NWB - Community Blog

17 Mar 2010

Blackstar or ENGL???

Filed Under : Music , Gear

Posted By : Sacrament | Comments : 7

Looking to buy a new head and I'm in a quandry!

I'm undecided between a Blackstar Series One s1-200 and a ENGL powerball. I basically want four seperate channels, clean, crunch and 2 lead channels and these both do that but I can't decide which one to go with. Any advice or help would be great!!
Cheers
Steve

Comments

# Posted by The DeFunked Band - 17/03/2010, 09:24 (GMT)

Theres this new brilliant marshall combo out. Its about £900, its an all valve amp, but it has 4 programable channels, and its all controlled via the footswitch.... a crackin little amp. Both heads are great, i dig the engl tho

# Posted by Sacrament - 17/03/2010, 09:38 (GMT)

OK I'll check it out.
Cheers
Steve

# Posted by MAXIMUM TORQUE - 17/03/2010, 09:56 (GMT)

Hi Steve I use the Engl Powerball with Classic rock band Maximum Torque but it will do metal equally as well,put your overdrive/distortion pedals on ebay youre never gonna use them again.
Good luck
Mike

# Posted by Sacrament - 17/03/2010, 10:03 (GMT)

Cheers Mike, thats what I heard! I could do with cutting the pedals down a bit which is why I want to get an all singing all dancing head!

# Posted by Adventures of Salvador - 17/03/2010, 10:20 (GMT)

hi
i had a series 1 100w that had four channels but the sound would drop out every time you changed from one channel to the other this made impossible to use live also it had no reverb which was a shame because it did sound really good , the shop was very good and swapped it for engl screamer that with the z5 footswitch gives you 4 channels plus a boost for lead and able to turn reverb on and off, i have kept wit the engl.

# Posted by Jason Smith (SIN AFTER SIN gui... - 17/03/2010, 14:48 (GMT)

both are great amps sound-wise, i have a Blackstar HT 5 combo for recording, sounds amazing.
The sound drop out when changing channels may be in the design of the amp......this is also the same thing with Mesa/ Boogie dual and single rectifier amps and renders the channel changing feature un-usable for players wanting seemless changes in sound.
You still might want to keep an overdrive pedal if using a high gain amp for heavey rock or metal, as pushing the front end of the amp with an overdrive pedal set at: drive/gain 0 and volume /output at full will tighten up the sound of the amp and get rid of any loose or muddy qualities to the sound.
Many rock/metal players use overdrive pedals this way, even with high gain amps to acheive a tighter sound.

# Posted by Smitten Kitten - 17/03/2010, 17:04 (GMT)

Black-stars are the best! ENGL's always sound a bit lifeless to me :S

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