Engl Screamer 50

Bought 2002 for 1350 Euros (Z5 footswitch another 100)
Features more than well engough documented by everyone else! Very versatile. I don't tend to muck about with the settings too much, I tend to go for a quite general sound and it's difficult to get a bad sound out of this. The various controls are extremely well set: there are no "Spikes" like having all the volume in 1-3 (Fender please note!) and the basic tone controls really do make a difference. It's a piece of cake to use. Simple, effective and very practical. You don't actually need the footswitch, but oh man, does it ever make life easy! The Solo boost is a brilliant idea, and it really works. Footswithable Reverb is another Godsend. It means you have access to 4 channels with or without Reverb at two volumes and all under yer booties.

I use this with 4 different guitars. A hamer Special (P90 pickups) A gibson les Paul Gem (P90s again..) A Westone Prestige 250(Humbuckers) and a PRS CE22 (Humbuckers). This amp really brings out the differences! I play mostly Classic/heavy Rock, Rock Ballads and some Blues and some quiet love songs. Quick summary

Clean - Not as good as my Fender Deluxe, but then again, what is? Way better than Marshal or Boogie, though. Genuine 3-spring Accutronics reverb tank, but I tend it need it almost full up. Never use the Bright switch, I find it a bit lacking in Bottom end anyway.

Crunch - Strange one this, seems to get lonely: I never could get the hang of using this at home, seemed too dry and rough. BUT, and it's a BIG but, when playing in a 4-peice band, this cuts perfectly through the mix. You can get some really snarly, early Blues tones with this, and, if you're careful, some quite soft clean sounds as well.

Soft lead - Played one Power Chord in the shop and mentally reached for my wallet. Worth buying for this channel alone. Seriously. Utterly gorgeous, gorgeous rich fat tone. And the sustain! You hit a chord, and it just plays and plays, dying away naturally and beautifully. I would probably have switched from lead to rythm playing if it wasn't for....

Heavy Lead - Gary Moore in Orgasm. This is isn't just fat, is ****ing dripping with cholestorol. No reverb, Palm-muting and your into Thrash territory, some reverb and solos are smooth beyond belief. Or as rough as guts if you want, it's up to how you play.

All in all, even though the Valves (Tubes) are Fender like (EC883/6L6) and 12AX7s, the tone stack is very Marshall. The Soft lead is something like a good condition old JCM800 and the Heavy lead is rather like a JTM-45. However, the tone is ENGL, it's not a clone of anything else.

It IS a Modern sounding Amp though. This is not trying to be some retro-vintage bandwagon piece of sh*t.

All the old cliches come out here. It is extremely tough, but it's a heavy beast. Very heavy! Absolutely no problems gigging without backup. I've had this amp a year now, so I know.

Well, I have the advantage over most folks, I live in Bavaria where it's made! Only ever contacted them once, however, and that was to find a local dealer in Munich. Email was personally answered the next day with the name and address. But as that was it, I can't really comment. If there was a problem with the amp, I'd contact the dealer first anyway.

Been playing 15+ years, but you would think 15 months! I have several cheaper amps and a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, which I love. As I said, I've had this amp for a year now, so this is not an "I've just spent a wad of cash on something, I'd better tell everyone how good it is" kind of review! If lost, I would definitely buy another one. I love it's combination of simplicity and versatility. IF they could keep the build quality BUT reduce the weight it would be nice. I tried this agains another couple of Engl Combos, Hughs and Kettner, Fender and Marshal, but this was just streets ahead for what I need an amp to do.
It's hand built by a small, dedicated team of craftsmen at one third of it's American equivelants.

One final comment, it's quite a senstive and unforgiving beast. It really brings out the character of your different guitars, but also brings out any playing mistakes with horrific clarity. It doesn't matter if I'm wielding my guitar like a chainsaw, or caressing it as a lover, subtlelty and nuance are there, but so are the ****-ups!

OK,OK final, final comment. I never give 10s for ANYTHING anymore, 'cos nothings perfect. If there is an Engl dealer near you, try some out.

You already know all features if you read this... I need built-in power brake for this amp! :-) It's too loud...

Now I play the only one guitar Fender American Hot Rodded Fat Strat Texas Special. It has two SC Texas Special from

Custom Shop and one Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates Plus humbucker. Frankly saying I don't like this HB because it sounds too weak, too bright and has not enough lows. I'm gonna change it for SD Custom Custom or Seth Lover.

