[Lemmy Hangslong]

Been wanting one of these for about 6 years or so and finally got one and at a pretty good price.
ENGL Powerball with Z5 footswitch for $1200
The head is in pristine condition with original Chinese ENGL branded tubes that all tested well. I benched it and went through the electronics which were all original and no issues. Cleaned it up electronically and cosmetically and ran the tubes through the Orange DIVO.
I've read mixed reviews on these amps, mostly from metal players. Main issue being it doesn't cut through the mix and is not very load for a 100 watt amp.
I'm using it for Rock and 80's Hair Metal tones and well it's awesome. In the early days of Blakkstone Hexx I gigged with a Mesa Roadking half stack. A great amp. I don't own that amp anymore. I always view ENGL as similar to MESA but for my preferences a better sounding amp. Now that I got this ENGL home and can dial it in I'm very impressed with the tones. The Crunch channel is stellar and that's where I thought the Road King lacked a little. I also like the barely breaking cleans... pristine tones there. I wont use the high gain channels for high gain. I really like high gain channels on lower gain settings... below 5 or 12 o'clock.
I read that the cut through the mix issues were mostly the high gain channel on high gain setting and I can see where that may be true. I'm not experiencing that at all.
I'm gonna gig it this weekend because for me that's the true test and from what I'm hearing to this point I thinking I wouldn't have any of those issues
Anyone else out there gigging ENGL for Rock and 80's Metal tones?

 

[Budda]

The best engl for that would probably be the morse haha. Enjoy!

 

[High/Deaf]

A buddy of mine was a big Soldano guy. Went to the factory, met Mike, got custom work done (I still have a couple of Soldano-voice Emi Legends he sold me). Then he got an Engl and sold all his Soldano stuff. He loved his Engl so much he bought another. And he plays and records everything from country to classic rock.

Not personally my cup a cup a, but that's why there's more than 1 or 2 amp makers out there.

Play what you like and like what you play.

 

[Lemmy Hangslong]

The main difference between the ENGL and Soldano is the voicing of the amp/the parameters of the pots in the preamp EQ section.
If you want rock tones from ENGL they are there and they are killer but if your used to dialing is a Marshall or Fender it's inevitable that most guys will use their eyes to set the dials. Listen to the sweep of every dial and how they mix with each other first then dial in your tone. I recently played a black face Soldano SLO and a Fuchs ODS. Both amps sound stellar, as one would expect and it's easy to get great rock tones. So far my experience with the Powerball is that I can easily dial in a wide range of great tones. The Crunch tones are stellar. There is a different upper mid - hi notch with the ENGL which gives the amp an awesome crunch voicing. As always less is more when it comes to preamp gain

 

[Lemmy Hangslong]

I gigged the ENGL Powerball both Friday and Saturday past and easily dialed in stellar Clean Pop, Rock and Hard Rock tones that cut through the mix and sounded stellar! I got many compliments on the tone I was getting and I have to say this amp ROKKS. It does what it does very well. Precise without sounding sterile and good balance of modern and vintage tones and feel. It will never replace my incredible ReVv Generator 7-40 or my 1969 50 watt Marshall JMP however both those amps cannot do what the ENGL does. Therefore I'm happy to add it to my line up. I'm going to continue to gig it for the next few shows and dial it in from room to room.