JeffB
Let it B
OK, I've only had it two days, and I already hate it 
Maybe hate is too strong of a word, but AFAIC, the Spider's are just not very good amps.
Positives:
Tons of gain. "Metal" channel will do typical scooped mid recto if thats your thing. Also with the gain backed off to about 9 oclock on this channel, it'll do a neat cranked fender type sound.
Price, I guess.
Loud for it's size.
Lightweight & portable
Looks neat and the guys who write the manuals and make the videos on the Line 6 website seem really "hip" and funny
Negatives:
First and foremost, the Marshall ("crunch") channel is pathetic. It has no warmth and sounds nothing like any marshall I've ever owned/heard/played. Tone controls hardly affect this channel. It sounds really fake..like the original digital distortions from 15 years ago (boss me-50 digital floor pedal thing..:vomit: ) The only redeeming quality is that you can switch to a different channel, thank god. Jumped input variac'ed brown sound my a$$! :yell:
Metal channel is buzzy. Much more than any rectifier I've fooled with. Anyone ever plug an old Rat or Boss Heavy Metal pedal into the clean channel of a rockman? That's "recto" as far as the designers at Line 6 are concerned
Insane..I'm not really sure why they even bothered to include this..this...this...thing. Perhaps if you have a single coil pup where the magnets are pretty much dead? Makes the metal channel sound as smooth as a baby's butt. Could they not have spent a little more time/$ tweaking the other channels instead of putting this fairly useless 4th channel in?
Clean. It's clean for sure. and sterile and very compressed. It's not fendery clean, or even jazz chorus clean. It's more like a rockman clean, but more sterile and def not as cool. OK for funk music I guess.
Effects are actually kind of fun, except you cannot get a good slow sweep chorus. I tried for 10 minutes to tweak the knob ever so slightly and I'm either sounding out of tune, or I'm into the Flanger. Delays are not bad. Flanger is pretty good. Phaser is fun to play with. Tremelo and reverb are almost as bad as the chorus.
On every channel you will hear the digital "glitching". Just wierd funky stuff.
Yeah it's a 150 dollar practice amp. I didn't expect it to sound like a Plexi,VHT or my Mesa. But It's hard to practice when the sound is so poor you don't want to play. The Behringer practice combos are similar in price and sound much warmer/more amp-like.
Perhaps "hate" is not too strong a word after all.
It's going back to Sam Ash and I'll pick up a Vox 15 watter or similar. I urge others to def not buy one of these things without trying first and a/b ing it against some other amps in the same $ range.
Maybe hate is too strong of a word, but AFAIC, the Spider's are just not very good amps.
Positives:
Tons of gain. "Metal" channel will do typical scooped mid recto if thats your thing. Also with the gain backed off to about 9 oclock on this channel, it'll do a neat cranked fender type sound.
Price, I guess.
Loud for it's size.
Lightweight & portable
Looks neat and the guys who write the manuals and make the videos on the Line 6 website seem really "hip" and funny
Negatives:
First and foremost, the Marshall ("crunch") channel is pathetic. It has no warmth and sounds nothing like any marshall I've ever owned/heard/played. Tone controls hardly affect this channel. It sounds really fake..like the original digital distortions from 15 years ago (boss me-50 digital floor pedal thing..:vomit: ) The only redeeming quality is that you can switch to a different channel, thank god. Jumped input variac'ed brown sound my a$$! :yell:
Metal channel is buzzy. Much more than any rectifier I've fooled with. Anyone ever plug an old Rat or Boss Heavy Metal pedal into the clean channel of a rockman? That's "recto" as far as the designers at Line 6 are concerned
Insane..I'm not really sure why they even bothered to include this..this...this...thing. Perhaps if you have a single coil pup where the magnets are pretty much dead? Makes the metal channel sound as smooth as a baby's butt. Could they not have spent a little more time/$ tweaking the other channels instead of putting this fairly useless 4th channel in?
Clean. It's clean for sure. and sterile and very compressed. It's not fendery clean, or even jazz chorus clean. It's more like a rockman clean, but more sterile and def not as cool. OK for funk music I guess.
Effects are actually kind of fun, except you cannot get a good slow sweep chorus. I tried for 10 minutes to tweak the knob ever so slightly and I'm either sounding out of tune, or I'm into the Flanger.
Delays are not bad. Flanger is pretty good. Phaser is fun to play with. Tremelo and reverb are almost as bad as the chorus.On every channel you will hear the digital "glitching". Just wierd funky stuff.
Yeah it's a 150 dollar practice amp. I didn't expect it to sound like a Plexi,VHT or my Mesa. But It's hard to practice when the sound is so poor you don't want to play. The Behringer practice combos are similar in price and sound much warmer/more amp-like.
Perhaps "hate" is not too strong a word after all.
It's going back to Sam Ash and I'll pick up a Vox 15 watter or similar. I urge others to def not buy one of these things without trying first and a/b ing it against some other amps in the same $ range.
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