I have T.C. Electronic G-Major plugged in Screamer's loop - with Dry/Wet knob at 100% wet. G-Major is controlled by Behringer FCB1010. Both FCB1010 and G-Major have relay switch. I use that one from G-Major. It's TRS jack - with four states (1 - all open, 2 - T and S closed, 3 - R and S closed, 4 both states closed) what match exactly all Screamer's channels. Each G-Major preset stores these states, sa with the only one FCB1010 switch I have access to effects and channels. I don't use Screamer's VLS - two master volumes or Reverb On/Off switching because I don't use them - I have programmed volumes in TC programs. When a footswitch (or even a "dummy" cable) is plugged into channel switching jack you cannot change channels from the front panel.

Screamer 50 has quite low budget speaker (Silver series 12" V80) but believe me it sounds much better than other combos with even Vintage 30 or G12T-75.

Lo Gain Clean channel. If you like Fender with a little but mix of Messa clean channel you'll like it. I just sell Marshall JMP-1 just because of clean channel - JMP-1 has terrible, heart-less sound. Screamer gives nice tube compressed sound with great attack - you have to find a good technique of playing to get the best sound. The only one negative thing I've discovered with Clean channel is Gain control. If it's at more than 12 o'clock it sounds a little bit distorted when hard picking, but setting it lower - at 10-11 o'clock gives not enough gain for Crunch channel (they share Gain control).

Hi Gain Clean - Crunch channel. That was one of the reason I bought Engl :-) I realli like Engl' crunch sounds. I'm dreaming about Savage SE wiht its two Crunch channels. However Screamer Crunch channels is very sensitive to your fingers. It perfectly reacts to your playing style - so with the only one setting you can get quite clean or heavy crunched sound. It's up to your fingers.

Lo Gain Lead channel. It's rather American style drive (Mesa like), very rich and long sustaining. If you need vintage overdrive you have set gain to very low settings or you get modern rock sound.

Hi Gain Lead channel. Two words: rich and powerfull. It lasts forever :-)

Lead channel (both Lo/High Gain) has Lead Presence and Lead Volume knobs and it helps you balance between Clean/Crunch settings.

There is Bright switch but it works only when Gain settings is lower than 11 o'clock. So for my guitar is useless but it's not a problem - Texas Special are very bright pickups.

Reverb sounds very warm a nice - you won't hear every spring move like in many other cheap spring reverbs.

About EQ. Bass responce isn't to deep - remember it's 1x12" open back combo. If like Screamer sound and want more deep bass look at Screamer head and 2x12" closed box (e.g. Engl) - a nice duo :-) Treble is more than enough, nothing more to say. Mid... When you set Mid more than 1-2 o'clock it starts to sound muddy on clean channel but is

must for nice Santana-like solos - you have to decided what you like. I like Deep switch on Ritchie Blackomore head which gives much warmer sound and more low-mids. In my setup I use TC G-Major EQ - I set Enlg's Mid to 12 o'clock and boost or attenuate mids with TC - I can quite different sounds from the same channel.

Signal patch: preamp->reverb->loop->stand/by->master volume->amp out/balanced out. I don't like it. I think that reverb should be post loop return. If you use noise gate like Rocktron HUSH and built-in reverb the results is gated reverb :-) Also if you want to use delay stompbox in a loop it gets revered sound but it doesn't sound good. Also Balanced out (with

I play it for a couple of weeks and I've had no problems, but it's too short time to say more. It's very heavy so you should transport it in a hard case IMO.

I've had no need to contact them with Screamer problems. And I hope I won't have to :-)

I play the guitar a couple years. I had some amps and last two years I played POD 2.0 and then JMP-1 with Engl 2x50W tube poweramp and 2x12". But as I said I didn't like JMP-1 clean sound - weak, thin. JMP-1 has a nice overdrive channel but you can hear all this diode clipping, not tube like. So I decided to go back to tubes and after a long searching I've found Engl amps as a most practical and very good sound amps for its price, here in Eastern Europe.

I bought this from Spectrum Music (UK) with a part-ex. This combo is extremely versatile, having effectively 4 channels but all sharing a common EQ. The two lead channels do have the addition of presence control. There is also a reverb and bright switch. Channels 1&2 have a common gain control. Channels 3&4 have gain and volume controls and then there is an overall master volume.

