k i just got back from germany to try out a ENGL e570 se preamp and a powerball

NOTE: all the below is MY personal experience and opinions

i only played the powerbal at low volumes cuz they were bitching, those fucking germans (nothing personal to dutch guys around here)

so i cant rilli say much bout it xept that it sounds pretty good to me
although i didnt like the 2 channel thing, i'd rather have the 4 hanels from the e570

bout the e570 se preamp
i played it through a engl 60/60 poweramp

the thing as some serious balls in the lead 2 channel with high gain knob in
thing is, i find the high notes , when ur soloing on the higher string) so fuckign sharp its rilli anoying and the eq doesnt rilli make it able to fix it

so i guess its kinda nice for leads but i thought it sucked ass for soloing
and the clean sound pretty nice.
the modern switch doesnt do anything spectacular, if u turn it OFF it sounds good on lead 2 and if u switch it ON, well, sounds like crap to me

anyway i'm definatly not gonna buy it

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the powerball has four channel, sucka

you just need the engl z5 custom footswitch to fully use them both (you can't switch them on the front panel) and it's not 'pretty' good, it's damn good

about the solo sounds of the e570, what guitar did you use and did you use the sound settings next to the eq? presence etc. they're way more important then it's eq IMO!


where did you go? and why didn't they let you play at high volumes??? they let me at musik-productiv, I just walked in, grabbed an esp kh-2 and a jackson rr1 and went straight for all the boutique amps

i played with my own guitar and i tryd every knob and see what i did, i tryd the thing out completely , and the pickups in my jackson usa are invader and fullshred wich are kinda muddy and it still sounded sharp and simply anoying

but like i said MY opinion and point of view

im totaly not saying bad shit bout engl, cuz the stuff has some serious balls.

also those chrome buttons on the e570 are so fucking anoying, i costed me like trouble to see what they were set at from say 20 cm away, and they were hyard to turn and just uncomfortable to use.

so basicaly i dont think its worth 1500 euros

owyeah, poqwerbal 4 chanels?? how??
clean that gowes into crunsh by high low gain switch and same for the lead chanel???
thats what i saw, if u mean that the e570 would have 16 chanels, of high low gain, mopdern, and all that crap

anyway NVM my opinioun

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no, they're 'real' channels, there's clean, crunch, lo-od and hi-od, the lo-od is like a marshall jcm900 on speed and the 4th (hi-od) is more like soldano/mesa like stuff. they definetly have their own sound!

I haven't played the 570/580 yet but I really liked the 530, it's pretty similair to the powerball tone, maybe you should try that one out?
I agree about it not beeing worth 1500 euro's, it has to be damn, damn good for just a preamp to be worth that much. The 530 definetly isn't better then the powerball if you ask me, but I don't know about the 570.


so where did you play it???

are you sure you played a powerball and not a fireball?

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i went to musik productive.

and im sure it was a powerball since it said powerball on the thing

and ok i guess it has 4 channels, to me it kinda felt as 2 channels though , cuz of the 2 volume thingys where the e570 has 4 (1 for each channel)

anyway, i liked the tone of the e570 but the high notes sounded so fucking anoying, it just didnt sound nice to ME.

there for i wouldnt say it isnt worth 1500, i mean DUH of cuz it is, just not for me

also to my feeling the powerball sounded a bit better tonewise but the e570 had way more gain, could be me cuz they wouldnt let em play the powerbal with the volume over 0,5 so its hard to say that

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huh?

the powerball had four volume thingy's, each for every single channel! (the one with the leds, the green-clean, yellow-crunch, red-od1, bright red - od2)

the two seperate extra volumes are volume A and B (footswitchable as well as the 4 other channels and contour)

I guess the e570 has more usable gain, it's based on the SE, so that makes sense, still the powerball does have an insane ammount of usable gain too, it's kinda lame they didn't let you turn up the volume, IMO the powerball doesn't sound too good on low volumes (under the second stripe at least)

go back and play them again


how long did you spend on each of them?

You guys seem to be in denial that he dosn't like ENGL's..

Big deal, he might not like the voicing of the amps. Him going back to play them again isen't going to do much.. if you dont like an amp the first time chances are its not the amp for you.

