AMT Preamps vs Lines6 Helix Somp Preamps

[IMENATOR]

Long story short, from a practical point of view I get a good tone and portability using AMT SS-20 tube preamp pedal with a portable SS power amp into 1x12 cab with Celestion speaker. Sometimes a pair of 1x12 for stereo. Amp in the room with a real tube preamp sound.

Now, from a GAS point of view I do see the benefit of trying modern modelers like Line6 Stomp, my pedalboard would become even smaller and the concept of snapshots sounds like the way to go two switch among clean/rhythm/lead without tap dancing pedals. Not to mention if I ever need a replacement SS-20 those are made in Russia so not sure if I will ever be able to get a new one again.

So my question is: Has any of you ever compared HX preamps vs AMT preamps? Like a HX Marshall JCM800 preamp vs AMT M2 for example? Or the HX Soldano preamp vs AMT S2? Or anything from HX vs AMT tube preamps? Is there something missing - BASED ON REAL EXPERIENCE - that would make the HX preamp not as enjoyable as analog preamps?

The reasoning human being in me says "move forward, modelers sound good and are mode convenient than ever" but the guitarist in me says "old sounds good enough, new will never be as good and you will regret it after spending lots of money".

Remember, I am not into "direct to PA" sound, I am rather into "amp in the room".

[80's_Thrash_Metal]

I've used 2 of the AMT preamps before, and found them to very good tone wise. My application was very different from yours though, I ran them in front of, and into the effects return of cranked Marshall half stacks.

[dystrust]

TL;DR: nothing missing, but you'll probably have to configure things differently.

Specifics probably depend on the preamp; I would expect the Recto and Soldano models to be very similar at least tone-wise to their AMT counterparts. IME the Helix does an excellent job of modeling the feel of the amp it's pretending to be, so that may be a bit of an adjustment if you're used to the AMT version. The M2 OTOH will probably require a larger adjustment. Specifically the M2 has A LOT more gain than any actual or modeled JCM800 I've ever encountered. That doesn't mean that you wouldn't be able to achieve usable sounds with the Helix, but you may need to use one of the modeled boost pedals along with the JCM800 model to get that tone or maybe another model entirely (Bogner or Friedman for example).