Channel 1 is clean, channel 2 is clean with a bit of crunch, 3 is your rock channel and 4 is rock channel with more gain.

I have the six way footswitch which allows selection of the 4 channels, reverb and the best feature yet, in my opinion, is button no.6 which gives you a clean boost for soloing. The % boost can be set by a pot at the rear. This is a great feature for live work, as I can testify.

The 50 watts output is plenty loud enough but I must add that I use this with V30 loaded ext. cab. I have also replaced the original speaker with one of the new Celetion Century speakers which has increased the loudness and reduced the weight. The original speaker is a Celestion V12-80 and perfectly adequate.

Ahhh the weight. I found the weight a bit of a problem. Humping it around on gigs was a bit of a strain. This is a heavy beast for a 1x12, but it is a quality build, so I guess you have to cant have it all ways.
The grill is a heavy weight affair and is totally drummer-proof, but it weighs about 2 kgs. So to reduce the weight I made a new grill form a light plywood frame and some tasty grill cloth, mounted the badge in the centre as original, and that plus the speaker mod has made it more managable...sorry Horst. ( The designer).

On the back panel it has the now obligatory send/return, XLR out,4 speaker outputs to suit most combination of cabs. You dont need the fancy stainless steel. 6 way footswitch as there are two jack footswich sockets to allow two conventional stereo footswitches to switch the basic funtions. I would recommend the 6 way switch though.....its the icing on this tasty cake.

The build quality is typically German ie top quality. The front panel is well laid out and the EQ controls are very sensitive.

The valves are 4xECC83/12AX7 pre-amp and 2x5881 power tubes. All selected and matched.

I use this amp with a Strat with 12 db mid range facility. What can I say...this amp sounds perfect to me, and the reverb is so deep, in fact I first thought it was OTT but then I realised I was too used to my wimpy Marshall reverb.

I have tried em all, Fender, Boogie, Cornford, Marshall. My Marshall is now up for sale. The Cornford was lovely but not as versatile for live work.

There is not a sound you cant get out of this combo...I cant say anymore. And if you get tired of the sound you can always experiment with different valves and speakers

So far no probs.

I have emailed ENGL with some queries and got reples direct from the designer Horst Langer within 2 days

Overall rating has to be 10. I would defiately buy this combo again. This combo is extremely good value for money. It leaves the Boogies and the like at twice the price for dead. I hope ENGL dont read this and then whack up the price!

Amp was made in 2K; bought it new in 2001. It's got a single EQ(which doesn't limit it's versatility), volume controls for the two channels, gain control, reverb, volume and gain boost, effect loop, recording output...and so on. Visit www.Englamps.com for full feature list.
2x5881 Power amp tubes which deliver 50 of punchy tube power, it's enough for me, but if you wanna play in Wembley better lookout for some louder stuff.
Eventually this thing very versatile because of the sound modes and the great stage board. This amp was made for gigging!!!

I use it with an IBanez RG3120, it has a DiMarzio PAF Pro in neck position and a Tonezone in Brige pos. My Cabinet is the Engl 4x12 Standard (which sounds great too).
This is actually a great amp for almost any kind of musical style. Sound kicks ass. Mhh, I wouldn't play jazz on it, but you can get any sound from Hendrix to early Metallica out of it. Seems to kick those vintage heads like Plexi in their ol' asses! Can deliver british or more lil' more american sounds (depends on EQ setting). Don' get me wrong, the Screamer 50 does not sound like Boogie or something, it has it's own character. Clean can get from warm to funky, Crunsh is most impressive, kicks every other Amp i've heard/played before. Distortion can get pretty brutal, but for PanterA like sounds or death metal sounds i would recommend to buy Randall, Boogie or a stomp box.
All in all it sounds warm, tube like, higher gain settings are staying transparent. Don't waste your money/time with those muddy Marshall stuff, get an ENGL!

Looks very reliable. Heavy duty...
never had problems... got it since 4 days...

never dealt with ENGL so far...

This is actually an amp that overwhelmes me totally. It's versatile and sounds mindblowing (can't get enough of this wonderful liquid crunch).
Marshall's TSL seems to be more versatile with all their three/two EQ stuff, but fuck it i don' need all those controls that are making me loosing control over my tone. Buy the Screamer if you want an amp to have fun with.

