ENGL Powerball II

Drew_TNBD

For years and years and literally years, I've steered clear of ENGL amps. Most of the players I like don't play them, and loads of metal guys online slag them off and say they suck. I am a twonk for listening to them.

But I will listen to you... )

What do you think of ENGL amps, specifically the Powerball? Just curious more than anything. Still haven't decided what I am going to do.

timmysoft

I love them. I've had the thunder, powerball and fireball, all we're very good amps. If you want hifi hi-gain aggression then engl is second only to diesel.

ICBM

I haven't played the Powerball II but I've played the original, and worked on a Screamer and a Fireball recently. I agree with timmysoft about the 'hi-fi' aspect and the Diezel comparison, but I don't like hi-fi guitar amps or the Diezel I tried (Einstein). To me the Engl sound is a bit grainy too, which I don't like either. (I prefer 'gritty', which is different… if you see what I mean!)

The build quality is not quite as Germanic as you would expect either. I wouldn't say poor, but not as good as it could/should be in my opinion.

Dave_Mc

I haven't played the II either but I agree with the hi-fi thing.

ThePrettyDamned

I was loaned an Engl thunder 50 for a while and it was a great sounding amp. The cleans were excellent, reverb was nice and the drive went from smooth to pretty hard.

It's not my favourite sound, but I did enjoy it and it definitely sounded different to Marshall or Peavey 5150 drive. Not sure I'd call this one hi fi as such, but it did sound a little different.

The cleans were really, really nice though, very warm and it seemed to get the best from whatever guitar was plugged in, if that makes any sense! It had a v30 speaker I think.

As a model, this one can be had fairly cheap used.

Darren

Haven't tried the PBII but i have had the original PB...It's not a very open sounding amp, it's very compressed sounding and feeling which you may or many not like..

I have read that the PBII is not as bad as the original but i can't really say for sure..It's nice to see that each of the 4 modes on the new one have independent gain controls but i think still share the EQ for modes 1&2 and another EQ for 3&4

Over the yrs i have owned or tried most of the Engl line of amps..Favourites have to be..Thunder-Screamer-Morse & the Blackmore..My least favourite was Engl's flagship Special Edition..Too many switches which i felt didn't do a lot for the amp & was very overly compressed..

One to maybe try would be the new(ish) Retro 100 or 50 model depending of course the kinda tone your looking for..It seems a bit of a gimmick with the interchangeable face panels but they do seem to sound a bit different from the normal engl range..I have heard some nice clips on those.