ENGL E568 Steve Morse 20 watt, Yeah... I'll keep the 100 watt big boy

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MadAsAHatter

MadAsAHatter

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I came across this video. Apparently ENGL released a 20 watt EL84 Steve Morse signature amp. Michael Nielson's videos to me are generally a good measure of how an amp sounds. As an owner of the 100 watt Steve Morse, this baby version sounds puny by comparison. I know 2 EL84's aren't going to match the fullness of a 100 watt quad of EL34's, but this sounds like a joke. It's even more of a disappointment when you think about the Fireball 100 vs 25. Those both use big bottle tubes and in the comparison videos I've watched the 25 holds up well against the 100.

The biggest draw for the 100 watt Steve Morse is channel 3's mid-matrix. Controls for both low & hi mids and independent frequency shifts on both. Then add in global tone frequency shift and there's not much that cannel alone can't cover. The 20 watter doesn't even have low and hi mid controls, just a single mid knob. If ENGL really wanted to do a simplified low watt version of the Steve Morse, they should have built it off cannel 3. Keep the low & hi mid controls and maybe cut out the frequency shift part. Then use big bottles like the Fireball 25 instead of the puny EL84's.

I guess a positive would be it seems like it stacks up fine against other EL84 low watt lunch box amps. But at $1600 list price, that's not much of a positive to stand on. At that price point I'm going to go for the more full sounding, less expensive Fireball 25 or one of the Marshall Studio amps.

Overall, swing and a miss by ENGL on this one.
But don't let my opinion influence you. Here's Michael's video to judge for yourself.

 
I think it sounds pretty good and the feature set is impressive. I tried a 100 watt model and didn’t care for all the midrange tweakability. It just created too much time andjusting and never ended up at a sound I loved. I was actually relieved when I saw they didn’t do that on the 20 and just had a simple mid control. 🤷‍♂️
 
I'm also really disappointed. Not sure I see the difference between this and the Ironball SE other than a blue faceplate.
None of the features that made the 100w Morse a unique amp. If we could see the schematic I bet this is nothing more than an Ironball SE with a few resistors swapped out for different values.
 
Even though I thought the amp sounded decent, I will say, I don’t see the value at $1600 for what it is. Is it still made in Germany? I have one lunchbox amp, the Brent Hinds Terror and dig it a lot. But I also paid less than half of the Engl for it.
 
Honestly there's no reason for anyone to go with a lunchbox sized amp - especially if you have the bigger brother already - other than preventing back pain and avoiding digital stuff at all costs.
I used to hate small tube amps, I've always found them useless compared to the bigger (and 952% of the time better sounding) counterparts.
Then I started playing with full digital rigged guys who were mocking me for bringing heavy weight stuff every time we had rehearsal, even short timed ones; as I dont like the idea of dealing with digital rigs, IR downloads and modelling in general, I got a Tiny Terror to match my pedalboard for fast jams, and honestly I don't regret at all. I'm now far more interested in these lil amps, and might consider this Morse as well (if found used ofc).
 
This video indeed shows the darker nature that my regular Ironball also has.
And luckily the original Ironball's Presence works on both channels!

One thing I will say, the Ironball was the 1st mini head (after owning and trying a bunch) that didn't do the fuzzy over-saturation of neck pickups, but it kept the clarity. Once I found that, I bought one on the spot.

But yeah, they should've gone the 2x EL34/KT77 route at least for this.

Artist 25 would be great...same with a Savage/Invader 25 or 50 hybrid. ;-)
 
Yes, an Artist 25 would be a welcome addition to their lineup. That's assuming ENGL did it the same way as the Fireball 25 and used big glass. To my ears the Fireball 25 captures much more of the fullness of the 100 watter than EL84 counterparts of their bigger brothers.
 
It sound better than most videos of the big morse amp 😀😀
If fact it sounds better and has useful features which leads to bigger selled units. Weird for company to make money, huh ?
The price is not as crazy as Friedman/mesa amp in EU.
 
I watched Brian Wampler's demo of it yesterday and thought it sounded awesome tbh. Great feature set as well
 
napalmdeath said:
Wish they'd make an Artist 25. I love my Fireball 25 KT77, but it's still a more modern amp.
Click to expand...

This is what i'm waiting for too. An artist lunchbox with big glass.

The big boy morse is a great sounding amp. I can understand how the mid freq stuff would be offputting to some people, but when you're as insane as I am about the details of gain sounds in recordings, that tweakability is nice.

