The ESP Guitar Company

To better understand what a preamp can do for you, it's probably a good idea to learn more about amplifiers in general.

Typical guitar amps have at least two stages of amplification: a preamplifer and a power amplifier. The electrical signal coming straight from your guitar is very tiny and needs to be made larger, so the preamp's job is to act as a gain stage to make your guitar signal louder, and to shape the amp's overall tone and character, which is why you have processing tools such as EQ (treble, mid, bass) in an amp's preamp section. After the signal is appropriately enlarged and processed, it gets sent to a power amp that is used to make it even louder, and able to drive a speaker (or multiple speakers) in a cabinet, or one that's built into a combo amp.

With the ENGL Modern Rock Preamp E530, you get a tube preamp with all the great tone for which ENGL is world renowned, in a single rack space. If you're like a lot of people in the modern era, you might not need a power amp and speakers unless you play live (in which case, ENGL has plenty of great amps and cabinets built for that specific purpose). The E530 Tube Preamp has four channels, because the Clean and Lead channels each have a Lo and Hi-Gain option. Each channel has its own tone control, and the lead channel even has two midrange controls (Lo Mid and Hi Mid).

One note: there is a miniature 1.5-watt power amplifier in the E530 that drives the headphone output, allowing you to practice, record, and play without the need for any additional power amp or other gear. When it's time to get loud onstage, the E530 includes a stereo output to feed a power amp, and a frequency-compensated stereo line out for direct recording. The output level can be increased by up to 15 dB if required. All the sweet ENGL tube preamp sounds are available in this little 1U rackmount box!

And one other thing to consider... if you're looking for an economical way to get ENGL tone for playing and recording, you won't find any more affordable way than to use this preamp! Also, when it's time to expand your rig for live gigs, ENGL also offers the rackmount Poweramp 50/50 E840, providing two 50 watt channels of pure power.

Features:
• 4 Channels: Clean, Crunch, Soft Lead, Heavy Lead
• All Tube Rack Preamp
• 1U Rackmount format
• Preamp Defeat
• Headphone
• 1.5 W stereo Poweramp
• Stereo Frequency Compensated Line Out
• Stereo Line Out (uncompensated)
• Stereo Serial FX Loop

Sound Options:
• Bright
• Contour
• Gain Lo/Hi

Controls:
• Gain (each Channel)
• 3-Band EQ (Clean/Crunch)
• 4-Band EQ (Soft Lead/Heavy Lead)
• Clean Volume
• Lead Volume
• Headphone / Guitar Cab selector Switch
• Line Level (0dB – 15dB)

Preamp Tubes:
• 2 x Engl ECC83 / 12AX7

Dimensions:
• 19″ 1U

Weight:
• 8.8 lbs (4 kg)

ESP distributes ENGL amplifiers in the USA and Canada. Find a list of our ENGL dealers here!