Many times over the years have I been in this position. I have spent a fortune on kit that in one way or another promises the earth (don't they all?) and after a while - I have taken a careful view of the equipment, compared it against all others (which this site goes some way of achieving) and have then concluded the good bits, the bad bits and everything in between.

There is no alternative to going through this problem and before you're through you WILL go there too.

But what's the good, the bad and the ugly of the Engl E670, or for that matter what about Engl themselves and the employees, the failings, the warranties etc.

On this page, I cut the crap and get down to business about EXACTLY how good the Engl E670 is with it's 4x12 V60 cab, how good (or bad) the company is, what you can expect to pay and everything else in between, so read on - and learn!

I guess that I'll start with the good bits...

I bought my amp from a company within Europe. This was simply because here in the UK most of the dealers I visited that sold Engl amps seemed to not stock the better models (or worse did not know what Engl even made) or tried hard to sell me something else they had in stock.

I'm picky. So I carried on looking around until one day I got fed up with looking and decided to actually buy an Engl amp - but which one?

I looked around for evermore to find tracks of musicians using the better Engl amps. When you do this you rapidly find that there are many musicians that you are familiar with already who use Engl amps! So I listened and listened. I wanted either an E660 or an E670 - which were both Special Editions - the E660 being the Special Edition of the Savage 120.

Getting a little annoyed at not being able to buy one (who knows what the UK distributor is doing) I looked on Ebay. To my surprise there was a German company selling both models on there - and they would ship to the UK - so they should - this is now Europe!

Basically it was the Guitar Centre Cologne who got my business (also Beyers Music is an associated company) and the two guys as contacts were great - Winnie & Dennis...  So now you know where to buy...

Don't waste your time with dealers who don't care - these guys are the business - here's the number: Tell them Tony Mckenzie from the UK sent you!
 

0049-221-2826571

When I received the amp it was factory fresh (smelled good) and had never been opened. The E670 is an expensive amp so I checked it out carefully.

When I plugged this amp in and eventually turned it on after reading the manual VERY carefully it fired up first go. I guess the settings were still there from the factory because the sounds were great rock tones.

The manual is a little heavy - but not as heavy as the amp! (which weighs about 50 Kilos!) but it is worth reading the manual carefully. There is info included from Horst Langer - the Designer - and he offers some great insight in to the reasoning behind the design of the E670 and how you can get the best out of a given feature in real life.

 

The manual is thorough and the input of Horst Langer made it excellent.
I wanted to control this amp with a Ground Control from Digital Music Corp. which I have used with the TriAxis kit. I did not buy the Engl midi pedal, simply because I have more midi control than NASA right here in my studio - so there was little point.

I also had a Boss GT8 which I wanted to control the E670 with - read what happened with the GT8 under E670 in use to find out what happened with that.  I plugged in the Ground Control and it worked fine first go - and has worked ever since.

At this time I used a Marshall 4x12 slanted front cab and that worked fine with the E670, but was in my view a little thin.

I needed to ask a question about MIDI and the implementation applied to the E670 so I sent an email, and quite quickly received a reply.
 

 

But this was not any old reply - this was an email back from the designer himself - Horst Langer. Horst answered my question as completely as anyone could, so the response here was exceptional.

I bought the Engl Cab second hand. The reasoning for this was again down to cost. The particular cab listed at around Ј500.00 in the UK, and even after discounts the cost of shipping from Europe was bad.

No one had one for me to try with the E670 so again I checked out every single source including Harmony Central for info. It was all good - so I bought a not very old one for Ј340.00 and collected it, plugged it it - hey presto - a sound to kill for.

 

 

 

Now let's move on a little to the not quite so good bits...

When the amp arrived, the front facia had come unstuck from the front of the amp. This was not a major problem and it had happened in transit. I carefully removed the chassis and refitted the front aluminium bezel... there as good as new.

But it should be - it was new!

I found the information in the manual about MIDI a little incomplete and it took a number of emails to Horst to determine what I needed to know. It could have been the translation (Horst speaks better German than I do!). Either way, Horst provided the answers to all my questions.

I felt that the dealer would not have been sufficiently equipped to answer my very specific query - but Horst was the best guy to respond.

And the bad bits...

The cost of this Engl E670 was very high. I will not disclose what I paid, but it was cheaper than anywhere else in Europe or the rest of the world - Dennis & Winnie did a great job on price and shipping.

BUT - this amp cost the same basically as a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier here in the UK - and that's an arm and a leg - Mesa are high priced kit.

But not as High as the list price on the E670 which I believe was a cool 4000.00 Euros!

Like I said, I did not pay list price - but some people do. Mesa distributors are bad for upping the price in their respective countries (just visit the USA and buy a Triple Recto for just US$1700.00) here in the UK - Ј1800.00 - that's nearly US$2900.00. Someone is taking the ****.

 

Remember Engl amps are made here in Europe (at least this one was) and labour in Europe is high costing. But if you're more expensive than a top brand that's imported from the USA included in the price then this will lose business - and Engl in my view are at least as good and probably better overall.

So - those are the good, the not so good and the bad points as I see them as a regular user - just like you.

What if the amp malfunctions? I'll ship it back to the Factory in Germany - simple really, most dealers would not know where to start anyway.

These are all my personal views. All Trademarks Acknowledged.

Thank you Dennis & Winnie for your service - it really was as good as you said.