Been an ENGL fan for a long while, just wanted a lunchbox sized head after we had a baby, to play in bedroom level. Sold my Gigmaster 30 for this little monster and I'm more than happy with the size, the tone and the price of the Ironball 20 head.
Before reading more, please note that I'm a bedroom guitarist who plays on his own, for a few hours in a week because of hard work and a 1 year old boy and this review will express my personal experiences as a home player, I'm not quite sure about this amps performance in small gigs or garage band practices.
I'm using the head with ENGL's paired 112 v30 cabinet and they are the perftect match. Even in the low volume level, the amp is easy to crank up without the built in gain boost. Personally, I do not like the built in gain boost switches so I'm using a modded SD-1 as a booster to enrich the gain tone. Also looping a Carbon Copy delay, BBE sonic stomp and Boss PQ-4 to enhance my tone.
Having three different types of axes (A Gibson Traditional LP, an American Fender Standard Strat and a Jackson SL-1), the Ironball is quite adaptive and responds to all types I'd like to play. I'm not much of a Fender-clean guy but the clean channel is quite "clean".
For those who live overseas and would like to purchase this amp from Thomann, I live in Turkey and my order has arrived in exact 10 days. Unfortunately, the guys in local customs were a bit curious about the package content and invited me for a customs check to pick it up. Apart from that, the packaging and postal service is more than "perfect".
Thanks to ENGL and Thomann for a great deal!
