I have a Marshalls AVT 275 (combo) and i was thinking of getting an Engl savage 120, but i havent got a clue when it comes to buying gear, i have a habbit of rushing into things and at the end of the day having shit gear. Anyway, hear are my concerns:

Will i be able to use my Marshalls AVT as a cab?

Is the savage 120 only good for old school metal?

Is the savage 120 good for death metal and paul gilbert like shredding

I've worked out by dividing the US price by 1.75 that the savage will cost about £1100 hear in England, is that about right?

How do you pronounce Engl, is it E.N.G.L/Engel/Enjel/other

Is there a better amp for death metal and shred for a realistic price?

i would not recommemnd using ure combo speakers ... get a marshall 4x12 an engl vintage 4x12 or a mesa 4x12 ( price ascending)



nope ... i u can go from 80s oldshool to ultra high gain death (vist www.rocksolidamps.com for soundfiles)



i guess this is up to u if ure able to play ... the amp won't hinder u thats for sure ... it is very versitile u can almost reach every sound with it.



sorry no idea whats in the us .. i guess with mesa cab about 1800 $ ..... and dont buy the engl special edition wich seems to be pretty similar to the savage ... less punch and dynamics as far as im concerned.




its called engl ...... spoken like angel in german: engel




try out vht pittbul UL and soldano sl-100 ... maybe u also try the new crate 150 bv ..

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Fireball is nice too...

5150s and 5150IIs are great also. Some people like Mesas (rectifiers) but I hate them. Try em out to find out for yourself. You can even get good death metal sounds from marshalls, you'll just need to boost the gain.

\m/

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How good are 5150's for death metal?

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Exhumed uses 5150's. I cna get a good death metal sound on my 5150.

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Thanks for the replies... well the problem i have is the guitar shops around where i live mostly sell combos, haven't realy saw any tubes, so it will mean i cant try out the heads before buying them, however i have heard the samples on the site mentioned and i really like the sound of the savage.

Panda, you recommend not using my combo speakers?
How will this effect the sound?
It's just i'm scrapping just enough money for the head never mind the cab aswell.

engl has great shit.

if you want a great shred/death/thrash metal setup for a great price. i'd suggest a sovtek mig series head with a Jacques TB-2 Tubeblower Overdrive Pedal and a boss ge-7 eq pedal.
a friend of mine had that setup(with a mig 60) he bought it all for like $500-$600 (used) and put it on a pair of marshall 1960 4x12's. holy crap did it sound good.

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i don't know what u wanna do with the head ( record, play in a band) however i think there are 2 points should be mentioned.

1st of all ure combo has 2x12 celestion speakers wich isn't that bad but i would never recommend using a combo box with an high wattage head. obviously the speakers are made for this marshall combo wich means that they shouldnt be used with an head. of course this doenst exept that u can plug ure head in em but this like having a badass car without any fuel (or is it called petrol ?? ). u can drive 320 with the car but u wont be able to without it any fuel... so finally the box is ure way to bring out the sound ... and its one part of ure amp so it should be equal to the other parts of ure head. if u pay so much money for such an badass head u should also spend the money in a decent box.

2nd point is the volume and the punch wich is very important if u play with a drummer. u need the volume and the punch to stay alive besides the doublebass for example. up to my mind volume and punch is also very important for recroding although i know some person arent the same opinion.
but anyway fact is that this box will stop sounding good at high volume. u don't even have to crank the volume .... the box will die at a volume that is a bit above practising volume. the sound gets muddy and u loose all the dynamics wich makes u sound awful. and apart from that u spen lotta money to sound like ure old combo ( well ull sound better but .... ) u won't reach what lurkes behind the surface of the amp. and thats it ... u dont get what u pay for.

so my advise buy the amp used with a nice cab, buy a 4x12 cab later or w8 until ure able to buy a badass cab together with the head. i tested the savage with about 12 cabs ( all 4x12) and even there u notice great diffrences as far as tone and dynamics is concerend... so in the end the speakers will effect ure sound to 100% exspeacially if ure going with the 2x12 from the avt

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Not what i wanted to hear, but thanks for the advice.

