Hi

That doesn't sound like a great experience

Some possibly daft questions first.

When going to PA, exactly how do you have your POD HD500 set up?  (physical signal chain, physical switch positions, Input source, amp model type (PRE or otherwise), output mode)?

When going into your Egnater from the POD, same question as above.   Does it have an FX loop with dry/wet control?

What make/model are your studio headphones?

Have you by any chance compared your HD500 with another one?

Have you updated to the latest firmware (1.40) AND without retaining your old patches as you did so AND by resetting your POD's Global Parameters (inc recalibrating your expresssion pedal) after you did so?

Headphones are never going to sound exactly the same way as an amp and speaker combination (PA or guitar amp).  Tones need to be dialed in at near gig level through guitar amp or PA to avoid the Fletcher-Munson effect.

Nick

The Problem

1-Making patches in headphone rarely translates the same on real speaker/Speakers and in the future to save yourself the grief, start editing patches on real speaker and confirm later on headphone. If you utilize a lot of stereo tricks that ends you up with sound very wide stereo image in your headphones, in general that patch will translate somewhat phasy and loose on you real speaker regardless what modeler or effect processor you use. HD500 is no different. Very wide stereo image in headphones sound beautiful and big, but thin, phasy and loose on real speaker

unless you use a plugin or whatever you can find to SUM the stereo sound to MONO in your heaphones as you edit to insure that the artificats won't be there so you're patches would be mono compatible and still they will not translate 100%.

2-Your guitar Amp is MONO and the hedaphones are stereo and there will always be a difference but there also are compromises that might get you where you want to be.

The Solution

The solution is not 100% but it's the best that I can come with to get you as close as I know how to the sound you hear in you headphone, but never exactly because I don't think that can be done regardless of gear witout completely editing the patches specifically for the gear your connected to.

AFter making sure that you have the correct setting to what your connecting to (Direct for PA or MIXER, POwer AMp, combo etc for other connections)

In pod HD when you load any of your patches try to modify the Mixer settings of the POD

1-When connected to combo I recommend that  you

   a-MUTE Channel B by lowering the fader in HD Edit

    b- Make sure that channel A is Centered (not left or right).  If there are effects in Channel B that you must have, simply drag them to the A channel. FOr dual amp patches try solution 2

2-When connecting to a mixer try moving the channels to anything but HARD LEFT, Hard Right. Try 35 or 45 or any other numbers for both the Channel A and B and if that doesn't work , try using the solution I provided for when connecting to Combo.

Remember that you will have to adjust the volume on your AMP Channel because you will get more volume as you move the Mixer channels close to center. It's very likely that you might need to lower the AMP channel volume.

what is it about your headphone sound that you're missing when you go through the PA?  I use my HD500 in a small bedroom and it definitely has a different sound in headphones vs. through my monitors.  most of this is because my walls aren't padded, so there's a good bit of natural reverb.  this also causes interference, which tends to dampen highs a bit more.  even if i did dampen the reverb from the walls, there would still be interference from one speaker to the other.  finally, neither my headphones nor my monitors are true FRFR, so they're gonna sound a bit different just on their own.  Another thing is we'll often create patches at a different volume at home then we actually use them at live, and this contributes to a tonal difference.

if you take all these factors into account and compensate for them when you're dialing in patches at home, you should be ok.

Note, this is just for mono patches.  If you're using stereo effects/routing, then you additionally need to follow the advice above.

(sorry, this is perhaps a very bad and poor English)

I'm a POD user since 1998.

There is something I can't understand, in his output's concept. Line6 says "there is interaction between real amp circuitry and real speakers, we take care of it".

OK.

NOW, let's go to define our needs: playing live with sounds we get at home from our amp/cab system and feeding PA with a cab+mic/sim signal.

1) POD Amp model > No cab > [Power Amp Output mode] > FX rtn of Guitar Ap > Real Cab xxx

In this case, there is a good signal for feeding the real cab, but the real speakers got interaction with the real amp, not the modeled one. Line6 must explain (if) how the Amp Model is working when you select "No Cab". May be as a fake load was connected to the speaker out of the modeled amp?

The actual problem with this configuration is: I can't perform Live earing sound from my real Amp+Cab system (having the correct feedback over my guitar) and at the same time send a cab&mic simulated signal to the PA or a recording board.

If you play in Jimi Hendrix style, you need feedback.

2) POD Amp model > Cab model xxx > [Power Amp Output mode] > FX rtn of Guitar Ap > Real Cab xxx

This way sounds good to me, the tone is nearly the same as 1) (no cab, feeding the xxx real cab) and theoretically there is a correct simulation of the amp/cab model.

However, the same big problem as 1): no recordable signal I can get from my POD, as the Output mode is not mic/simulated. I need to mic the real cab... Not realy a good Idea, having a device that is capable of any cab and mic simulation.

3) POD Amp model > Cab model xxx > [Studio Direct] > FX rtn of Guitar Ap > Real Cab xxx

Now I have a good signal for recorder or PA, but the sound in my real cab is "closed" by the mic simulation.

I've tried to use FX Loop as an alternative output path, but this was unuseful, as the Output Mode have influence on the FX-Send too.

Dear Line6, if the speakers are part of the circuitry you are going to simulate, that's OK, you must consider them as one thing, but this is not the case of mic. You can create a block with mic sim that can send the mic/simulated signal to the recorder (va FX-Loop? or via XLRonly?) maintaining the option to send a cab/but/non/mic/simulated signal to the power amp+real cab.

As a resume: a dreamy POD should have two output paths, one with cab+mic simulation, one with the cab simulation only. At this time is not possible to play live from a real cab sending to the mixer the (same) cab + mic simulated signal. Studio/direct mode is actually "closing" and coloring the sound coming from the real cab.

The mic simulated signal in the real cab sounds way different than the real thing. The live player wants to ear the "real thing" and record something similar, not viceversa ;-)

A good signal path would be, for example:

POD Plexi model + 4x12 Greenback25 > Line Output [as in Pwr Amp output mode] > FR/FR Amp > a real 4x12 cab
POD Plexi model + 4x12 Greenback25 > SM57 Mic Simulation >  XLR output [as in Studio/Direct]

We need to ear the sound from speakers the same way as we can ear it from the real system (not miced), and AT THE SAME TIME recording it as we were micing the real system. 

I think the option to send a different ouput mode to Line and XLR outputs would be THE WANTED GREAT SOLUTION.

Cheers.