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Engl Powerball 100W Guitar Amp Head

EVOLUTION: No compromise, ultra low end, versatile ROCK/METAL amp. 4 channels lead to where no ENGL amp has gone before. The Sonic Evolution of ENGL sounds, from crystal clean to crispy crunch . tight.

Price: $1999 to $1999

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Searched Engl Powerball 100W Guitar Amp Head in Reviews

Amp for the Metal Head or the Overall Guitar Player.

Sound	Well, the amp has 4 channels: Clean, Crunch, Low Gain Lead, High Gain Lead, 2 Bright/Bottom switches, Extra Crunch Treble control, 2 EQs, each 4 band, one for channel 1/2, one for channel. Volume controls for each channel. The Powerball is an overall amp, because you can nail any kind of sound you want from it, but it is typically suited for metal, with lots of head room and massive gain. Clean channel is really crystal clear, and its great combined with the bottom switch, giving more body to the sound. It's not the best clean channel I have heard, but it sounds great. The Crunch channel, which has the same eq has the clean, has a nice sound for Richie Kotzen, Andy Timmons, AC/DC and hard rock in general, although like the Low Gain Lead and High Gain Lead, its distortion is kind of compressed and less organic. It works and you can get a great sound from it, but it's not what this amp does best. If you want an amp for a crunch distortion, you better look for other options. The Channel 3 (Low Gain Lead) is probably what you will mostly use with this amp. It has a switch for Open and Focus Mids which tightens up the sound for staccato-styled riffs, the excellent definition of this channel lets you hear just every note/mistake, it's great for modern metal/rock (and of course any style of more extreme metal, Jeff Loomis from Nevermore and Chris Broderick from Megadeth used to have one) and it sustains for days. This channel although a bit compressed, can fight by side with Mesas, Marshalls, and all kinds of metal heads. At last and unfortunately at least' the Channel 4. This is basically the 3º channel but with a lot more gain, I practically don't use it. The amount of gain is just surreal, I play channel 3 with gain at 10 o'clock, and already has a lot of it. I think this channel is probably more useful for soloing, but it doesn't work for my taste. David SoloÃ�Â´s - The 7th Circle (video)
Reliability	Never had any problems with it, I'm very happy with what this amp has delivered to me, after so much gigs and rehearsals. I have it for about 3 or 4 years, and it was an excellent option for its price (1300€). Built to survive an earthquake.
Customer Support	Haven't deal with it yet.

Liked about it	-It's an amp where you play any musical style you want and sound great. -Channel 3 is top notch metal distortion sound, I mean it. I dropped some musicians friends jaws with my tone while playing a Hello Kitty guitar. It's just that amazing. -Price for the value of the amp.
Didn't like	- Channel 4, I think this could be something else or work in some other way. - Shared Equalization, I like to have each channel with its own eq. - Really Heavy.

Overall satisfaction:

4.0

By Arcanjus
Nov 17, 2009

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Price: $1999 to $1999

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at 3 stores

AGGRESSIVE METAL TONE!

Sound	I used a pair of EMG 81'S with an 18V mod when trying this. The amp has lots of 'luxury' features (e.g. Power tube LED monitors,) and it's amazingly aggressive for metal. The amp doesn't really have a clean (just goes to a crunchy sound,) but if you want an amp purely for metal; forget the 6505 head if your comparing, this walks all over it for sheer aggression and power. It's incredibly tight and has massive amounts of gain.
Reliability	Seems very well made, the power tube monitor will be a help with tube changes. If it's as reliable as it is heavy, it will last a very long time!
Customer Support	Never dealt with Engl, only but this amp through its paces in a shop.

Liked about it	-INSANELY HEAVY, -Noise gate is very handy feature -Power tube monitor LED's.
Didn't like	-NO clean! A bit disheartening for such an amazingly heavy (physically, but more importantly sonically) amp, -The price tag, but you do get what you pay for! -Weight, this is a very heavy amp; if your on your own and your not built like a tank- this could be somewhat of a problem. You could injure yourself, or your VERY expensive amp head.