Engl Straight 100 112 Combo

early 80's i suppose; one of the older Engl amps. It's a very versatile amp, i play jazzy stuff to heavy metal and it does it all. it has three (two) channels, of which one clean and two overdriven. with one normal lead and one leda boost channel. it has an effects loop and footswitch connectors, and also provides line out and extra speaker cabinet connections. it's a basic, "straight" amp, but with all the switches it turns out to be a very versatile amp. i use it everywhere : at home, in the studio, on the stage. it is certainly loud enough and the celestion is definitely a workhorse. it's an all-tube amp off course, with ecc83 in the preamp and el34 in the poweramp.

I use strats and pauls mainly, so single coils and humbuckers. It covers an incredible range of music styles as it does jazz&blues tones but also the very high-gain things for metalsounds. As most high-gain amps, it can be noisy, but not in a noisy way; it's just charming. The clean channel always stays well-defined, with a very bright sparkle on top of it. The distortion is mean, engl-mean. I played a lot of amps and i can say the engl character of distortion is the best for me.

This amp is german. I use it all the time without back-up and it never let me down. It's built to last. and so, it's quite heavy also.

I never had to deal with engl, but i heard there service is marvelous. so i rate them that way untill they let me down ;-).

I've been playing for thirty years now, and i own eightteen guitars at the moment, mostly strats and pauls.

If it were stolen, i'd search for another straight, but they're hard to find these days as they're oldies. I love the sincerity of these amps and the way they form their own character to suit your playing style.

The comparision with other amps is easy : engl is top of the bill. compared to other Engl-amps, i can say that this amp has maybe one of the purest and brutal tones in one. But still, tastes are different for everyone; but this is mine !

First of all, it's an all-tube amp. With a Celestion 12' it's quite loud. All I can say about what it offers is that I can't imagine any features that I'd need more. The amp delivers. It has 2 channels with only one input jack, the channels can be footswitched. It's got an FX loop and Accutronics spring reverb. But that's not unusual! What makes it a versatile amp is a LOT of swithes that alter the sound. I counted 8 excluding power, standby and clean/lead. Just about every frequency can be boosted using a switch. There's also another footswitch which is a nice touch. You can turn off/on the Lead Boost (which, when off makes a warm, jazzy sound) and toggle reverb if you want to. Never used it, though.

You can get deep, warm clean and beefy lead easily. I mentioned the lead but there's a lot more to say about it: It's a massacre. It can send you into orbit. Bsides, I can get any sound I want. Period. With a little play about the potentiometers and switches I can make it a warm Fender or a beefy, crunchy Boogie. Simple as that. It's also very loud (as 100 watts can be).

Played it a while, seems reliable and never failed...

Never had to deal with them, though one can get a manual on every model on Engl's website.

Simply rocks. I can't imagine needing another ever.
Wonder if you can get those in the USA. Doubt. Who cares, we can't get their Mesas here so it's fair :)