Engl Construction Quality Inconsistent Among Various Models?

[the4thlast1]

I paid around $500 to have my SE fixed , that was after the main board fried. I had it sent to a repair center that ENGL recommended as there most experienced authorized repair center in the United States at the time. I was told a bad powertube caused the chain of events. I watched smoke pour out of the entire amp for a second or two , as fast as I could run over to shut it off.

 

[MistaGuitah]

Yes indeed a shitstorm would brew, but only because there is more truth in his "Engl build quality is dogshit" statement than in your political analogy
.

As a European, I disagree.

Then again, I get my news from multiple sources.

Come on man, don't talk down to me with that arrogant European "We're smarter than Americans" tone. If we were actually allowed to have that conversation, don't be surprised if you were to walk away feeling inadequate because I'm a very well-informed American.

Who cares how they're built vs other amps?
They sound amazingly good, and I never hear of them breaking down any more than the other over-engineered amps.
90% (pulled that outta my ass) of players are bedroom warriors or just need to take amps to band practice, so making a decision based on nit picking build quality seems ridiculous to me.
Even if you're touring, any amp will get busted if abused enough.
And for the record, tons of touring players use ENGL amps.
Reminds of all the keyboard warriors out there cork sniffing tube ratings.

Man it doesn't make anyone a cork-sniffer for discussing the quality of something they want to buy. You made a couple of good points that I agree with, but those are all points myself and others have already made. For the record, I discussed my positive experiences with the Engls I've owned and said that I still plan on buying an Invader II. "Who cares?" I care, and so should anyone wanting to invest thousands of dollar in an amp. It would be dumb to blindly spend money.

Anyone got info on tube bias for the Artist Edition?
Having a bunch of great amps and been through just about everything, I picked one up from a retailer within the past year
The amp says, 'this is the modded Marshall you were looking for', every time I plug it in
I need to pull the chassis and take a look

I didn't get the Marshall vibe from it at all but agree that it's as good as you say it is. It is a straightforward amp and not much like a boutique amp. The Artist did not have as strong mids as a Marshall or the Invader either, so I always had to leave the shape button pushed in for more aggressive mids. Even though you don't hear the mids as strong always cuts in the mix. Even though it has a shared EQ, it's perfectly balanced for switching between distortion and clean.

Looks like the inside of a computer.

That's what I thought too. I'm not nearly as strongly in agreement with the rest of what you said, but there are some similarities in my thoughts.

 

[napalmdeath]

I think the point to be made here, is people expect better at nearly $2000 new, and other Engl models exceed that.

I have not had any bad experiences with Engl, but looking back at having a couple apart for retube, they do seem a bit flimsy. And, as some have eluded to, I've always been somewhat leery of the experiences of getting them serviced and the expense of their parts!

 

[Racerxrated]

I do know one thing about Engl...if you do run into problems, Jens Kruse can help from what I've read.

 

[MistaGuitah]

I do know one thing about Engl...if you do run into problems, Jens Kruse can help from what I've read.

He he. Shameless plugin.

 

[Deanmachine]

Agree Jens does great work

 

[Red_Label]

I paid around $500 to have my SE fixed , that was after the main board fried. I had it sent to a repair center that ENGL recommended as there most experienced authorized repair center in the United States at the time. I was told a bad powertube caused the chain of events. I watched smoke pour out of the entire amp for a second or two , as fast as I could run over to shut it off.

Damn! All of that after paying so much to purchase one in the first place? Ouch!

When I had my Powerball II, the SE was pretty new and I was drooling over it. But it was so damn complicated that the idea of the complexity of things that could go wrong and the difficulty of servicing that beast were just way to scary for me. Most of my amps have been pretty simple, hand-wired circuits... that most competent techs could trouble-shoot and even repair if needed.

When the H&K Triamp III came out, I felt the same way. Impressive looking... but way too damn many things to go wrong there and try to fix for my taste.

 

[Red_Label]

I REALLY wanted to like the Retro. The idea of it was super cool when Engl came out with it. I played it many times trying to figure out why I couldn't gel with it, but can't exactly say what I disliked about it. It was only good at the highest gain. Everything else was kind of meh. The Artist on the other hand is more open, organic, and straightforward good tone. I'm thinking if you liked the Retro that much then you'll like the Artist even more.

Same. Had a Retro at the house for a few days or weeks and thought it was a turd. It was supposed to be a nod to Marshall. It failed miserably at that. I had a Powerball II that was good for high gain stuff. But I never really messed with the Retro for high gain, because that's not what it was supposed to be. As far as getting retro Marshall tones out of an Engl, the Richie Blackmore was the best that I ever heard from an Engl. I really liked that head.

The Retro had near 5150 levels of gain, ample gain. I also found it very Marshall in it's voicing. The odd thing about that amp is, it excelled at high gain, but was marketed in such a way you'd think it had very little.

