Guitar Gear Forum

New Rack Day!!!!

A friend of mine gave me this Carvin FET1000 power amp a few weeks ago. I already had the G-Major, Power Supply and case laying around, so I basically just needed a preamp.

I considered getting the Synergy Syn2 again, but the cost was a bit much. I found this ENGL 530 on Reverb for a good price and that's one of my favorite preamps so it was an easy decision.



It sounds really good. This power amp is brutally loud and clean but initially I did not like it because being an unit meant for Pro Audio, it has a high frequency range that is just too wide from guitar. I solved that by placing the G-Major between the preamp and power amp (instead of the preamp effects loop) and used the internal EQ to cut high frequencies. Tried a few different frequencies and a -6dB cut around 10.3Khz with a wide Q did the trick. Which is weird because I initially thought I'd have to cut at lower frequency but it sounded muffled when I did that. Oh well. Now it sounds like a guitar power amp should.

The thing is heavy as fuck and it will never leave the house but it's a cool rig to have for not a lot of money.

Congrats! Always wanted an e530. I've heard they're similar to the Thunder, but who knows (that said, most ENGLs ive played sound generally similar lol). You've got those separate mid controls on the e530 and that was one of my favorite features on the Morse

The E530 seems like a decent price. The E840 is like twice the price, so I guess the transformers really add a lot to the price.

I saw the video pop up on my youtube feed and was wondering when it would appear here haha

I need to make a better video, Kimmi was rushing me to go meet some friends with her and I had to rush and it messed up my rack presentation I'll make another one and post here lol

spawnofthesith wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 4:50 pm Congrats! Always wanted an e530. I've heard they're similar to the Thunder, but who knows (that said, most ENGLs ive played sound generally similar lol). You've got those separate mid controls on the e530 and that was one of my favorite features on the Morse

The ENGLs definitely have their core tone. But the dual mids really set this preamp apart in terms of versatility. I wish more amps had that.

Do the dual mids work regardless of which gain level you have set on the button? I figured one mid was for gain lo and the other for gain hi?

Spaced Out Ace wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 6:24 pm Do the dual mids work regardless of which gain level you have set on the button? I figured one mid was for gain lo and the other for gain hi?

On the morse at least it was splitting the mids for the same gain channel so you could for example boost the hi mids but scoop the lo mids at the same time. Very cool. I am pretty sure its the same on the e530

Spaced Out Ace wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2024 6:24 pm Do the dual mids work regardless of which gain level you have set on the button? I figured one mid was for gain lo and the other for gain hi?

They work on both modes. Hi and Lo are mid frequencies not gain modes.

I may have mistaken that with some of the models having two treble controls. Either way, that's cool!