I don't think there's anyway i could buy the Engl second hand so i'll be paying full price, which wont leave me with any money to spend on a cab straight away.
But i don't play in a band so i usualy have my amp volume low, thus it wouldn't get to muddy if it works towards your prediction.

so i think i'll get the savage 120 and then save up for a cab, is there any good (cheap) cabs you would reccomend that i could probebly find second hand?

yes you could use your combos speakers.... they could easily handle an engl head, your avt combo is 150w bridged or 2x 75 watts.. so i'd imagine your speakers can handle at least that much. you really just need to worry about matching the ohmage between the head and the speakers.
panda lost me with parts of his last post, those specific celestions arent made for just that combo, you could buy those speakers individually and put them in any cab. and even if they were made for the avt275 combo, theres no reason they wouldnt work for anything else.

it still wont sound as great as just getting a really nice cab with better speakers, but it will work and sound fine until you can afford a nice cab.

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charming,why do u want to buy a savage if u play at very low volume? i can recommend a bunch of other amps for only the half of the price wich sound very nice if u stay at low volumes. i'd never buy an engl savage 120 with a 4x12 cab for playing at home.... thats wasted money.


and ye xdislexicx youre right but i never said that they don't workwith a savage. i said the 2x12 wich are in the avt aren't made for high gain heads ... thats all ... and as far as i know there nothing wrong about it, is it?

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FIREBALL!

Sounds reasuring dislexic

Well the way i see it Panda, is that if i get this amp i'll be set up for life, rather than getting a middle of the range amp and in years to come having to buy a top of the range amp because my amp sounds shit on stage.
It should work out the best in the long run.

i just didnt understand what you were trying to say. i was making sure he new he could use his speakers. whether they are made for a high gain amp or not they'll work fine. hell, vintage 30's werent made specifically for high gain amps, but they sure sound good for it.

and theres nothing wrong with having a halfstack in your room.

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ok then grab a nice cab later and use ure combo speakers till u have the money.
as i said i like the engl vintage 30s 4x12 more than the mesas but thats only my opinion. in the end u got a ownage amp thats for sure no matter what u wanna do with it will not disappiont u. one last piece of advice: the amp can be a bit noisy if u got very hot picksups and crank up the gain alot. this happens only on high volume ( of course) but ull maybe have to save up for a boss silencer as well ... i donno what style ure into but i guess it's heavy so ............

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I look forward to getting the head, Thanks again for the advice and seggestions Panda, dislexic, Slabbfusk and metalprep.

Quick question---
Could you hook up a cab to a 2x12 combo. I was thinking about that 5150 combo and I was wondering if you could make that into a stack. How well would that work?

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i think you could if it has an opened back like my randall combo.

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I havent used many heads but I like mine and its an extremely simple setup. Ive got a Crate Blue Voodoo and I just turn the highs and lows all the way up and the mids down so i dont get a crappy sound. Then I use chorus and other simple effects to prevent it from being to dry.

Smells nu-metal harvester of sorrow. And we dont like that.

don't be a puss, turn up your mids a little, alot of people don't realize how much better they can cut through the mix by adding some mids in their sound.
the best sound i've gotten out of a bv120h is with presence at 2-3,lows at 5-6,highs at 4-5, mids at 4-5,and you can just adjust the gain and volume from there to suit your needs.

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A friend of mine did that (with gear not worth mentioning but hey).

This is what you have to do: disconnect the wire from your combo head to speakers, put a switch on that (if you want to use the combo too when wished), so you can either connect your combohead to the speakers, or a external head.

I don't know the exact details of the construction I can ask if you like.

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most combos like that have speaker outs on them.
on some combos the speaker out's will mute the combo's speakers but some don't which is cool because you can turn it into a halfstack by adding a 2x12 cab or something.

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Or if you hook up a 4x12 cab with the combos 2x12 speakers then you'll have a 3/4 stack!

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nice logic.

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Thanks!!

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