Re: Are Line 6 Flextone I's rare?
Personally, I dont think the Flextone 1's were anything to write home about. I think the II's and III's have alot better tone.
I play the Flextone II XL. The tone controls, effects, and huge array of amps make it a contender. I owned a Mustang I v.2 (Fender) and it has some nice features. The tape echo was studio quality. But after playing guitar on if for 6 months, and writing some damn good guitar riffs and solos. I surely needed to switch out to a bigger amp.
I bought a Bugera 333-222 infinium, or whatever it is, on a whim. It was huge mistake. My gut instinct is never to listen to sales people. But I called on the phone and talked a sales guy from Chuck Levins in Wheaton (Go Joan Jett, she's from Wheaton, MD) he said 'No we don't carry Bugera. Guitarist hate Bugera." "I said really. I don't think so"
Sales people are correct once every one million years. So if your guitar sale person says that the dinasaurs are going to die out. I always say "Yeah Right"
My response sounds logical. But this time the dinasaurs died out.
The Bugera 333-222 did suck. It was too loud, no nuances, and was too sizzley. All the great synthy, liquidy, violony fluid aspects of playing legattos, sweep scales, arpeggiations, scream notes, were dude gone with Bugera.
It was a lead guitar players nightmare. Bugera shot me into the 1963, and thought I was the white Jimmy J Hendrix. Even EVH states "I wasn't trying to sound like Hendrix."
So I returned that amplifier that was damned in the guitar players hell. That's right. Back to Musicians Friend. "Your refund will be on your credit card in 3-5 business days."
Meanwhile I had time to weep. When I stopped crying, I looked up at my laptop.
Stopped crying. (LOL)
Then I started to play different guitar demos. Lots of em. Started studing the different preamps. Started to check out the tube configuraion. Started to want to buy American.
Lets face Soldano, Fender, Line 6, Mesa Boogie, Audix, Shure, they rock. They're american. Their products are higher quality. Same with Vox, and Marshall. Those are proven great for hard rock, and metal, and rock n roll, for that matter pop.
So I played about 100 hrs of demos. Then learned. I found my amp. The Flextone II XL.
The models are outstanding. They have mesa boogie Rectifier, Double Rectifier, VOX 15 AC, 30 AC (without headroom Edges does of U2), dumbel (Rare and expensive dual distortion/clean SRV baby), Marshall Plexi 68, Jazz Chorus 120, and of Soldona 100 SLO my favorite amp of all time.
So to get back to Flextone I, it may have been a good amp. But I suspect that II, III had some improvements. My amp is over 15 years yound. It shows almost no sign of aging. The sound is amazing.