The Retro that I had, had a fizz that I couldn't dial out. And I found the tone to be sterile and uninspiring. Not even in the same universe as the various Marshall-flavored Friedman, Bogner, Splawn, Ceriatone, Lickliter, etc... and even Marshalls that I've owned. I wanted to like the Retro and tried very hard to. In the end, I just couldn't. If I was into high-gain again, I would try another Engl. But there are just so many better amps for the Marshall thing IMO. And the Engl is no cheaper than those. Hell... the JCM2000 DSL 50 that I bought used for $500 spanked the Retro, HARD. So it's not a cork-sniffer thing for me. I would take that DSL back any day (and have to fight the temptation to buy another, but I just don't need another Marshall flavored-amp right now).

 

[Red_Label]

I was curious (since I've always wanted an Artist and used to own a 1st gen Powerball) so I found some pics inside an Artist for those who are also curious.

The bias pot is a tiny hole through the PCB. If you look to the left of the blue ring around the ribbon cable you'll see the tiny white bias pot in the center of three solder pads in a triangle shape.

Damn! That iron is tiny! (as mentioned in this thread). I don't remember the trannies in my Powerball. But I tend to go for big, heavy iron because it seems that most of the amps with my favorite tones in them all had big trannies.

Uh hhhhhh... he said "big trannies" (in Butthead voice).

 

[napalmdeath]

I REALLY wanted to like the Retro. The idea of it was super cool when Engl came out with it. I played it many times trying to figure out why I couldn't gel with it, but can't exactly say what I disliked about it. It was only good at the highest gain. Everything else was kind of meh. The Artist on the other hand is more open, organic, and straightforward good tone. I'm thinking if you liked the Retro that much then you'll like the Artist even more.

Same. Had a Retro at the house for a few days or weeks and thought it was a turd. It was supposed to be a nod to Marshall. It failed miserably at that. I had a Powerball II that was good for high gain stuff. But I never really messed with the Retro for high gain, because that's not what it was supposed to be. As far as getting retro Marshall tones out of an Engl, the Richie Blackmore was the best that I ever heard from an Engl. I really liked that head.

The Retro had near 5150 levels of gain, ample gain. I also found it very Marshall in it's voicing. The odd thing about that amp is, it excelled at high gain, but was marketed in such a way you'd think it had very little.

The Retro that I had, had a fizz that I couldn't dial out. And I found the tone to be sterile and uninspiring. Not even in the same universe as the various Marshall-flavored Friedman, Bogner, Splawn, Ceriatone, Lickliter, etc... and even Marshalls that I've owned. I wanted to like the Retro and tried very hard to. In the end, I just couldn't. If I was into high-gain again, I would try another Engl. But there are just so many better amps for the Marshall thing IMO. And the Engl is no cheaper than those. Hell... the JCM2000 DSL 50 that I bought used for $500 spanked the Retro, HARD. So it's not a cork-sniffer thing for me. I would take that DSL back any day (and have to fight the temptation to buy another, but I just don't need another Marshall flavored-amp right now).

Nothing beats a DSL50 for the money, or to scratch that itch.

 

[mixn4him]

I had a Retro for a while and with the large footswitch it was just a great amp, but as people have said there was something there that did not gel right. Best I could guess was the fixed resonance circuit on the output cause there was always this weird feel regardless of channel or gain mode. I was about to remove it when someone offered me what I paid for it...

Engl did send me a schematic and talked me thru removing it so that was cool. Id like to find one of the 50w combos and remove the resonance circuit..

 

[Red_Label]

Nothing beats a DSL50 for the money, or to scratch that itch.

Agreed! Best value in quality Marshall tones IMO. I would rock one as a backup to my Friedman any day! If I didn't already have another Friedman as a backup to my Friedman.

 

[MistaGuitah]

The problem with the Retro is that it has to have an overdrive before it. Once you put an overdrive to it, everything comes together. The clean channel also needs a clean boost. There is a great deal of satisfaction to be had using the Retro with pedals always. It was only satisfying by itself when the gain is 100%.

When I first encountered the Retro, I thought the clean channel would be grand. It really wasn't. In fact, the cleans on the Invader are so good, second best is the Artist, then the Raider. The Steve Morse had the best cleans of any Engl, but they don't make it anymore. Yeah I kind of sidetracked here, but the cleans were pretty disappointing until you put a boost on it and set it kind of bright.

I don't know what went wrong with the Retro. The thing is that it's really not a bad amp at all. It's actually a pretty good amp overall because what's heard and felt is different from what's laid down on recorded tracks. When other people play it, it catches my attention. When I play it, it's like meh.

 

[napalmdeath]

The problem with the Retro is that it has to have an overdrive before it. Once you put an overdrive to it, everything comes together. The clean channel also needs a clean boost. There is a great deal of satisfaction to be had using the Retro with pedals always. It was only satisfying by itself when the gain is 100%.

