I wasn’t gonna say it before since everyone was loving their Engl’s, but yes I agree they do sound very compressed and processed, but most of them are very tight and have lots of growl and are fun to play. A good modded Marshall though can outgrowl any Engl and get even tighter than all of them except maybe the Invader and feel at least as fun to play, while being way way more organic/lively and more open/less compressed.
That being said I own still an Engl SE EL34 and plan to keep it. It still very much has that Engl sound (compression, inorganic and all), but there’s a certain way it’s bottom end hits you that none of my other 17 amps can match (like my Wizard MTL, Cameron modded Marshall’s, ccv, Mark iii++ coliseums) and it has lots of growl. Definitely my favorite Engl