I thought the wampler demo of this sounded good. This one sounds okay, even though MN normally kills it.

I would only buy it for home purposes, if ever - i would just get a real morse or even better a blackmore/artist if I was playing music with humans.
 
I'll tell you this much, as an Ironball owner...
For recording leads, sometimes the Ironball tone sits better in the mix with less hassle than some of my big boy tube-alternatives.
For chunky rhythm, nah...but leads, yes. So I can imagine this new Steve Morse thingy might do the same trick.

The main reason I bought my Ironball, was to schlep it to rehearsal rooms, where they'd have some 2x12 or 4x12 cabs and either NO or crappy heads.
Through a 4x12, I prefer my Ironball over some run-down raggedy-assed JCM900. YMMV.
 
MadAsAHatter said:
I came across this video. Apparently ENGL released a 20 watt EL84 Steve Morse signature amp. Michael Nielson's videos to me are generally a good measure of how an amp sounds. As an owner of the 100 watt Steve Morse, this baby version sounds puny by comparison. I know 2 EL84's aren't going to match the fullness of a 100 watt quad of EL34's, but this sounds like a joke. It's even more of a disappointment when you think about the Fireball 100 vs 25. Those both use big bottle tubes and in the comparison videos I've watched the 25 holds up well against the 100.

The biggest draw for the 100 watt Steve Morse is channel 3's mid-matrix. Controls for both low & hi mids and independent frequency shifts on both. Then add in global tone frequency shift and there's not much that cannel alone can't cover. The 20 watter doesn't even have low and hi mid controls, just a single mid knob. If ENGL really wanted to do a simplified low watt version of the Steve Morse, they should have built it off cannel 3. Keep the low & hi mid controls and maybe cut out the frequency shift part. Then use big bottles like the Fireball 25 instead of the puny EL84's.

I guess a positive would be it seems like it stacks up fine against other EL84 low watt lunch box amps. But at $1600 list price, that's not much of a positive to stand on. At that price point I'm going to go for the more full sounding, less expensive Fireball 25 or one of the Marshall Studio amps.

Overall, swing and a miss by ENGL on this one.
But don't let my opinion influence you. Here's Michael's video to judge for yourself.

Click to expand...


Played one. Actually, sounds HUGE. Very fat, warm. Yes, it's dark ish, I had treble at 3 o'clock, but it DOES sound like Steve Morse, that's his tone. Very touch responsive, which is extremely hard to pull off in a darker amp. Gobs of gain available, I had gain at 9 o'clock. Excellent feel, tracks fast picking like a champ without any fight back.

I've listened to Steve for 40+ years and he's definitely a hero and influence. I really like the way the 20 sounds, cuz it sounds like him, and I've always liked his tone.

In contrast, I used to own the 100, and it sounded nothing like his tone. It sounded raw and grainy in a way I couldn't dial out, definitely NOT smooth, and the mids were all wrong for his tone. Not a good touch feel either, didn't track well and did fight back. Couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Lots of cool features, but good tone wasn't one of them.
 
We got to hear Steve’s new amp during a Master Class at Sweetwater back in early August! It sounded glorious under Steve’s fingers!!
 
In.



I think this was an interesting one. It's a very low output (volume) amp compared to other lunchbox amps I've tried (JJ Jr, Bogner Atma, 20w baby plexi, etc)

Just like the JJ Jr and baby Marshalls aren't going to dethrone their bigger brothers, this one isn't going to do the same for the 100w Morse.

What it (and the Ironball SE) have going for them though is that they can run silently, have an IR loader, noise gate, built in effects and MIDI switching. For late night jamming or silent recording or running DI live, these are awesome features to have and while the reverb wasn't really my thing (a 3 way hall/plate/room toggle would have been a great addition), the delay was good and just showing up to a show with the amp, midi controller and your guitar, you've got a pretty flexible high gain gigging product.

I think the H&K grandmeister 40 would be a strong competitor against this thing. Louder and a bit more flexible with extra channels but the redbox DI on those amps has always sounded pretty terrible to me.
 
My 25w Rivera sounds absolutely massive and punchy but it uses 6V6 outputs. I had a 40w amp w El84 outputs x 4 and it did not sound nowhere as huge as my Rivera. Not even close. When I saw they had little 84s in here, my heart sank a bit. IME, they just can't deliver what is needed in small amounts like even a single larger bottle tubed amp can. I like the fact that companies are pushing for more versatile and portable gear though!
 
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