cobrahead1030
09-16-2007, 07:33 AM
the preamp arrived on thursday, tho i didn't get much chance to play around with it for the first few days; i'm running the preamp into the FX return of my mark III (wanted to give this a try before i started dropping cash on power amps)
at first i wasn't impressed with the unit at all, i thought it sounded pretty thin/weak on it's own, like the sound was trapped in a box or something. so i tried engaging the graphic eq on the boogie, sounded A LOT better that way, and really opened up the sound i was getting. the bad side to this tho was that it sounded a lot like my mark III already did, not exactly but the differences were rather subtle...the point that it really didn't seem worth having the engl pre in there
a day or two later i spent some more time with it, with the graphic eq off. i found that once i turned the presence down a little on the mark III, and turned the power amp up a bit i was getting a much better sound than before; tho i had to raise the presence, and lower the output on the preamp to compensate.
the countour switch for me is what really makes or breaks this unit! it was sounding pretty decent without it, but nothing i was real excited about. with the contour engaged tho it just sounds more alive and is much fuller sounding. there's not much info about to switch other than this from the pdf manual
When the button is pressed, mids between 300 & 500 Hz and mids between 1 & 2 kHz are boosted slightly
anyhow the sound i'm getting sounds a bit different than the normal powerball/fireball tones i was expecting, but for what it is i'm digging it pretty nicely. it's real thick and clear sounding, tho the high end is kinda difficult to dial in (kinda goes from too dark to scratchy, real quick) the dual mid controls work together quite nicely, altho tho upper-mid knob almost acts more as a presence control.
the cleans from the unit are very nice, tho the eq controls don't really do an awful lot. not quite as nice as my mark III or cobra's cleans but definitely better than a lot of cleans i've played, and certainly useable.
i'm still not sure if the preamp is a keeper or not. i was wanting something to use in conjunction with my mark III to get some good low volume recordings, and @ this point i can't say if this fits the bill; i'm gonna spend some time over the next week or so doing some recording and see how that goes.
overall i think it was a solid buy for $400 (used) but i'm just not sure if it's gonna give me what i'm after
at first i wasn't impressed with the unit at all, i thought it sounded pretty thin/weak on it's own, like the sound was trapped in a box or something. so i tried engaging the graphic eq on the boogie, sounded A LOT better that way, and really opened up the sound i was getting. the bad side to this tho was that it sounded a lot like my mark III already did, not exactly but the differences were rather subtle...the point that it really didn't seem worth having the engl pre in there
a day or two later i spent some more time with it, with the graphic eq off. i found that once i turned the presence down a little on the mark III, and turned the power amp up a bit i was getting a much better sound than before; tho i had to raise the presence, and lower the output on the preamp to compensate.
the countour switch for me is what really makes or breaks this unit! it was sounding pretty decent without it, but nothing i was real excited about. with the contour engaged tho it just sounds more alive and is much fuller sounding. there's not much info about to switch other than this from the pdf manual
When the button is pressed, mids between 300 & 500 Hz and mids between 1 & 2 kHz are boosted slightly
anyhow the sound i'm getting sounds a bit different than the normal powerball/fireball tones i was expecting, but for what it is i'm digging it pretty nicely. it's real thick and clear sounding, tho the high end is kinda difficult to dial in (kinda goes from too dark to scratchy, real quick) the dual mid controls work together quite nicely, altho tho upper-mid knob almost acts more as a presence control.
the cleans from the unit are very nice, tho the eq controls don't really do an awful lot. not quite as nice as my mark III or cobra's cleans but definitely better than a lot of cleans i've played, and certainly useable.
i'm still not sure if the preamp is a keeper or not. i was wanting something to use in conjunction with my mark III to get some good low volume recordings, and @ this point i can't say if this fits the bill; i'm gonna spend some time over the next week or so doing some recording and see how that goes.
overall i think it was a solid buy for $400 (used) but i'm just not sure if it's gonna give me what i'm after