CTN
The Drama Dude
Almost a year ago, when I got my Hughes and Kettner Tubemeister 18, I was looking for a lunchbox head with variable wattage, two channels fx loop, and a gain range from angelic to satan.
Out of everything available on the market, only three options were available to me and of the two that were within my price range, only one of them sounded good to my ears. The one that failed in the final shootout was the Engl Gigmaster 15W head. While it all sounded good on paper, in person I just could not jive with it. There was something very VERY strange about its voicing in the mids and I couldn't get along with it.
So I went for the tubemeister, because it was also half the price of the 3rd contender, the Engl Ironball. The other thing was that I never got a chance to play the ironball since no dealers around where I was carried them.
Well I moved since then. And today I got a chance to play the Ironball. I played it through a cab loaded with Vintage 30s. Here's the rundown:
2 channels
Variable power - 20W/5W/1W/Silent
balanced line out
fx loop
global gain boost
global master volume boost
global reverb (not spring reverb, but it sounds quite nice and rich)
footswitchable channels/gain boost/volume boost/reverb.
Also has a headphone jack!
Definitely goes from lush, pristine Fenderish cleans to a decidedly snarly, crisp, searing high gain that retains articulation - Classic Engl high gain sound. But (and this is what surprised me) - it's WARM, BEEFY, AND REALLY TIGHT - I wasn't expecting that at all from an EL84 amp. The other thing is it's got 4 12ax7s. 4 gain stages in the first two tubes plus tube driven fx loop and the phase splitter. The gain is so much more organic and natural and just plain no complaints compared to the high gain sounds of my tubemeister, which has 2 12ax7s, yet it somehow capable of the same relative amount of gain (though the Engl's gain sounds infinitely better).
And bless their hearts, they oriented the transformers on the chassis to prevent any extra noise.
It's a little beast of an amp. Lately I've been considering potential replacements for the tubemeister, or at least researching my next amp. I was kinda set on not getting another el84 amp because I miss the sound of big bottles, but now I'm not so sure. The Ironball really kills.
Out of everything available on the market, only three options were available to me and of the two that were within my price range, only one of them sounded good to my ears. The one that failed in the final shootout was the Engl Gigmaster 15W head. While it all sounded good on paper, in person I just could not jive with it. There was something very VERY strange about its voicing in the mids and I couldn't get along with it.
So I went for the tubemeister, because it was also half the price of the 3rd contender, the Engl Ironball. The other thing was that I never got a chance to play the ironball since no dealers around where I was carried them.
Well I moved since then. And today I got a chance to play the Ironball. I played it through a cab loaded with Vintage 30s. Here's the rundown:
2 channels
Variable power - 20W/5W/1W/Silent
balanced line out
fx loop
global gain boost
global master volume boost
global reverb (not spring reverb, but it sounds quite nice and rich)
footswitchable channels/gain boost/volume boost/reverb.
Also has a headphone jack!
Definitely goes from lush, pristine Fenderish cleans to a decidedly snarly, crisp, searing high gain that retains articulation - Classic Engl high gain sound. But (and this is what surprised me) - it's WARM, BEEFY, AND REALLY TIGHT - I wasn't expecting that at all from an EL84 amp. The other thing is it's got 4 12ax7s. 4 gain stages in the first two tubes plus tube driven fx loop and the phase splitter. The gain is so much more organic and natural and just plain no complaints compared to the high gain sounds of my tubemeister, which has 2 12ax7s, yet it somehow capable of the same relative amount of gain (though the Engl's gain sounds infinitely better).
And bless their hearts, they oriented the transformers on the chassis to prevent any extra noise.
It's a little beast of an amp. Lately I've been considering potential replacements for the tubemeister, or at least researching my next amp. I was kinda set on not getting another el84 amp because I miss the sound of big bottles, but now I'm not so sure. The Ironball really kills.
