I am building an ENGL amp sometime soon and I want to know what has more bottom end for crushing de-tuned/7-string sound, Fireball or Thunder?

I have a fireball. It is incredible.

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The fireball, I have a powerball and the fireball is basically a half power simplified version of the powerball. And no amp I've played is more brutal than the powerball.

The thunder seems to be the most basic engl head. 50w of pretty all around kickass tube tone.

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Yeah I'm smart but not that smart. The powerball schematic made me shit myself so its between those two on which to build.

MTM is not gonna like that i have anything to say about his amp, but i have to

theres no real chunk or bass response when you play , even with a downtuned guitar. its articulate and classy distortion but theres not much of a whump sound. its like the tone on epitaph by necrophagist. awesome for that, but if youre looking for at the gates or impaled style chunk and resonation its not applicable

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I think you need to spend a bit longer on the EQ.Fireballs are plenty chunky.

i played with one just last night man, maybe its the cab? theres no bass response really its just all tight

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Ahh,I think I know what you mean.It hasnt got a loose 'flubby' low end generally,but you can EQ it to get it sounding just as good.
What cab did you use?

I owned one for a year and I somewhat agree with this, yeah it could be the cab youre using too, but i played it through mesa and gflex cabs and I found it didnt push much air from the cab(get a nice whoomp on a palm mute) compared to other amps ive owned, it did get a bit if the volume was over 1oclock. But its defenitly got a clear thick brutal gain that sounds great at all volumes, unlike the other amps ive owned. Also ive heard of people putting 12AT7's in the phase inverter for extra whoomp.

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So the ENGL Fireball is to the Powerball what the Soldano Avenger is to the SLO-100 ? Or just roughly?

If the Fireball is what everyone here is saying that it is, I could still go for one. A external EQ unit will fix the bass response.


Sometime in the next couple of months I'm going to switch to a 'boutique dream head', and its going to be some simple 1,000$-ish head that's like the Avenger.

Although I've never played the Avenger, anyone have any advice concerning it?

no, the avenger is the lead channel and power section of the slo-100. no fx loop, no cleans, no bullshit.

the fireball is like 50-60w, where as the powerball is 100w. the powerball has 4 channels over 2 eq's. the fireball has 4 channels over one eq. so it's a bit "stripped down" compared to the powerball.

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Haha, no, not flub. He means that there is like no real low end response, and the gain is a lot of tight mids. The cab is a Peavey 412, and the lack of bass has everything to do with the shit cab; I played it on a Marshall 2x12 and the sound was significantly better.

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Huh. Well, for 1,000$, all I'm wanting is a more brutal-than-brutal distortion with clarity, and from what I can gather I should go for the Avenger. For that price range should I give any other amp heads a shot, xdx?

Huh, I didn't even see this post before, but anyways it's pretty accurate.

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Well the only problem there is that by definition more distortion = less clarity. It almost always ends up being a compromise between clarity and brutality. For the money, a gold ole' 5150 is about as brutal as it gets, although like Marshalls, they typically need a little work done to sound there best.

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Damn right. The Fireball meets the two flawlessly.

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I want all brutality so i might have to change up a few things.

lol, the gain knob on the fireball should be called "brutality".

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no the volume knob should be called teh brootell noob. roflcopter

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wouldn't playing the powerball through a peavey cab be considered an insult?

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Yes. The other day a man yelled at me in traffic, saying something about my mother, so I got out of my vehicle and plugged a Fireball into a cheap Peavey cab. The man apologised and slowly backed away, in awe of my comeback.


I think I'll probably end up with a Fireball, if I want more low-end I can always invest in an external EQ.

Anyone tried that Carvin V3 though? From the video it looks like it could really do something.

what peavey cab?

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I don't know. I was just going off what transient said.

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I have a Fireball which I run into a Marshall Mode 4 (400W) 4x12 cab. It is fucking incredible. It's not just a metal amp as Engl likes to advertise it as, it's pretty fucking versatile, but your pickups will REALLY make a difference. I can't get slightly softer crunch tones for some Bathory with my EMG's, but on a friends LP with PAF Pickups I can. It's a little hard to tame if you want to play blues and shit unless you have not-so-hot pickups and bog down the gain to like 2, or use some tube pedal in the clean channel but you might as well get a different amp.

Meat and chunk IS the amp. It sounds nothing like those thin glassy sounds that Necrophagist have to my ears. I get very 5150/Boogie esque sounds with the bass at 9 o clock! You can get insane amounts of bass, I think my cab has a lot to do with that though, as it has pronounced highs and lows. The "Deep" switch is real nice because it gives MASSIVE brutal tightness to your low-end when you palm mute, but no muddying up the tone. I think it only raises the far far low frequencies, so you can't really tell the difference when playing chords or leads but palmmutes really sound way better with it, making it unnecessary to raise the bass if you want more balls.

It always sounds very full and round, sounds great at lower volumes but obviously much better when you crank it a little bit. Also keep in mind that the stock tubes are absolute garbage, so I hear, imagine how it'll sound when you swap them. It's slightly sterile but you can get whatever sound you want if you EQ for a while(it's VERY responsive). With passives you can get nicer less sterile tones, you can really hear the difference between guitars with the amp.

The cleans would probably sound great with some reverb, but hell I didn't buy this for cleans.

For the price no Marshall tube head can beat this thing, especially for metal. If you're thinking of getting a 5150 but not quite sure I highly suggest ponying up a little more cash for a Fireball, it's worth it. Unless of course you're sure you want a 5150, but most people want a different sound...

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