Spider II / V-Ampire ou V Amp 2 ?

Sound Quality: 6
First of all let me preface my comments by saying that me comments on the sound here are based only on the 12" Jensen speaker that the unit comes with... others have said that the v-ampire sounds much better when you use other cabinets... that might be so, in fact I believe them, but I want to help out those users who want to know how this amp sounds with the speaker it comes with... Let me also say that I have no ill will toward behringer or any deep love for line6... I own prdoucts from both companies and like them... In fact I like my behringer v-amp 2 "blue pod" more than my line6 pod 2.3... I thought that since the v-amp 2 sounded so good that the v-ampire probably sounded good too... but I was wrong... I know many will say sound is "subjective" but hear me out...


First I used two guitars to test the behringer v-ampire versus the Line6 Spider II (NOT the first spider amp released years ago).
The first guitar was an Ibanez RG570 with stock pickups (v7 s1 and v, which are passive pickups. The second guitar was a Jackson Soloist from 1992 modified with EMG pickups 81 and 85, which are active of course--battery and all...


I am sorry to report that the heavy distortions did not sound as good on the v-ampire as they did on the spider II. On the spider II the heavy distortions were very crisp with good bass and fat thick midrange... it was the midrange and to some extent the treble that was lacking on the v-ampire. For example, my favorite patch on the v-amp 2 is 6,E the savage beast distortion--very good for metal... but this patch sounded weak (bad mids and muffled treble) and "muddy" on the v-ampire---I was so disappointed. Switching Guitars (Ibanez to Jackson) did not help too much either... I tried the other distortions on the v-ampire (you can see I like hard rock and metal sounds) and with one exception I was not happy (the one exception was better but still disappointing).


Did I give up on the v-ampire... no... I wanted it to sound good... I opened the manual and read about the configurations: S1, S2, S3, L1, L2... L1 is the default and its horrible everything sounds like its muffled... treble's are not alive even if you boost them with the knobs.... I tried L2, which uses the ultra-g speaker sim and things sounded better--better trebles--more alive but still not as full and rich as the spider II insane patch (actually preset D on the spider II which uses insane). For completeness sake I tried S1 = not good, which makes sense since its not for live sound anyway; s2= just as bad as s1, s3= better but still not great....


What is good on the v-ampire is the clean tones, 6,D is very nice, and the 65 watts volume is fine (I know its says 100 and 2x50 but with the 12" 8 ohm jensen you only get 65 watts--see the manual) and the effect were totally superior to the spider II which has terrible effects... line6 always manages to screw up the effects...


So I am returning the v-ampire... I guess my point is that if you are just going to use the 12" jensen speaker beware and try to test it out before buying it....