ENGL Fireball 25: Comparison of Power amp, attenuation and captures

[Progressive_disclosure]

I've been writing in a couple of threads about my experiments and since @laxu encouraged me here are some clips of my findings.

What I wanted to know was how my one and only amp, an ENGL Fireball 25 with a built-in resistive load, actually holds up compared to using an actual cab. I don't have a reactive load on hand and I'm not planning on getting one, but want to be able to get the best sound possible for silent recording and practicing with my amp.

I recorded a DI that I then fed through my amp with the speaker off (fully attenuated) and non-attenuated (there are two additional settings as well to attenuate). Those were recorded through the amps Line Out that taps the signal after the power section. Then I sent and recorded the same DI again through only the preamp section (FX out), and made captures in both NAM (using ToneZone3000) and Tonex of only the power amp, so going in to the FX return and then out through the Line Out. Additionally, I did two NAM captures. One with Dry/Wet and one with the sine sweep.

Here are the amp settings used in o'clock format:
Lead gain 1, Bass 12, Middle 1, Treble 2, Lead volume 10, Master 9, Resonance 10

The speaker cab I used when recording is an ENGL 1x12 with a V30.
Guitar was my PRS SE Custom 24 using a Seymour Duncan Pegasus pickup in bridge position.

For recording I routed everything through my HX Stomp. There is some extra ground noise coming through because of this.
I used the 4x12 XXL V30 cabinet in Helix Native as IR for all tracks, with a single 57 set to Cap Edge and 1,50" distance. Default low cut of 40 Hz and high cut of 14.0 kHz. I evened out the sound levels manually in the DAW to not get too much bias from volume level differences.

I can say quite clearly that I definitely favor recording without the attenuation, but that is not always possible and especially not while cranking the amp up. This amp is LOUD for 25 watts!

Here's a Dropbox folder with bounces of a snippet of the same audio. I did not aim for precision in my playing when recording (which in hindsight I should have done to some extent) so the playing is not great. And it's only hi-gain chords and then some picking. It's from the Insomnium track While We Sleep for anyone interested.

DropBox folder with tracks

Individual tracks (same as folder):
Preamp - NAM Sine Sweep Training
Preamp - NAM Wet/Dry Training
Full Amp Full Attenuation
Full Amp no attenuation
Preamp into Tonex Power Amp

Thought and discussion regarding the performance of the amps is welcome! Which one sounds "best" even with the crappy playing?

I'm probably going to explore using the NAM captures when playing with headphones and recording so I can get the best of both worlds. Perhaps make some more captures with different resonance levels as well. After understanding what the attenuator does to the signal I'm going to have a hard time using it.

 

[la szum]

Wow... what an awesome thing to do! I'll dive into the clips tonight when
I am chilling.

Thanks for doing this!

 

[AFKAEjay(retired)]

I also split pre amp and poweramp in the digital world…however for different reasons then you:
Allows me to have the sounds of my preamp(s) “in the digitalbox”, so I can plug those into returns of whatever amp I (have to) use. Gets me the closest to playing my fav amp.
Obviously for foh/recording I need a poweramp in the feed, and captured mine like you did, into return and capture it via DI.

The sum of preamp and poweramp sound fine to me…although I never did a direct comparison to a full capture.
Yours sound close…on an iPad listening to an MP3

 

[Progressive_disclosure]

I also split pre amp and poweramp in the digital world…however for different reasons then you:
Allows me to have the sounds of my preamp(s) “in the digitalbox”, so I can plug those into returns of whatever amp I (have to) use. Gets me the closest to playing my fav amp.
Obviously for foh/recording I need a poweramp in the feed, and captured mine like you did, into return and capture it via DI.

The sum of preamp and poweramp sound fine to me…although I never did a direct comparison to a full capture.
Yours sound close…on an iPad listening to an MP3

Yeah in hindsight I should have bounced in WAV format!

Sounds like a very flexible setup. Since I most often use headphones I haven’t gotten into plugging models or captures of preamps into power amp but that sounds like a fun track as well.

 

[laxu]

I've been writing in a couple of threads about my experiments and since @laxu encouraged me here are some clips of my findings.


View attachment 39283

What I wanted to know was how my one and only amp, an ENGL Fireball 25 with a built-in resistive load, actually holds up compared to using an actual cab. I don't have a reactive load on hand and I'm not planning on getting one, but want to be able to get the best sound possible for silent recording and practicing with my amp.

I recorded a DI that I then fed through my amp with the speaker off (fully attenuated) and non-attenuated (there are two additional settings as well to attenuate). Those were recorded through the amps Line Out that taps the signal after the power section. Then I sent and recorded the same DI again through only the preamp section (FX out), and made captures in both NAM (using ToneZone3000) and Tonex of only the power amp, so going in to the FX return and then out through the Line Out. Additionally, I did two NAM captures. One with Dry/Wet and one with the sine sweep.

