Im at the halfway point of saving the money I'll need for a new head and I've been fairly firm on the decision I was going to go with a Mesa Dual Rectifier. There is one authorized Mesa dealer in my area and the amps have a pretty good reputation. But lately I've been reading as much as I can on high dollar amps and the name that keeps reappearing is the Engl Powerball. I have no way to try one of these amps out personally and I'm not very sure what artists use this amp. Without being able to try one out I'm very skeptical about buying one. So what I would like to know from people that have first hand experience with BOTH amps is what the differences are between them. What I want to do personally is be able to cover all genres of metal from Behemoth to Evergrey in one amp. Having the ability for a jazz clean and a fender clean and a rock sound is nice but I'm mainly concerned with the high gain sound of the amp. What I want for my own tone is to find a unique sound that is a tight, articulated sound but still retains a high amount of heaviness at high gain levels. Thanks for any advice.

I own a Fireball, and have played a Rectoverb, I'm not really entitled to compare but I'll say they're both great amps, insanely tight. I rather prefer the Fireball though, sounds a lot more "present" and articulate in a way. And youll never run out of room on the gain knob.

Bands that use powerballs:
Zyklon
Cannibal Corpse(on the last album)
Hate Eternal
umm... tons others but Im not sure who.

The Fireball is among the best high gain amps in its territory. The Powerball is essentially a 4-channel 100W suped up version of it, now comes with a noisegate too.

The Engl Powerball probably has much better cleans, Rectos are generally not renown for their clean channel.

They can sound very similar, so either way you will be happy with both. Just try a rec before spending money on it if you're skeptical. Some people just dont like their sound and consider it "flubby" and mushy, not articulate supposedly. If you cant get the sound you want out of it in a store keep trying, but if you're in doubt grab a powerball. Far more plug n play ability, doesnt require extensive tweaking like the Rectifiers with a dozen options and switches. I bought my fireball without previous testing and was extremely pleased within minutes, it well surpassed my expectations and Im constantly finding new sounds that the thing can make.

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POWERBALLLLLLLLL
its tighter, its cleaner, its clearer, its more brutal... never figured out how good the noisegate was though... didnt have enough time.

duo rec = muddy at low volumes, spongy at high volumes. Believe it or not, renowned for its mudd. I played this amp and found it was versatile with all of its buttons and switches... but i'd never them for metal. Random story: my friend was rumored to have a dual rec and was insulted by it because of its muddiness, his rule about mesa recs is Single or Triple only.

I dont really know any metal bands that use duos, only triples: cannibal corpse, skinless... and other numerous gore/death bands
i've only ever seen duos used in punk bands suprisingly enough by bass players.

Powerballs... well... its my dream to own one in the future. I'd take it over a mesa ANY day.
Listen to the guitar tone of Zyklon and Dimmu Borgir (Death cult Armageddon album: used both powerballs and savages)

Dont slam me on this, its only my opinion, but Engl > Mesa

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Engl's are not "better" just different. It's a well renown fact that Mesa Boogie's components are of much better build quality though, PB/FB's are of far inferior build quality. Not that Engl's break down or anything either. The tonal aspects of these amps is entirely subjective because they are in the same league.

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how can it be any more clear than that?

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Well if we were to get objective, then MESA>>>>>>>>Engl because their amps are built a lot better.

Dont get me wrong I love my Engl and would not trade it for any Boogie, but not because I feel that it's a superior brand, but because its sound works for me.

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I'd much sooner get a Engl than a Mesa head.
Why?
Becasue the Powerball here costs like 50% to 77% less than most Mesa heads.
A Rectifier might be better than a Engl, oppinionwise, but you get much much more bang for your buck with Engl.

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In Europe that is, but in the US Mesa's cost as much if not less than Engls.

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Im in the States so the MESA = $1800 after taxes and the Engl would have to be purchased online and so far the best price I've found is $1954

Dual Recs are 1800$ new? I hear they generally sell for 600$ less 2nd hand. Powerballs seem to hold their value a lot more since they're not as common I guess.

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I was a little shocked myself I thought Dual Rec's were 1200 new but the new dual rec's are triple channel heads and that increased the price

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Dual recto's sell for like 3000 euros here. Just the head that is.

And also keep in mind an euro = 1,2 dollar. =/

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I used to have a dual recto and i couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Too muddy and couldn't get a metal tone that made me say "yah, that's my bitch".

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Recto's do need a lot of tweaking. Try and aim for a 2 channel, although you have to get it off Ebay. It arguably sounds better than the 3 channel variants.

I wish I had more to say about the powerball, but my experience is limited to my pod xt model packs...lol. Even those though, sound fucking great.

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You can get used Dual Rectifiers off ebay for $800-$1100, or triple rectifiers for $1000-$1300.

Well I had my sit down try out with the Mesa Dual rec an hour or so ago. I was impressed with it but I couldnt find a way to get a really really tight distortion out of it. I could hear the "mushy" "flubby" sound people have mentioned. In some circumstances it was nice but for other genres of metal it sounded ... well kind of bad. I also tried the single rectoverb and noticed it had a tighter sound to it but had a more noticible "fuzz" tone to it's gain structure. The guys at shop really loved mesa's and couldnt stop talking about how good it was. I let them play my guitar through it for a while so I could just listen without having to play myself and watched them talk about how sweet it sounded when they dialed in their tones while I was thinking to myself that not the tone that suits me. We went through all the settings and tone options and it did the "mesa" sound perfectly but it just doesnt seem it can do much else. It seemed impossible to dial out the mush to me.

Hmmm this isnt going as well as I had hoped. Maybe Im just becoming a tone snob. But thanks for all the advice so far guys.

Try those mesas again, but ask them to let you use an overdrive pedal in front of it. Give it a hard clean boost and roll off some of the gain. That's an easy surefire way to get virgin tight grinds out of Rectifiers. El34s in the power section are also said to do wonders for that.

I've played a rectoverb too, sounded hella tight I loved it. If you're experiencing buzz perhaps you were just running it through a pretty new cab, if it was a boogie cab there's you're problem because the v30s they come with need to be worn in a bit to remove their buzzy character.

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