I am going to write about the Screamer50 *Top* which I use in conjunction with a 1x12 Celestion Vintage 30 Closed Cab. The amp was made in 1999 and the main purpose I use it for is recording. Therefore, it needs to fullfill different requirements than a live-amp. Anyway, the setup is pretty basic: Two channels that share the same tone-controls (bass, mid, treble) but have an additional gain-stage that you can switch in. This can give a lot of crunch to the clean channel and throw the distorted channel over the top. It also features a master volume and a presence knob for the lead channel. A reverb and an effect loop are there as well as a frequency corrected balanced direct out and the capability to drive different arrangements of speaker-cabinets. Its power section delivers 50 Watts (2 6L6s), wich wich means not to much headroom but enough for recording purposes. Pretty well thought out feature set, all useful and easy to handle. I whish, the EQ would be more precise - like the graphic EQ on my Boogie. This comes extremely handy for "fitting" the guitar into a mix.

I use all kinds of guitars with this amp, Fender Strats, Gibson Sgs and Paulas, a PRS, a Ibanez 7 string... you name it. It is used for all styles of music, because I record all kinds of musicians, from mellow jazz to some of the grindiest core. The amp does never sound REALLY great, I mean really, so that you want to just wrap yourself into the speaker cone. It just lacks some of that little extra soul, that I can have with a blackface fender or with my Mesa MkiV. However, the clean channel sounds very warm whith shimmering heights and it sings, when you crank it a bit further. You can get those "in-between"-tones pretty much and it sounds also great when pushed even a bit harder. It starts, however, to sound a bit harsh when you dig way into the distortion, so I do these sounds whith all kinds of pedals. It lacks a bit of bass (even whith bigger cabs) but then thats a good thing for recording. It is not nosy at all, which is what it sold to me. I got the feeling, that everything in this amp is built with lots of knowledge on electronics and amp-design but with a little too less listening. However, for a great guitar sound that sits perfect in a mix it beats all "recording-preamps", including PODs, H&K-boxes, the Formula Preamp and the like. It just produces classic tones whithout much effort and never sounds wrong.

Very good craftmanship.

Dunno.

I have been playing for more years than I like to tell (because I should play much better then) but et well exceeds 15 years. I played almost every good amp I could get my hands on, Matchless, Fenders, Marshalls, Boogies, Egnaters, Riveras - everything. This amp is a great deal for the money even though it is not a real living thing, if you can get that drift. I like it a lot for what it does and I believe that you get what you pay for and then some more. If you do not have the cash for your dream amp, try this one. It comes really close, you can hear the tubes and and there are some little tone demons inside. Just small ones...

This amp has two indedepente channels with shared EQ.
Then there are a few bright and presence controls and switches, Fx loop, and so on... that's basicly it! Meanwhile... you will freak with this amp versatility and parallel simplicity.

I have a Washburn MG821 guitar (with a Seymour Duncan Parallel Axis pickup on the brigde position) and a Paul Reed Smith Custom 24.
This amp souns wonderfuly in all aspects!!! Like I said above, it's mega-versatile and straighfoward to use... there's no cheat n' trick on this amp... it's a full blown sound! Try to give it a listen!!!
The amp's not noisy at all... I play a lot of music styles, ranging from jazz to progressive metal. The distortion is great! With the PRS guitar I can make a lot of sounds!!! The tone controls sounds wonderfully.

This amp's is built like a tank!!!
It doens't include an airbag because you really won't need it! ;)

Never needed! 1 year warranty for parts.

Again... it's a GREAT GREAT AMP!!!
I like Mesa Boogie and all that stuff... but this one, sounds great... and it's affordable!!!
INCREDIBLE!

I have a gibson lespaul studio, and with this amp you can really have what you want. 2 channels, bright, presence,reverb... Tubes: 2*5881 (50w), and 4*ecc83 for preamp. the speker is a really powerfull 12' Celestion unknown. there is a 16 Ohm speaker out.

I play strong heavy metal generally with my band, but at home, i play blues and rock: Wow! you cannot imagine how this amp sounds, even for jazz The clean channel add to bright and reverd is as excellent as a good Fender amp. Overdrived on the second channel, you can really think you have THE blues sound. Distortion is powerfull and natural. This amp has a really warm sound. with it,due to the big metal sound i need (Type-o, paradise lost...) I use a Digitech RP10 multieffects distortions : with the Engl real clean channel, you cannot imagine...

don't forget to plug it to the ground!!!

In France only one shop is sending it, so...

at the price, forget the rest!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!