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Whats with Line 6?

dbase

dbase

Supporting Member
Jan 3, 2008
8,228
28,214
South Jersey, USA..
#1
I was thinking of trading my Ibanez practice amp for a Line 6 LowDown LD400 Pro 2x10" 400W Bass Combo Amp. I asked a music store I go to if they carried the brand. He said no and the reason they dont is because they are a terrible amp. I thought the amp looked good, had plenty of power and wasnt too big to cart around for practice or a small gig. Why did he say that?
 
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#4
They have a bad reputation for not being reliable.

I tested out the Studio 110, the LD150 (12") and the LD 300 (15").

I really liked the sounds I could dial in out of those Line 6 amps.
I could see myself using the sound in my metal band.

And IMO the Studio 110 is one of the nicest practice amps out there. (There are better alternatives off course).

But honestly, above the 12" combo... I find them heavy. I think the 15" combos and the 2x10" are too heavy.
I would rather go to a Line 6 halfstack then to those combos. (I rather do 2 trips instead of one akward trip with a heavy combo amp.)


What also put me off is the silly layout of controls, and the lights in the buttons.
Too Fisher Price-ey I think.


I love the sound quality... durability, construction quality is something else. :hmm:
(I have no experience owning a bassamp from Line 6,... but there are many bad reviews on general quality.)



I think Line 6 guitar amps are also really nice.
If it wasn't for them being expensive I would pick up a Vetta head for my guitar.

Line 6 really got to revision their amp series. I hope they will become better.
 
#6
dbase said:
He said no and the reason they dont is because they are a terrible amp... Why did he say that?
Click to expand...
Because he wants to sell you something. He can't sell you what he doesn't have, so he has to come up with an excuse why he doesn't have Line 6. :scowl:
The real reason would have to do with Line 6's distribution policies. It's more likely that he doesn't meet their standards, not the other way around.
 
#7
MrTAteMyBalls said:
i almost bought one. i thought it sounded great and has a speaker emulating direct out. i just think some people are so against digital modeling that they wont give it a chance.
Click to expand...

I'll second that. I've been using a Line 6 Floor Pod in the rehearsal space for about a year,and love it. Like it so much I got the Line 6 Live for bass. Used it a couple of times live through a poweramp,and it sounds great. Through a big PA system with the full band,you'd never know it was digital. Still considering the HD750 as a main amp.There are those that are gear snobs that think tubes are the only way to go,and that's fine. But use your ears to determine what sounds best to you,whether it's analog or digital.
 
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#8
The 6 guitar amps are very solidly built. In the 12+ years I have been playing in bands, we have been using the same AX2 amps, and eventually moved those to practice/spare duty after replacing with veta's well over 5 years ago. We never had a single problem with them that I know of. Put the time in, and you can modify the patch to sound exactly like you need it to.
The bass amps seemed to be targeted for the entry level market, at least GC and sam ash seem to think so. They don't even carry the two separate heads. You can't sell what you don't carry.
Wes
 
#9
I bought an LD150 several years ago, used. I had absolutely no knowledge of amps and which ones are the "good" ones and which ones are "bad", name-wise. I had no brain-polluting snobbery against modeling and so forth. I simply made the choice because it sounded freaking awesome next to everything else in it`s price-range and above. As far as durable, it was pretty beat up wen I bought it, and still going strong. The "silly lights" thing? I like the amber one-touch buttons, and the "deep" scoop button - to each his own, I guess. Like I said, I had no preconceived notions; I just bought a great sounding amp. It is still, IMO, the best practice amp out there for the money. I have since bought a Spider II guitar amp, and am equally impressed. I`m pro- Line 6 all the way (except their proprietary - pedal gimmick).
 
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#10
I've have been using line 6 gear since the first pod came out. When i starting playing bass i didn't even look at other amps, i bought the LD150. It is an awesome recording and practice amp. And built like a tank, and weights as much. But weight is the last thing i like at in an amp.
 
