Bought an ENGL E530 Preamp

[Turumbar82]

Well, I got a great deal on a scratch and dent ENGL E530 from Musicians Friend.

I haven't been playing in a band recently and wanted something that I could play at low volumes and something that could grow with me. The ENGL has a built in power amp which is cool and a headphone output and it sounds good direct. It's a tube preamp. There are lots of options. 2 channels but each channel has a low and high gain mode which are footswitchable. So in the end it's a clean channel and crunch channel with shared 3 band eq and bright switch and then a lead channel low gain and high gain with a 4 band eq and a contour which boosts mids. So with footswitching, I can get 6 different sounds.

I have only run this thing direct as I don't have a power amp right now to run into my cab even though you can use the built in power amp which is only 1.5 watts. I just don't have the right cables as of now to run it.

Through the headphone output the clean and crunch sound very good and the lead channel sounds like a lead channel normally sounds direct...good but not great.

Last night I plugged into my computer and used Peavey Revalver to create a power amp and put a speaker cab sim and it sounded very nice on all settings.

I really can't wait to get a nice tube power amp to use this thing with. On the lead channel there are two mid knobs (low mid and high mid) and with these two knobs I can get tons of different heavy sounds from bright and crunchy to dark and chunky. I like it a lot and I've only heard it through the cab simulations.

 

[neilt]

I power mine with a Mesa 2:100, through an Earcandy 2 x 12. Absolutely incredible metal tone!

 

[zenabI]

I'm also going to buy this one very soon. It's the tightest and most aggressive hi gain preamp I've ever heard

 

[neilt]

The E530 is nuts! You won't regret it. A great alternative to those wanting that "chainsaw" tone you get from a Mark IV, for a 1/4 the price!

 

[Turumbar82]

Yeah, it is extremely tight and heavy sounding and has lots of useable gain.

Unfortunately last night while playing mine the lead channel died out and got very fizzy and weak sounding. I thought maybe it was the tubes and had an extra set around so I replaced them and nothing happened. My clean channel still works and sounds fine. So I contacted an ENGL repair place and they said it could be the channel switching is messed up. Hopefully it's that and nothing more serious.

I just got it a month ago from Musicians Friend Scratch and Dent and they said I could return it but if I wanted another one I would have to pay full price for a brand new one. I got mine for $461. I felt kind of ripped off because the only way Musicians Friend was willing to give me a working product was to pay more than what I paid for originally. I don't think I will ever do business with them again. They were very rude to me on the phone and basically said if I want a working ENGL preamp then I have to pay more money for one from them.

The repair place in Pompano Fl were great though and helped me right away and I'll be working with them and Michael from ENGL who has been a great help too.

Funny thing is I sold a Bugera 6262 to pay for this preamp and I had the Bugera for about 9 months and not a problem and then I get a "higher quality" product and it goes bad in a month. I think my situation is just a fluke because I haven't heard about ENGL having bad reliability.

Lesson learned for me, I'm not dealing with musicians friend with this kind of thing anymore. I don't think a company should sell stuff and then it breaks and say that you have to pay more than what you originally paid because they sold you something that broke.

 

[zenabI]

Yeah, it is extremely tight and heavy sounding and has lots of useable gain.

Unfortunately last night while playing mine the lead channel died out and got very fizzy and weak sounding. I thought maybe it was the tubes and had an extra set around so I replaced them and nothing happened. My clean channel still works and sounds fine. So I contacted an ENGL repair place and they said it could be the channel switching is messed up. Hopefully it's that and nothing more serious.

I just got it a month ago from Musicians Friend Scratch and Dent and they said I could return it but if I wanted another one I would have to pay full price for a brand new one. I got mine for $461. I felt kind of ripped off because the only way Musicians Friend was willing to give me a working product was to pay more than what I paid for originally. I don't think I will ever do business with them again. They were very rude to me on the phone and basically said if I want a working ENGL preamp then I have to pay more money for one from them.

The repair place in Pompano Fl were great though and helped me right away and I'll be working with them and Michael from ENGL who has been a great help too.

Funny thing is I sold a Bugera 6262 to pay for this preamp and I had the Bugera for about 9 months and not a problem and then I get a "higher quality" product and it goes bad in a month. I think my situation is just a fluke because I haven't heard about ENGL having bad reliability.

Lesson learned for me, I'm not dealing with musicians friend with this kind of thing anymore. I don't think a company should sell stuff and then it breaks and say that you have to pay more than what you originally paid because they sold you something that broke.

Actually they are a bit unreliable But not as bad as chinese stuff so you had a bit of bad luck, yes.

Musicansfriend seems to be the kind of people you don't want to do business with.

 

[phyrexia]

I was the go-between on a trade and my friend was on the receiving end of an E530. Man, it rips your face off.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Was your scratch-dent amp not under warranty?

 

[Turumbar82]

It actually was under warranty but Musicians Friend would only replace it with another scratch and dent and they didn't have any at the time.

I got a footswitch for it though and I haven't had the problem since so I think it was just the switch on the front that went bad.

It really does rip your face off. I'm loving it and I just got a dod yjm 308 for my times when I want to pretend I can shred and it sounds great.