- #8
- Publié par
FYR le 04 Avr 2004, 20:19
j'oubliais, il y a un comparatif entre pod 1 et v-amp 1 :
Where The V-Amp Shines
The thing you notice right away are the lights. This is definitely one of the V-amp's good qualities. When you power it up, the lights turn on from top to bottom, making a cool looking "wave". The lights display the setting you are playing through. Switch patches, and the lights change to reflect the patch you are on.
The V-amp has a great User Interface. The lights help, but overall it is pretty straight forward. You can access 95% of what you need to from the front panel. I say 95% because I have not seen the editor. I am assuming that you can have more control of the modulation effects (Chorus, Flanger, etc.) with SoundDiver. At least I hope you can. The only hidden items are the cabinet, reverb, and noise gate types. They are represented as numbers rather than words.
The included footswitch, and carry bag was a nice touch. The carry bag kind of looks like a guitar gig bag, without the neck portion. The Footswitch is just a standard two button footswitch. That means you can replace it easily if it gets lost or damaged. The footswitch takes you up or down channels in a bank. Each bank has 5 patches! Add that to 25 Banks, and you have 125 patch locations. Sheesh!
The Aux In was a great idea. You get a stereo 1/4" jack to plug in your CD player, etc. There is also an AUX Level roller that controls the volume of your inputted (and unprocessed) sounds.
When you power off the V-amp, it remembers EXACTLY how you had it set up when you turned it off. If you were editing a patch, it comes back up in the exact same setting. Tricky....
The Tuner tracks almost as well as my Boss TU-12H. There are 5 lights on the display that lead you to the proper pitch. The nice thing is that not all of them are the same. The middle one is green, and the two next to it are red arrows.
The V-Amp sounds pretty good. There is a discrepancy in amp model volumes, like POD, but they sound good overall. The added effects are nice to have. As I mentioned above, the Ping Pong Delay is really great. You could almost get dizzy with a set of headphones on and this effect going. The Auto Wah tracked rather well. Funny how the Line6 users complained about not being able to have compression and chorus. The V-amp has it. Looks like Behringer did their market research.
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Where The V-Amp Lacks
While reading through the manual, I noticed that in BIG BOLD LETTERS it said to NEVER plug the V-amp into it's power supply if the power supply is already connected to power. There is NO on/off switch. This is kind of pain. I like to leave my POD on my desktop. It is convenient to just be able to turn off the switch, rather than unplugging it. Unfortunately, you have to unplug the V-Amp if you want it off.
It's made of plastic. Unlike POD's Die-Cast Metal Frame, the V-Amp is made of plastic. The blue coating is a bit gritty, and is pleasing to the touch. But, it just doesn't have the rugged feel to it.
You will need to request for a version of SoundDiver V-Amp from the store you get it at.
The manual is not very good at all. It describes the features, but doesn't really go any further than that. As a matter of fact the V-amp comes with about 8 manuals, all for different languages. The English version is an addendum.
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Overall review
I spent a good few hours really listening to POD, and the V-amp. And the V-amp was winning. Next to the V-amp POD sounds a bit distant. The 24 bit analog to digital converter that the V-amp has, does it some justice. The V-amp has warm tones, very cool STEREO effects, and the distortions are fat.
But then I found it. The one thing that makes POD shine above all the rest. I found it on the POD Clean amp model, and it was the same across the board after that. It's that point that the "tubes" just start to break up. That sweet spot you can push into with pick attack, and then back off. Line6 nailed it good. The V-amp got scratchy at this point. Almost as if it didn't know how to react. The V-amp wanted to turn dirty, but still kept the clean tone there. It didn't introduce rich overtones like POD.
Behringer did a great job with the V-amp. It's stereo effects, and amp modeling are truly top notch. The other creative ideas they brought to the table, like aux in, and lights, were great ideas. It's a compliment that I could only really find one thing lacking in the tone.
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