When I first encountered the Retro, I thought the clean channel would be grand. It really wasn't. In fact, the cleans on the Invader are so good, second best is the Artist, then the Raider. The Steve Morse had the best cleans of any Engl, but they don't make it anymore. Yeah I kind of sidetracked here, but the cleans were pretty disappointing until you put a boost on it and set it kind of bright.

I don't know what went wrong with the Retro. The thing is that it's really not a bad amp at all. It's actually a pretty good amp overall because what's heard and felt is different from what's laid down on recorded tracks. When other people play it, it catches my attention. When I play it, it's like meh.

I used a TC Spark Booster in front of the dirty channel - sounded awesome. I thought an OD got too compressed. That amp had a shitload of gain, I think I used it more with the gain boost off, and gain up high. I put a JAN/GE 5751 in V2 too, that clean up the gain quite a bit.

 

[MistaGuitah]

The problem with the Retro is that it has to have an overdrive before it. Once you put an overdrive to it, everything comes together. The clean channel also needs a clean boost. There is a great deal of satisfaction to be had using the Retro with pedals always. It was only satisfying by itself when the gain is 100%.

When I first encountered the Retro, I thought the clean channel would be grand. It really wasn't. In fact, the cleans on the Invader are so good, second best is the Artist, then the Raider. The Steve Morse had the best cleans of any Engl, but they don't make it anymore. Yeah I kind of sidetracked here, but the cleans were pretty disappointing until you put a boost on it and set it kind of bright.

I don't know what went wrong with the Retro. The thing is that it's really not a bad amp at all. It's actually a pretty good amp overall because what's heard and felt is different from what's laid down on recorded tracks. When other people play it, it catches my attention. When I play it, it's like meh.

I used a TC Spark Booster in front of the dirty channel - sounded awesome. I thought an OD got too compressed. That amp had a shitload of gain, I think I used it more with the gain boost off, and gain up high. I put a JAN/GE 5751 in V2 too, that clean up the gain quite a bit.

The mini Spark Booster or the full size one? The market is flooded with similar boosters and overdrives, but I have heard good things about the Spark Booster. Not to derail the topic, but what can you tell me about that pedal?

 

[indespise]

I know one thing for sure- I fucking love the sound of my Fireball 100. I don't plan on touring- if I was I'd probably go digital with something to mimic that sound (Helix native is impressing me so far) for convenience, less bulk/weight, flexibility, and reliability. Even a super well built tube amp is still ultimately at the mercy of your tubes. I'll keep some kind of backup handy for local stuff where I do tote the Engl around, just as I did with my old FB a decade ago. The old one never failed me, just the usual tube replacements. And the new one (taking older 60w silver chassis vs new 100w model) looks more robust and than the old one did when I opened it. Of course I would like to feel like it's more bullet proof, but ultimately it's about the sound, and this amp absolutely has the sound I want.

Indecently, I also owned another high end time amp that was hand wired without any PCB or ribbon cables, and I did have a speaker jack fail on it. The positive side was that it was an easy fix, unlike some problems in a PCB amp, but it did go to show that even a very high quality build can have problems.

 

[napalmdeath]

The problem with the Retro is that it has to have an overdrive before it. Once you put an overdrive to it, everything comes together. The clean channel also needs a clean boost. There is a great deal of satisfaction to be had using the Retro with pedals always. It was only satisfying by itself when the gain is 100%.

When I first encountered the Retro, I thought the clean channel would be grand. It really wasn't. In fact, the cleans on the Invader are so good, second best is the Artist, then the Raider. The Steve Morse had the best cleans of any Engl, but they don't make it anymore. Yeah I kind of sidetracked here, but the cleans were pretty disappointing until you put a boost on it and set it kind of bright.

I don't know what went wrong with the Retro. The thing is that it's really not a bad amp at all. It's actually a pretty good amp overall because what's heard and felt is different from what's laid down on recorded tracks. When other people play it, it catches my attention. When I play it, it's like meh.

I used a TC Spark Booster in front of the dirty channel - sounded awesome. I thought an OD got too compressed. That amp had a shitload of gain, I think I used it more with the gain boost off, and gain up high. I put a JAN/GE 5751 in V2 too, that clean up the gain quite a bit.

The mini Spark Booster or the full size one? The market is flooded with similar boosters and overdrives, but I have heard good things about the Spark Booster. Not to derail the topic, but what can you tell me about that pedal?

If you've tried an Xotic RC Booster, it's very similar. But, the middle position is much like a TS9, but super transparent with EQ. Only in the bottom position does it really add any compression.. The other 2 positions, just pure transparent boost.

I use the full size. Paid $60 for it, and it's worth it's weight in gold. Best part is, you can run it in front of an OD for a bit of fatness. For amps that need a boost to tighten it up, but you don't want to color the tone or add any annoying compression. You can't beat it. It's a total sleeper.

