice on it - ran it through my martamp cab for some clean tones for recording.

[MDV]

They have their goods and bads.

Goods - very heavy, extremely precise, tight as hell, brutal, wide controls, lots of room to dial in different sounds from open, bright crunch to more compressed scooped sounds, even the PB is pretty versatile if you know what youre doing with it, respond well to different guitars and take modulation, wah and wammy very well, decent effects loop.

Bads - cold sounding, or at least very hard to get anything warm sounding out of them, can be brash/harsh/glassy rather than nicely sizzly, doesnt take ODs well. Really, really fussy about cabs and speakers; I would not have bought my powerball if I'd only tried it through marshall and engl cabs, I bought it after playing it through an ubercab, and bought the ubercab as well.

Some days I love it, some days I hate it, for all the above reasons. I had a screamer for a couple of years and they are VERY different animals all told, but there is a similarity in them, a sort of family sound thats in the glassy clarity in the top end (which can be friend or enemy depending what youre going for).

[Antag]

I've played the Screamer, Thunder, Fireball 60, Powerball, Savage120 (I own one), Morse, Invader 150

I think the "large chassis " Engls are quite different to the Screamer/Thunder, neither of which I particularly liked.  The Fireball 60 is a great sounding amp, I really liked it - & not just a one trick pony either, although there is a shared Eq, the clean channel was quite good.  If a  two channel amp was all I wanted, it would be near the top of my list.

I liked the Powerball, though if I owned one I'd leave it set to "Classic" mode - I couldn't find a single sound I liked out of "Modern" mode.  Even with shared gain controls between ch1/2 & 3/4 I found all 4 channels balanced well with each other & liked the range of sounds.  I've heard people say that the Fireball uses the same gain circuit as the Powerball's Ch4 but I'm sceptical - they sounded different to my ears (although I didn't get the chance to play them side by side) - the Fireball seemed a bit more "open" to me.

However, the Engl I chose to buy was the Savage 120 & I have to say it's one of the best purchases I've ever made.  I took a trusted friend/colleague at his word & bought it without having tried it.  The twin FX loops & 6550 power section were what first caught my interest. IMHO it's superior in every way to the Powerball.

Since then I've tried the Invader - very versatile, lot of sounds available, LOVE the MIDI switching (absolutely fantastic, well thought out system), but I still think the Savage has a better modern metal sound.

& the Morse - some of the nicest clean/crunch sounds I've ever heard but for the life of me I could not get a metal sound out of Ch3 that I liked.  Since then, however, I found this demo - if it had sounded like THAT when I played it I'd have bought it on the spot.  Would love to try the settings he's using there into a V30 cab, which brings me on to:

CABS: If you can, try an Engl you are interested in through a few different cabs.  The Engl "std" cabs using Celestion Silver Series V12-60 speakers have quite a dark, scooped sound to them which suit the Powerball & Fireball quite well, but sound vile with the Morse.  The "vintage" cabs have Celestion Vintage 30s & sound great with the Invader, good with the Fireball, but a bit "harsh" with the Savage.  FWIW, I use Classic Lead 80s & G12K100 speakers with my Savage - they are far, far better than V30s for that amp.

[MDV]

Oh, I should probably clarify that I was talking about the PB. In addition to the stuff I said I'd recommend spending as much time with whatever ones youre looking at as possible - I've had mine for about 2 years now and I still find new sonic hoops for it to jump through even now (especially with a little help from and EQ or two).

I really want to try a savage, but havent had the chance.

Bear in mind antag that cab/speakers/how played in the speakers are/the room you played it in/guitar/pickups/age of strings can all account for sounding more or less open. (and lots of other things besides). I didnt get the chance to A/B a PB and FB, but I know that the same head and cab sounded very different in the shop to in my previous flat to in my studio in my house now, and in different places in the same room. It can be a bar-steward to control in that regard, but the sounds are in there

[Lew]

wow - loads of info, ta! The good thing about the PB is that I've seen it for sale used for as little as 650

[Antag]

Yeah, I've had my Savage for just under 3 years & it still totally amazes me.  The best thing was when I changed the preamp valves recently - it made an amp that I already love sound even better.

Totally agree about the various factors that make amps you can't play side-by-side sound different to each other.  I just thought "huh?!?" when I first heard someone say that the Fireball's lead channel was the same as the Powerball's Ch4.  In my mind the Fireball was kinda how the Powerball would sound if there was a "Classic+" mode that was more classic than classic mode (if that makes sense?!? :lol:)

[dave_mc]

They have their goods and bads.

Goods - very heavy, extremely precise, tight as hell, brutal, wide controls, lots of room to dial in different sounds from open, bright crunch to more compressed scooped sounds, even the PB is pretty versatile if you know what youre doing with it, respond well to different guitars and take modulation, wah and wammy very well, decent effects loop.

Bads - cold sounding, or at least very hard to get anything warm sounding out of them, can be brash/harsh/glassy rather than nicely sizzly, doesnt take ODs well. Really, really fussy about cabs and speakers; I would not have bought my powerball if I'd only tried it through marshall and engl cabs, I bought it after playing it through an ubercab, and bought the ubercab as well.

Some days I love it, some days I hate it, for all the above reasons. I had a screamer for a couple of years and they are VERY different animals all told, but there is a similarity in them, a sort of family sound thats in the glassy clarity in the top end (which can be friend or enemy depending what youre going for).

agreed. I would say that the se, blackmore and savage se (and from what i hear/assume, the savage and invader too, but i haven't tried them) can get quite a bit smoother, but they're still pretty tight and bright at heart.

I didn't much like the fireball because it seemed to be clean or br00tz with nothing in-between. I normally play in-between. :lol: the powerball wasn't just as bad in that respect, but (from what i can remember) there's still a pretty big jump from the classic rock amount of gain on channel 2 (at least, that's all you've got if you want the clean channel to be completely clean) to the out-and-out brootz of channel 3.