#12
i'm not the biggest line 6 fan in the world, but credit where it's due...its modeling capabilities have improved by leaps and bounds since it first arrived on the scene.
 
#13
I've got a Line 6 Pod xt Pro running as a preamp through a power amp and my 810e, and there's no denying it sounds great. There's no way to say you can't find a very good and usable tone for any genre. Add a FBV shortboard or even longboard, and you've got yourself a magical rig, cheesy as it sounds. There's nothing wrong with Line 6 these days.

If anyone's familiar with The Devil Wears Prada, they actually recorded their latest album exclusively with POD's. Not a single amp was miked from what I hear, and it sounds fantastic.
 
#14
Been using a LD150 for more than eight years mostly for rehearsal, but I have been gigging a lot with it too. It can be tilted back and works very well as a stage monitor, especially on small stages. I almost always play with FOH, but a few times I've gigged rooms with 100+ people with my prog/punk trio without FOH and without any trouble being heard.

If you just forget about getting it to sound like the amps it is modelled after, but use the presets as a starting point, you can dial in some very nice sounds, and set to "clean" with a VT-pedal it sounds amazingly good for a 12" combo considering it's price. And I have played through quite a lot of them.

And as far as reliability goes it has never failed, I have not had a single problem with it ever. It has actually been really abused somtimes, including falling down a flight of stairs, but it is still as good as new.
 
#15
My issues with the line 6 amps are they are not up to the standards that their software is. Their software is great, state of the art, sounds great, new features, upgradeable.

Any piece of gear you buy with embedded software needs to have a USB interface port to accept backup and restore of settings, and allow for upgrades to the internal software. These lack this.

Look for a good full range amp, and add a POD or other modeler to it.
 
#16
i used to go through both a line6 Ld300 pro, but ended up using my crate bx40 instead because of all the problems this amp gave me. it would cut out, distort, and only provide low end. you could only hear the E and A strings with this thing. during practice once it turned my tone into a sound that sounded like torn paper and then fizzed out. oh and this was a pretty new amp. all i can say is that i have had bad experience with line 6.
 
#17
The music store must have been a local one with no ties to Line 6. My local Guitar Center has several different Line 6 bass amps as does Best Buy. I had the LD300 Pro and other than the weight, I loved it! It was nice having the different channels preset with the tones I wanted. I had the small floor control pedal and that was all I needed. I contemplated getting the LD400 but decided to go with something smaller and lighter. I have to disagree with the comment that the LD300 wouldn't cut through the mix. My band at the time had a very loud drummer and a guitarist with a Marshall stack. I had no problem keeping up with them!
 
#18
I personally agree with the music store. I've always found Line 6 amps to be unreliable and very stagnant tone wise (i know they have all those different settings but IMO every tone is just so processed and digital that it kills it for me) and yes, sometimes they are a tad heavy
 
#20
I always thought that Line 6 stuff sounded great. My brother had a Flextone II that i thought was the mutts nuts. But after seeing a recent gig *, I now realise that they are 'OK'. Sounds fine and pretty good, but compared to a raw tube amp, they aren't as good as you think they are!

* Richie Kotzen gig. Richie and the opening act both used Teles through Cornford MK50s. The other supporting act who went on between them, the guitarist used a Top of the range Line 6 Vetta. His tone was pretty good, he really knew how to get the best from the amp and had obviously spent time tweaking it to get the best tone out of it. If I had only heard him playing that night I wouldn't have been any the wiser. But compared to the raw tones of the Cornfords, there was no competition. The Line 6 was almost 'too' nice, the processing just couldn't reproduce the bite and rawness of a real cranked tube amp.

PS, I was there with other guitarists, one of whom is a reviewer (and was music editor) for Guitarist magazine in the UK, and they all thought the same thing. You just can beat, guitar/bass - lead - quality 'traditional' amp (be it tube or solid state in case of bass). To this end I've eschewed the modelling multi-fx and reverted to a simpler analog setup and I'm much happier with my tone. Expensive lesson learnt.
 

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