 

[MistaGuitah]

The problem with the Retro is that it has to have an overdrive before it. Once you put an overdrive to it, everything comes together. The clean channel also needs a clean boost. There is a great deal of satisfaction to be had using the Retro with pedals always. It was only satisfying by itself when the gain is 100%.

When I first encountered the Retro, I thought the clean channel would be grand. It really wasn't. In fact, the cleans on the Invader are so good, second best is the Artist, then the Raider. The Steve Morse had the best cleans of any Engl, but they don't make it anymore. Yeah I kind of sidetracked here, but the cleans were pretty disappointing until you put a boost on it and set it kind of bright.

I don't know what went wrong with the Retro. The thing is that it's really not a bad amp at all. It's actually a pretty good amp overall because what's heard and felt is different from what's laid down on recorded tracks. When other people play it, it catches my attention. When I play it, it's like meh.

I used a TC Spark Booster in front of the dirty channel - sounded awesome. I thought an OD got too compressed. That amp had a shitload of gain, I think I used it more with the gain boost off, and gain up high. I put a JAN/GE 5751 in V2 too, that clean up the gain quite a bit.

The mini Spark Booster or the full size one? The market is flooded with similar boosters and overdrives, but I have heard good things about the Spark Booster. Not to derail the topic, but what can you tell me about that pedal?

If you've tried an Xotic RC Booster, it's very similar. But, the middle position is much like a TS9, but super transparent and an EQ. I use the full size. Paid $60 for it, and it's worth it's weight in gold. Best part is, you can run it in front of an OD for a bit of fatness.

You must realize you're talking to a pedal junkie here dude. I'm trying to unload 3 OD's right now because I have over a dozen still. I can't help it because as similar as so many of them are, when you find a good one, you want to keep it anyway. Then it takes a while to weed out which ones you end up using the most. It's always like load up, then purge... load up, purge... I shouldn't have asked.

 

[napalmdeath]

The problem with the Retro is that it has to have an overdrive before it. Once you put an overdrive to it, everything comes together. The clean channel also needs a clean boost. There is a great deal of satisfaction to be had using the Retro with pedals always. It was only satisfying by itself when the gain is 100%.

When I first encountered the Retro, I thought the clean channel would be grand. It really wasn't. In fact, the cleans on the Invader are so good, second best is the Artist, then the Raider. The Steve Morse had the best cleans of any Engl, but they don't make it anymore. Yeah I kind of sidetracked here, but the cleans were pretty disappointing until you put a boost on it and set it kind of bright.

I don't know what went wrong with the Retro. The thing is that it's really not a bad amp at all. It's actually a pretty good amp overall because what's heard and felt is different from what's laid down on recorded tracks. When other people play it, it catches my attention. When I play it, it's like meh.

I used a TC Spark Booster in front of the dirty channel - sounded awesome. I thought an OD got too compressed. That amp had a shitload of gain, I think I used it more with the gain boost off, and gain up high. I put a JAN/GE 5751 in V2 too, that clean up the gain quite a bit.

The mini Spark Booster or the full size one? The market is flooded with similar boosters and overdrives, but I have heard good things about the Spark Booster. Not to derail the topic, but what can you tell me about that pedal?

If you've tried an Xotic RC Booster, it's very similar. But, the middle position is much like a TS9, but super transparent and an EQ. I use the full size. Paid $60 for it, and it's worth it's weight in gold. Best part is, you can run it in front of an OD for a bit of fatness.

You must realize you're talking to a pedal junkie here dude. I'm trying to unload 3 OD's right now because I have over a dozen still. I can't help it because as similar as so many of them are, when you find a good one, you want to keep it anyway. Then it takes a while to weed out which ones you end up using the most. It's always like load up, then purge... load up, purge... I shouldn't have asked.

I feel your pain, I'm the same way. But, I sold my RC Booster and Timmy and kept the cheaper TC. And its a keeper, for me.

Funny part is, I seem to keep the cheap ones, ditch the expensive ones, they all seem to have "it". I had about 8 ODs, $100 - $300. I have an SD-1, MXR GT-OD, and Zakk Wylde OD. With the TC, I have no OD desires. I love all them.

 

[jco5055]

Not to revive an old thread, but from what I've heard in clips (as I haven't got to play anything high end) it seems like Engls are by far the most crushing in a polished/processed way I've heard, like the Recto sound as opposed to the more organic Wizard/modded Marshall sound.

Now I wonder, does the shabby build quality actually contribute to this sound? Like maybe getting such an "extreme" sound is only possible with a possibly volatile wiring etc? Or if they were actually built to the quality/consistency people expect in $2000+ amps would they not only be THE extreme amps but also be approaching costs that would make Wizards and such cheap?