Victor Smolski is a metal guitarist of the modern kind and is one of the world’s best at his craft. His guitar playing has everything it needs: technique, tone and attitude. For his signature amp, we needed to harness all the power, attack and low end we could muster. The amp draws its power from four 6L6GC tubes in the power amp stage, and is tubes to deliver everything from balladic clean moments to crashing riff thunderstorms and sizzling solos.

Each pair of channels (Clean and Crunch, and Lead 1 and Lead 2) share an EQ. The ‘mid-voiced’ function affects all four channels, but you can refine it on channels 3 and 4. Activate ‘Depth Punch’ to unleash an extra portion of low end in the power amp stage – tone doesn’t get chunkier! All this power must somehow be tamed, so we deviated from the typical ENGL front grille for this amp… and used hand-welded chains. The Snakeskin optics do the rest and make the E646 a purebred metal amp. Not for nothing are the words “straight to hell” inscribed directly above the input jack…