Hey All!

I have a POD HD500. There is a sound that is present in most of the models i'm concerned about. I've seen several dicussions about hiss and odd sounds, I figured I'd ask ya'll in case I'm missing something. It's sounds to me almost like clipping. Kind of like a crackle maybe- it's hard to describe, Unpleasant is probably the best description haha! I should start by mentioning I have used a POD XTLive for a few years with zero issues, along with both the Flextone II and III, so I think I have a pretty good grip on this gear.

I am playing mostly pop/dance/rock, so I'm not generally using heavy distortion.I generally run the POD using the 1/4" out into a Behringer B212A. The sound is there. When I record it into my Boss BR1600 it's there using the XLR outs. In 3 different pairs of headphones it's there. I'm not pushing into any of those units very hard, no clip lights are showing. I have am having this issue while using a Peavey HP Special, which I am aware has high output pickups. But it also is an issue with my Strat with single coils, and my Variax 600.

  Using Meambobbos guide I tried a few things including turning down the volume on the guitar which doesn't help. I run the POD with most patches channel volume between 50-60%, and the Master at 50%. I never have the Drive maxed. The most useable sounds are the Uber for crunch/distortion, The Hiwatt, and now the Slo clean for clean. The Slo doesn't have this problem at all, so while I was thinking it is a defective unit, I'm not so sure now. I haven't tried the other new models so I can't comment  there. A couple of the models like Gibtone, Divide, and PhD are unuseable, because the sound is so prevelant.

Some other relevant settings I'm using; Studio Direct, Guitar in Z -Auto (I have tried others with no luck). And though I've tried every combination of input selection, (I agree that using Guitar and Same do increase the volume, and possibly contribute to the issue), so I am globally set at 1-Guitar/Variax, and 2-Variax. The reason I do it this way is that the tuner doesn't seem to work on the Variax if you are set on 1-Guitar and 2-Variax.

So, that's the best description and relevant facts I can think of. Any idea what I may be missing? I've been using Line 6 gear exclusively since 2000 and this is the first time I've run into issues like this.

  Thanks!

          Phil