Here are the amp settings used in o'clock format:
Lead gain 1, Bass 12, Middle 1, Treble 2, Lead volume 10, Master 9, Resonance 10

The speaker cab I used when recording is an ENGL 1x12 with a V30.
Guitar was my PRS SE Custom 24 using a Seymour Duncan Pegasus pickup in bridge position.

For recording I routed everything through my HX Stomp. There is some extra ground noise coming through because of this.
I used the 4x12 XXL V30 cabinet in Helix Native as IR for all tracks, with a single 57 set to Cap Edge and 1,50" distance. Default low cut of 40 Hz and high cut of 14.0 kHz. I evened out the sound levels manually in the DAW to not get too much bias from volume level differences.

I can say quite clearly that I definitely favor recording without the attenuation, but that is not always possible and especially not while cranking the amp up. This amp is LOUD for 25 watts!

Here's a Dropbox folder with bounces of a snippet of the same audio. I did not aim for precision in my playing when recording (which in hindsight I should have done to some extent) so the playing is not great. And it's only hi-gain chords and then some picking. It's from the Insomnium track While We Sleep for anyone interested.

DropBox folder with tracks

Individual tracks (same as folder):
Preamp - NAM Sine Sweep Training
Preamp - NAM Wet/Dry Training
Full Amp Full Attenuation
Full Amp no attenuation
Preamp into Tonex Power Amp

Thought and discussion regarding the performance of the amps is welcome! Which one sounds "best" even with the crappy playing?

I'm probably going to explore using the NAM captures when playing with headphones and recording so I can get the best of both worlds. Perhaps make some more captures with different resonance levels as well. After understanding what the attenuator does to the signal I'm going to have a hard time using it.

The Full Attenuation clip has a pretty significant volume difference but once I put the Full vs no attenuation clip side by side in my browser and adjusted the volume in the Dropbox player I could get them quite even.

It shows typical resistive load stuff, namely that it doesn't have the same kind of thump to the lows. But I don't think it sounds bad and you could potentially try to compensate via EQ and running Presence higher.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Nice test, thanks for sharing it. The unattenuated power amp and the Sine Sweep NAM model sound really close. ToneX sounds pretty good but I'm surprised that its not closer to the source.

 

[Progressive_disclosure]

The Full Attenuation clip has a pretty significant volume difference but once I put the Full vs no attenuation clip side by side in my browser and adjusted the volume in the Dropbox player I could get them quite even.

It shows typical resistive load stuff, namely that it doesn't have the same kind of thump to the lows. But I don't think it sounds bad and you could potentially try to compensate via EQ and running Presence higher.

Thanks for checking it out! I tried to level the clips but sounds like I could have done a better job with it, sorry about that.

I’ve used an EQ in the loop of the amp for quite a while and without really understanding it, I’ve set it to cancel out some of the boxiness I hear when using the attenuator. Where I’m at now in my tone journey is that I really don’t want that extra layer added (hence the power amp questions I’ve gotten answers to elsewhere).

I’m hoping to be able to use the EQ for some more refined surgical cuts now that I can hear my tone without the boxiness from the attenuator, so the hunt goes on as always!

My headphone solution will now be to run the preamp into my HX Stomp, then use NAM XT on my Mac or iPhone to load a capture of the power amp, then use the Stomp for post-FX and headphones/monitors. Bonus is I can make some more captures of the amp, run it on the phone and do silent practice when away from my amp as well. And less fiddling with amp models on the Stomp!

 

[Progressive_disclosure]

Nice test, thanks for sharing it. The unattenuated power amp and the Sine Sweep NAM model sound really close. ToneX sounds pretty good but I'm surprised that its not closer to the source.

Thanks for checking it out! Yes it’s not quite the same on Tonex, I agree. I tried to level match the reamping signal but it’s possibly something there that don’t match up. That could account for at least a bit of the difference.

The process with tonex is convoluted to me for what you get and this is not the first time I’ve made a capture with it. Using TZ3000 was super easy in comparison!

 

[MirrorProfiles]

Thanks for checking it out! Yes it’s not quite the same on Tonex, I agree. I tried to level match the reamping signal but it’s possibly something there that don’t match up. That could account for at least a bit of the difference.

The process with tonex is convoluted to me for what you get and this is not the first time I’ve made a capture with it. Using TZ3000 was super easy in comparison!

It did sound like the power amp on the tonex model was working a bit harder than the others. Did you use the same level as what you used on the NAM model? IMO it’s best to just ignore the ToneX level guidance and use what makes most sense

 

[Progressive_disclosure]

It did sound like the power amp on the tonex model was working a bit harder than the others. Did you use the same level as what you used on the NAM model? IMO it’s best to just ignore the ToneX level guidance and use what makes most sense

I think I upped the levels a bit to make it stop complaining on the output for training. It was VERY loud in the room so the power amp might absolutely have been working a bit harder than the NAM ones.

Edit: that would be the level in the software that I adjusted, nothing on the interface or such.

 

[riffy]

I agree with Mirror Profiles. It sounds like the Tonex power amp is working harder and compressing a bit more, it seems to be rounding off the high end, a little bit to me.

I have not had that experience personally, with Tonex yet!