NAD Engl Ironball

John_A

After 2 years with the Helix, and selling all my amps, I finally gave up and bought an Engl Ironball, not getting gigged any time soon as the Helix is so easy, but It's a wonderful little thing, 2 very usable Marshall flavored channels, foot-switchable, reverb, gain boost, and level boost and it sounds fab!  It also doesn't sound like a small amp, it really does have some balls

photek

Interesting, have you had a loud rehearsal with it, I am interested in one but have always found 2 x EL84's collapse when wound up to band levels hence I am using a Jubilee Mini.

John_A

I haven't, have a rehearsal tomorrow so may take it along.  'Band Levels' is pretty subjective though, I may play a lot quieter than you.  I've had it cranked up though and it sounds great.  Know what you mean about some of the little 20 watters, but this seems to have far more oomph than others I've tried

photek

Cool, let us know how it goes. Perhaps a silly question looking at the control panel but can you set the clean channel as crunch and still have the lead channel louder.

John_A

Yes, you can do that, the clean channel has a very wide range on the gain knob so 3 o clock, is clean but anything past noon breaks up, at full gain it's 'rock dirty' but not 'metal dirty', you've got the gain boost on top of that, but I suppose it depends on how dirty you want it.

You also have a volume boost and gain boos on the lead channel, so you could also use that for crunch and lead, with all the gain you would ever need

John_A

Tried it at rehearsal last night and it kept up just fine, it was half way through rehearsal the I realised I was on the 5W setting