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No, I just said it has 4 channels...

I do agree though, I wouldn't pay 1500 euro's for just a preamp.

yes prehaps you are right, maybe he'd be happier with a different amp


this annoying shrap sound for solos that he talks about makes me wonder if there was something wrong with the rig though

could be the rig, but i played my own guitar so i know how that sounds kinda.
then engl played through the 2x60 watt engl poweramp (dunno tyope number) and a tg electronics g major in the fx loop

and i did like the tone on the lower strings, had some serious balls but assoon i would start soloing it sounded to sharp (i played solos on the neck hb)

i would buy it for the riff tone to call it that but sonce i solo more than lezad itys not my kinda amp, and i didnt have that YEAH feeling when i played it, and i usualy go for the first impression wich just wasnt enough to wanna buy it


bout the powerball, i played it at low volume, i coulnd turn it up or some german was telling me to lower it down. i played the powerbal for i think 30 mins and the e570 for bout 50 mins

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ah, there we are... the t.c. g major... quality fx for the money, but a BIG tone sucker.


well some guitars don't mix with some amps i guess.




that's when you say "hey you fucking german fag!, i have 2 grand that says shut the fuck up and let me play this amp at whatever fucking volume i want."

seriously, as a rule of thumb with tube amps, if you can't turn the amp up past the 2-3 mark, don't expect to hear what it can do.


i never said anything about him not liking it. i was just thinking he must have been talking about the fireball and not the powerball the way he said it's only 2 channels, because a powerball is a 4 channel amp. so either he didn't play a powerball or he was on lsd when he did.

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Why would you try an amp out with shit in the loop or infront of the signal??

Rule of thumb.. when trying an amp out try play it completly dry.. unless you want to boost a medium gain amp with a tubescreamer or something.

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yeah i know

btw the fx button on the e570 was off so it bypassed the tc g major right??
if not that must have helped a lot to fuck it up aswell.

i did like the solo sounds of the powerball more than the e570, but since i didnt play it loud i havent got a shit clue what its rilli like.

i would like to try the powerball again sometime, but im kinda done with the e570, just those button fucked it up for me, the design is rilli nice and shit, but its just not user friendly as it should be. im just not gonna go to germany anymore to try it out though, ill find some other place i guess

btw lets say i get a powerball, and i want to have the full volume sound but i want to play it in my room, is that possible, like a powersoke powerbrake or whatever its called, or will that fuck up the sound aswell????

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don't try and make yourself like the engl... sure never rule it out, but you don't have to dig for it.

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i dont, i just do like the tone for riffs, the balls it has, i like that a lot.

i dont know what else sounds a like or has some rilli good balls to say it like that

like the sound i have now is kinda ok, it just misses the balls, but since there isnt a 'get balls' effect of stompbox im looking for THE amp with balls but that satisfies my needs

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hey man, go to Feedback Utrecht, they had a Powerball in the little practise room at the back, there you can try it out at louder volume, the guys there don't mind if you ask them nicely.

Also, you could try out my Powerball but I don't live close to you and I don't have too much time next to my study/bands, so you're better off going to Feedback and trying it there, they've got a triple recto, triamp MKII and a Bogner Uberschall to compare it with. (that shit seems to sell fast over there, so I don't know if they're all still there, it's been like 3 weeks ago)

believe me, the louder the Powerball gets the better it sounds, I'de say fuck those germans, when I was there they didn't make any problems of it (but hey 2/3 is allready pretty damn loud on it, I usually rehearse on 4/5 and we get noise complaints hahaha)

thnx for the info def, but im thinking of emg first to get that muddynes away

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heh even a squire strat sounds tight as fuck on my p'ball

It should.. strats usually sound tight.

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single coils are pretty lame IMO but my punk'd out strat has hotrails in it. that squire mofo wasn't mine though, just some guy who wanted to try my amp, even though it was a cheapass squire, it didn't sound too bad. (thin but not bad)

Single coils aren't my cup of tea either.. Im not even too fond of Stacked Single coils.. nothing sounds like a humbucker.

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i find it funny how "balls" has become such a common term for describing amps. It's worldwide, too.

Pretty sad actually..

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gay is more like it.