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I always play thru tube amps. Traditionally I have preferred boutique pedals which can cost 10 times the cost of this for not as many effects. Most recently I was using a Tech21 fly rig ritchie kotzen. Which is great and with my other pedals allowed me to go direct to the PA. This blows that out of the water!. Add in all the in/out possibilities and the stellar amp modeling and it's a no brainer. Ya, it's line6...soooo what. It sounds killer. Buy it or try it and you will see. I'm 100% happy. My rig has been simplified, I can go direct, not lug an amp if I don't want to and every sound you could want is in there. Buy it.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Refurbished
The Line 6 POD HD500X works OK for metal and heavier distortion, but I personally have not been able to get a sound that I am really satisfied with for clean and moderate processing. I was hoping to use it for recording direct, but it just seems to kill a lot of the tone of the guitar. I even tried purchasing some 3rd party patches with no great improvement to my ear. It seemed to sound better after turning off the amp sims. Why buy a modeler if you don't use the models? I do like its flexibility and ease of use, and the build quality is very good. I just plan to sell it and stick with normal pedals and a mic'd amp Others players may not agree, but my ears just don't care much for it.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Love this board, lets you experiment with a vast array of pedals, amps, cabs and mics. The programming software is great and allows realtime testing of your configurations. I run both a guitar and SM58 vocal mic in parallel with it and it's sounds great. What I don't like: my biggest concern is when recording direct from the HD500 to a PC through usb, each click of a footswitch is loud on the recording. I also don't like that when you use a precreated tone setting (either the default ones that come with the board or ones available from users on the line6 website) you will have to customize them to make them sound ok on your own amp. I realize this is probably a limitation of the technology rather than poor design but it's a pain in the a##.
For me this is not an easy piece of gear to get used to because there seems to be so many different layers of adjustments and fine tuning one can do. This is the key to getting any good sounds out of the POD HD500x as well as this piece of gear demands your attention and time. I've been frustrated getting used to this but at the same time I like the challenge as I discover the different ways I can manipulate the tone and effects. It truly is a great piece of gear that I personally believe is well worth the investment and time to get used to.
After reading countless reviews I decided to upgrade from my POD XT Pro. The primary reason was I wanted more natural sounding overdriven tube amp sound and I got it. In combination with the included stomp box distortion models I'm very pleased. If that's the sound you want, this won't disappoint. I can't comment on the additional addon modules as I don't have them at this time, however If you need the heavier, bone crunching distortion this might not work for you. Oh it will give you a good amount of distortion but not that extreme buzz saw thing. I'm using this in a worship team setting and it works great. Expect to spend some time reading and tweaking. I highly recommend downloading a few patches of players you like as a starting point. I started with Lincoln Brewster's patches which was a nice sounding starting point for me.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned