Fireball or 6505?

[ttiwguitar]

Alright, I just sold my old Peavey Ultra Plus and cab in favor of a Dual Rec and Mesa 4x12 Traditional cab. You might remember my thread asking if I can run two heads at once.. well, I've decided that I'm going to take back the Dual Rec since me and the other guitarist in my band have just decided it's not the tone for us. I've narrowed down my choices to the Fireball or the 6505.. the Fireball is slightly more expensive if I buy it from Rocksolidamps, but it's no big deal. Are they similar tone-wise at all? Is one more durable than the other? What are the advantages? And any clips of either head would be really helpful. Thanks guys.

 

[Torniojaws]

I don't think 6505/5150 is at all similar to Fireball. Fireball, along with Powerball is more about low mid/bass oomph with a just slightly scooped mid tone and clear treble, while 6505/5150 is all about midrange boost and very sharp tone.

It depends on you which you like more.

 

[006]

LOL the 5150/6505 is a fucking tank dude. The Fire/Powerball is also a tank, I own the 5150 and the PowerBall, both are great amps to me. For anything extremely heavy, I like the PBall more. For more technical stuff...the 5150.

~006

 

[ttiwguitar]

LOL the 5150/6505 is a fucking tank dude. The Fire/Powerball is also a tank, I own the 5150 and the PowerBall, both are great amps to me. For anything extremely heavy, I like the PBall more. For more technical stuff...the 5150.

~006

Oh yeah, 5150s are definitely built well, I'd just heard some things about Engls being unreliable.

 

[Fragle]

check out the engl savage vs 5150 thread for my opinion on that subject

however, i gotta give the ENGL one thing: it NEVER caused any problems whatsoever. definitely built well. the 5150 on the other hand had some fx loop issues...dirty jacks i think. i don't care cause i never use the loop, but it should be mentioned anyways

 

[_RiseInside_]

Torniojaws said it all sound-wise.
it´s a personal issue.

 

[Hexer]

as I said in the other thread: what you like better sound-wise is highly subjective!

I dont have much experience with 5150s as I have never owned one. but I can say, that the Powerball is very well built. the Fireball should be just the same as far as that goes.

 

[JeffTD]

Fireball/Powerball = the shit for Meshuggah type chug stuff.

5150 = the shit for more technial, fast riffing based stuff.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Fireball/Powerball = the shit for Meshuggah type chug stuff.

5150 = the shit for more technial, fast riffing based stuff.

I dunno about that. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

 

[RemoWilliams]

Absolute tone corrupts absolutely,

 

[JeffTD]

Not the only shit, but out of these two, that's where I'd place em.

 

[guitarguru777]

Not the only shit, but out of these two, that's where I'd place em.

He didnt call you a shit bro ... lol

Thats a quote from Yoda ... Only a Sith (i.e. an evil JEDI) deals in absolutes .... lol

As for the amps i prefer the 5150 because of the push you get in the mids. i was never one for scooped sound.

 

[JeffTD]

He didnt call you a shit bro ... lol

Thats a quote from Yoda ... Only a Sith (i.e. an evil JEDI) deals in absolutes .... lol

Erm... yeah. I realized that when I posted.

I meant that the 5150 and Powerballs weren't the only shits (as in, "the shit") for the styles listed.

 

[006]

For the record I knew exactly what everyone was saying the entire time. GuitarGuru777 FTW!

~006

 

[Torniojaws]

Mind you, the Powerball is not *that* scooped (like Mesa etc), it's just mildly. However, with a good EQ pedal you'll be rocking those mids

 

[Fragle]

"Mind you, the Powerball is not *that* scooped (like Mesa etc), it's just mildly. However, with a good EQ pedal you'll be rocking those mids "
here i'll have to disagree. the blackmore i had (which is supposed to be a stripped down savage 120, which again is one of the more midrangey voiced engls) suffered (imho) from a SEVERE lack of mids. the PB i used once was obviously even worse. imho, even the recto doesn't have that extreme scoop built in it's voicing, you have to dial that in...surely, a recto can never get as mid heavy as a marshall, but i seriously doubt it's possible to dial in as much mids on a PB as on a recto.
besides, the mesa DC5 i used to own was almost on par with the 5150 as far as i midrange is concerned, so not all mesa's are scooped to hell and back

 

[Torniojaws]

One thing to note that the Powerball (at least) is very picky when it comes to cabinets. It's commonly noted that on a less-well built cabinet (like Marshall 1960's have been noted), the sound will be very bad compared to heavy cabinets, such as Engl's own Vintage cabs. All the reviews (official and personal) state that the cabinet affects the sound a lot on the Powerball. With the Engl Vintage cabs, you'll get a lot of middle It seems they are built to compensate the slight mid scoop. Personally, I always have my Powerball with mids at 10 (max), while it seems people sometimes can be a little too conservative with the EQ on Powerball (mid at around 5). Give it all

 

[Fragle]

there's nothing worse than having to buy the matching cab in order to get a halfway decent sound of an amplifier that you spent over 1k on. i personally LOVE the bog standard 1960A/B loaded with 75w celestions....i played them all, imho it's the best cab there is - for most amps anyway.

 

[andrea:::shank]

my two cents: i've owned a dual rectifier and currently own a PB, and from my experience i can say that the most mid-scooped sounding of the two is undisputably the DR and i would hardly say that the PB is a lo-mids oriented amp, especially if compared to the DR. Instead, I think it has a fair amount of force in the 4-5 khz freq zone which I absolutely like. I use the open mids function engaged and the mids at two o'clock, I don't have any "lost-in-the-mix" issue (contrarily to as it was with the DR)

BUT

I have to admit that the blackmore (my other guitarist owns one) and, from what I heard from bands using it, the 5150/6505 are a bit more mid-friendly than the PB

As for the cab thing: I have a vht 4x12 with p-50's, which probably helps in terms of clarity and tone, and the engl 412 vintage is a great cab for sure, but I wouldn't say that engls sound that BAD with other cabs... check for example this band, they have blackmores with standard marshall cabs loaded with 75's, plus I happened to get good tone with the PB plugged to 1960's and the infamous (to many people) 412j's by peavey...

thanks for the attention and have a nice weekend everybody!

andrea