I have a lot of amps go through my hands here, and it’s a rare occasion that something really blows me away. Plenty of amps with glowing reviews and stellar reputations, once I finally get them, I find they have their special qualities or are otherwise on-par with other high end amps - but the Savage is truly a cut above.
After a little bit of tweaking and learning some of the unique controls, this has to be one of the best sounding amps I’ve ever played. I was expecting more of a modern metal, saturated or scooped style tone based on reading online but that’s not exactly right - I would describe it to be more in the modded Marshall sound realm. It is quite unlike the Powerball/Fireball or Invader that I have in the same room, with less deep bass and a much grittier upper midrange punch. That also makes a lot of sense based on when this amp was designed, all the way back in 1993. The Powerballs and Invaders are much newer, 2000’s era amps and they are voiced and have features accordingly.
Especially when you consider the age of the amp design, the feature set is fantastic. Two effects loops, two channels with two modes each (clean + crunch 1 and crunch 2 + lead), each of which has a separate volume control and can be selected with a footswitch. It also has two master volumes and two presence controls, also footswitchable, and a “rough/smooth” switch that works on just the crunch2/lead channel. The default, and most versatile setting is “rough” which has a wider range and sounds fantastic, while the “smooth” setting drops a bit of gain while also chopping off some bass and treble, presumably for lead sounds. While I like the smooth setting, it’s definitely not the highlight of the amp, but it’s very cool to have the option especially right on the footswitch.
Speaking of the footswitch, I do not have the original ENGL Z-10 footswitch, with it’s very funny looking parallel-port looking connector. In a very interesting design choice though, this amp also has 3 1/4 inch jacks on the rear that allow you to use up to 3 separate 2-button footswitches, easily and commonly found, to switch the same 6 functions you could have used the original Z-10 for. Now that’s a handy feature - whether you lost the Z-10, or left it at home, or bent a pin - it’s cheap and easy to find 1/4 footswitches and could probably save your show if you toured with this amp.
Of course, being feature rich many times does seem to cause some compromises with tone, and while there are a few limitations to be aware of while dialing in this amp, it’s really an exception to that rule with some of the best crunch and high gain tones I’ve ever heard from an amp. Check out the video below for a demo of the available sounds and a walkthrough of the schematic.