Since our guitar player sounds great with an ENGL Powerball II, I decided to take the risk of ordering an ENGL Ironbass and 410 cab. Although there's almost no info on the amp, including ENGL's own site, and only a couple of crappy demo videos, I risked special ordering direct from ENGL in Germany and was pleasantly surprised to see everything in one piece taking 2 months to get here from the other side of the planet.
The Ironbass E1055 is a class D amp with 2 ECC88 Preamp Drive Tubes that are bigger than my SVT 2 Pro preamp or drive tubes, weighs 10lbs, 500 watts @8 ohms, 800 watts @4 ohms and is the same price as the V4B. The build quality is medium high. How heavy duty can 10 lbs be? Looks great. The tubes glow bright blue, they could have LEDs or something. It has Hi and Low inputs (12 db pad on the Low Input), Mute with LED, Gain, Drive Button with LED, Drive Knob, Bass Boost with LED, (120 Hz), Bass (80 Hz), Low Mid (350 Hz), Hi Mid (800 Hz), Treble (6.5 kHz), Presence (3.3 kHz), and Ultra Bright with LED (6.5 kHz), same as the Treble.
The back has 2, 8 ohm Speakon 1/4 combi Speaker Outputs, TRS Effect Send and Receive Jack with Dry, Wet Balance Knob, TRS Footswitch Jack for Mute and Drive, Tuner Out (also active when Muted), Balanced Line Out with Pre-Post Button, Level Control and Ground Lift.
The 410 cab seems well built, I guess around 80lbs, with Celestion BL10-200X speakers and Eminence APT 80 Horn and 2 ports that's 1200 watts @ 8 ohms. The cab is twice as expensive as the 410 HE.
I'm glad to report I was unable to recreate the crappy sound in the NAMM demo videos although the Jan Lilienthal video was spot on if you read between the lines (listen between the slap). Also his video with drummer Tim Friedrich was a good representation of the amp.
The first thing apparent was the similarity between the Heritage 410 HLF (one of the few cabs I can reference) in that it has deep lows. Even with my SVT 2 Pro and Heritage 810, when going up the strings and neck, it thins out a little. Not with this rig, it remains thick, big and deep sounding with no mud. Having frequencies from 120 Hz up to 3.3 kHz, you can get just about any sound you want. I had the horn half way up with good results. Adding a lot of treble or presence results in some hiss, otherwise it's pretty quiet.
Now for the drive control which is my favorite part. The drive switch activates an "additional amplification stage" with tubes and the knob adjusts the mix of regular and boosted (drive) signals. When you turn the drive down the volume is off. Turning up the drive increases the volume and overdrive resulting in a natural tube breakup overdrive with ZERO electrical buzz saw type drive. For some it won't be enough dirt but I think it sounds very close to my SVT 2 Pro power tube over drive breakup and better than my SVT 2 Pro preamp and drive control. I know it's hard to believe but I'm absolutely bewildered by this amp, especially after seeing 2 videos of nothing but toneless buzz saw sound coming from the amp. There must have been some pedal involved or clipping of the interface from the line out. I don't know what ENGL did or how they did it, but this thing sounds incredible. Only if their marketing was as good.
Picture showing the speaker, horn and ports which aren't normally visible without a flash. The cab is awkward to handle being 171/2 " deep with no wheels and the amp handle pulls up.
The Ironbass E1055 is a class D amp with 2 ECC88 Preamp Drive Tubes that are bigger than my SVT 2 Pro preamp or drive tubes, weighs 10lbs, 500 watts @8 ohms, 800 watts @4 ohms and is the same price as the V4B. The build quality is medium high. How heavy duty can 10 lbs be? Looks great. The tubes glow bright blue, they could have LEDs or something. It has Hi and Low inputs (12 db pad on the Low Input), Mute with LED, Gain, Drive Button with LED, Drive Knob, Bass Boost with LED, (120 Hz), Bass (80 Hz), Low Mid (350 Hz), Hi Mid (800 Hz), Treble (6.5 kHz), Presence (3.3 kHz), and Ultra Bright with LED (6.5 kHz), same as the Treble.
The back has 2, 8 ohm Speakon 1/4 combi Speaker Outputs, TRS Effect Send and Receive Jack with Dry, Wet Balance Knob, TRS Footswitch Jack for Mute and Drive, Tuner Out (also active when Muted), Balanced Line Out with Pre-Post Button, Level Control and Ground Lift.
The 410 cab seems well built, I guess around 80lbs, with Celestion BL10-200X speakers and Eminence APT 80 Horn and 2 ports that's 1200 watts @ 8 ohms. The cab is twice as expensive as the 410 HE.
I'm glad to report I was unable to recreate the crappy sound in the NAMM demo videos although the Jan Lilienthal video was spot on if you read between the lines (listen between the slap). Also his video with drummer Tim Friedrich was a good representation of the amp.
The first thing apparent was the similarity between the Heritage 410 HLF (one of the few cabs I can reference) in that it has deep lows. Even with my SVT 2 Pro and Heritage 810, when going up the strings and neck, it thins out a little. Not with this rig, it remains thick, big and deep sounding with no mud. Having frequencies from 120 Hz up to 3.3 kHz, you can get just about any sound you want. I had the horn half way up with good results. Adding a lot of treble or presence results in some hiss, otherwise it's pretty quiet.
Now for the drive control which is my favorite part. The drive switch activates an "additional amplification stage" with tubes and the knob adjusts the mix of regular and boosted (drive) signals. When you turn the drive down the volume is off. Turning up the drive increases the volume and overdrive resulting in a natural tube breakup overdrive with ZERO electrical buzz saw type drive. For some it won't be enough dirt but I think it sounds very close to my SVT 2 Pro power tube over drive breakup and better than my SVT 2 Pro preamp and drive control. I know it's hard to believe but I'm absolutely bewildered by this amp, especially after seeing 2 videos of nothing but toneless buzz saw sound coming from the amp. There must have been some pedal involved or clipping of the interface from the line out. I don't know what ENGL did or how they did it, but this thing sounds incredible. Only if their marketing was as good.
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