This is a hybrid amplifier head. It is best described as a half solid state, with a 12aX7 tube for a tube amp feel. It is rated at 60W, and I would say that rating is accurate based on the volume. One input with two channels. One is a clean channel with volume, bass and treble. It also has a cool knob called "crunch". Distortion/overdrive channel has gain, volume, bass, mid and treble. There is also a reverb knob that controls both channels. There is a manual channel switch button, but there is no foot-switch included. There is a footswitch jack in the back, so there must be one you can buy. In the front, there are headphone and cd jacks. To conclude the back, there are effects send and return, as well as a minimum 4 ohm speaker output.

This head is fairly straightforward. It’s you basic 2 channel head with clean and overdrive. I put both channels on bass 2,mid 0, and treble 10, and it sounds decent, To get more thump out of the matching 4x8 speaker cab, I sometimes turn the bass up to 6 or 7, and it sounds pretty good. I don’t think the head comes with a manual, but because of it’s simplicity, I don’t feel that it really is necessary. I use this amp for rehearsals and the stage, but now I use it to practice with because it’s kind of cumbersome for rehearsal and the cab gets put in a box when I play on stage with it, which I think renders it useless.

By themselves, both channels sound OK, at best, in my opinion. The clean does not shimmer enough for my needs and the 2nd channel is a mediocre overdrive, and definitely not a distortion channel. The good news is that this amp appears to take pedals well, I don’t know if the 12ax7 tube has anything to do with it. I play my beginner level Ibanez through several effects, including a Zoom 505 multi-effect, and I can get a world of sounds and tones that mimic many guitar stars, past and present. See previous sections to see my settings for treble, bass and mid. Because it takes pedals well, I have many favorite sounds. I don’t know what to make of the crunch knob on the clean channel. It can provide a nice tube type breakup at lower volumes and pure overdrive at higher, and sounds good on its own. But when I introduce pedals, especially distortion/sustain on top of it, it sounds very muddy and TOO crunchy. So while it’s a great volume boost, it’s not a great lead boost.

- 100 watts head (4 EL34 - 5 12AX7) - 6 channels - midi controlled
- hard to list all of the connections and possibilities here, have a look on ENGL website

- So much functions that you feel a little lost at first, really need lot of time to set it correctly but after that it's great to control simultanéously the head and your multi fx with the midi system.
- The manual is very clear

- you can do everything with that monster, each of the channels cover a great range of styles:
1/ Tube driver: leave the sound of your instrument unaffected and amplified directly by the power amp
2/ TDHQ: the same channel as above but with EQ settings for shaping, a volume and a sensitivity potentiometer (to set from clean to crunch)
3/ Clean channel: from extreme clean to overdrive
4/ Crunch channel: From slight crunch to heavy warm distorsion
5/ Lead 1 channel: a very tight and focused channel, great for hard rock or métal rhythm work (reminds me of the gun's n' roses rythm sound) - also great for soloing with neck pickup
6/ Lead 2 channel: less défined, bassier and more drive than the prévious channel. Was designed for solo work but i use it for heavy distorted rhythm.

There's so much gain in the lead 1 and 2 channels that i never set the gain setting past 12 o'clock in hi gain mode

Once the channel is set you can choose between dozens of tone shaping options, some are really usefull, others are less depending on what type of sound you want to have