cruisinon2

A cursory glance at the website seems to indicate that the Toneforge products are full blown amp sim plug-ins... if the included cab IR's are discrete entities, separable from the plug-in, then I don't see why they wouldn't be usable with Helix... an IR is an IR. But looking at the site, it wasn't immediately obvious to me if that's the case or not.

Generally I'd be inclined to agree... but since it's Christmas time, I'll be charitable and give him the benefit of the doubt. If he really is 17, that explains most of it. If I remember correctly, my approach to most things at that age was not exactly what you'd call "well thought-out", lol.... and if I had all my gear ripped off back then, I would not have had the wherewithal to replace much of it either. I'd have been pretty desperate too...

Don't want to start an ugly war of words here, but imho, red-lining the master volume on any powered speaker is a universally bad idea, for one very simple reason... it's WAY too easy to screw up and inadvertently crank the input stage volume, too. Next thing you know, BOOM!...you've earned yourself a free one-way trip to Blown Speaker, Wisconsin. Big, low-torque knobs get nudged easily. All it will take is for the a cable getting caught around the POD'S master volume knob while moving around on stage, or some drunk fiddling with your gear between sets.

People suck. Thus, gear should never be left in car trunks for any length of time. Anywhere. Ever. I know several guys who've lost stuff this way... one from his own driveway. Yeah, it's 4 am, you just played 3 sets, packed up and drove home, and you're tired. Bite the bullet, and bring all your $hit inside anyway... takes 5 extra minutes, saves thousands of dollars, and spares you both an ulcer, and having yet another reason to hate your fellow man. ;)

Agree 100%... mine are Chinese made as well. Amazing clarity, for any purpose... playing. recording, mixing, or passive listening. They cover your ears completely (unless you're Dumbo, ;) ), and are quite comfortable to wear for long sessions. My only real gripe is the cushions... mine got kinda grungy after about 18 months of (almost) daily use. AKG demands an absurd $40 for replacement pads, but I found compatible aftermarket ones on Amazon for $18. They fit perfectly, and are just as comfy.

That ain't happening... besides, Helix is an infinitely superior device, trust me...I had a Spider IV briefly some years ago. You won't miss it.

If that amp has an FX loop, then you can run the Helix in 4CM, and use the Spider as the source of your basic tone. Transfering tones you've saved on the Spider to the Helix is not an option, however. They are very different platforms.

Nobody can diagnose this kind of problem "100%" via an internet forum...that's why he suggested taking it to a service center.

The question is not "can they do it?"... it's "will they do it?". Guys have been asking for separate power amp models for years on end, to no avail. The smart money says it's gonna stay that way.

I have a pair of AKG K701's that I use with my Helix floor... they're rated at 55 ohms. Despite recommendations for higher impedance cans, I've never had an issue. They're open-back, things get uncomfortably loud long before anything starts to clip, and they sound fantastic. Can't imagine they'd perform any differently with the Stomp.

Nobody's saying it's impossible... and "silly" or no, I wouldn't hold your breath.

Oh I'm sure it's possible....probability is a completely separate issue, however.

Won't hurt, I suppose...but guys have been asking for this option since the POD days...I suspect that if L6 were at all inclined to go to the trouble, we would have seen it some time ago.

You don't... the amp models are all or nothing. There's no way to selectively use some individually modeled amp components, but not others.

The only reason to bother with the 4CM is if you want to have the option of getting your basic tone from the Spider, as opposed to the amp models in the Stomp. If you have no intention of doing that, then the 4CM only accomplishes 1 thing: using more cables, lol. If the amp is to be used only for power, and assuming it has an FX loop, then just run straight from the Stomp into the FX return, NOT the front of the amp.

You don't need a plug-in... there's an IR tab in HX Edit, on the left side above where your list of patches is displayed. Just drag and drop your IR's in there... it can store up to 128 att a time. Then select which one you wish to use from the IR block in your signal chain. As for the "best IR" for this, that, or the other thing.... that's entirely subjective. They're nothing more than digital captures of a particular cabinet/mic/ mic placement combinations... used in place of the cab and mic sims native to the device. Only way to find out what you like is to try a bunch and see what works.

Having not watched the video I can only guess, but I suspect you just need a noise gate.... for high-gain stuff, it's basically a necessity.

Unless I'm missing something in your description, the only thing you're sending direct to the PA is the path with your clean amp tone... which would explain the lack of gain. But even if that's not the case, trying to get the same tone running direct to a PA and through a traditional guitar cabinet is always difficult. They are very different animals. It's not impossible to do, but requires some creative signal routing... the path going to the PA needs speaker emulation (cab block or IR), while the path feeding your power amp and cabinet does not. There are guys who manage to run their rigs this way, but in my experience, trying to have your cake and eat it too is more trouble than it's worth. It's a whole lot easier to run direct to FOH, with some sort of FRFR speaker solution for onstage monitoring. That way what you hear on stage is the same thing everybody else hears out front...or as close to "identical" as anything ever gets....you don't have to worry about tweaking two different signal paths for wildly different ouputs. My cabs are gone... and I wouldn't go back if you paid me.

You're better off looking to individual retailers for the deal of the day...

Good luck selling that theory. A subjective evaluation of what two things sound like, is exactly that....subjective. The fact that they sound "the same" to your ears, proves nothing. Unless you hack the code and show them to be identical, it won't hold up in court. Two companies. Two products.

If you're new to modeling, the learning curve is usually a bit steep, regardless of the devices in question. You can't think of any FRFR rig as a guitar amp... they have a far wider frequency response, and most throw sound around in a very different dispersal pattern than guitar speakers do, which are typically very directional. Listening to a guitar cabinet way off- axis is a very different experience than monitoring with FRFR. For most applications, the use of low and high cut filters is more or less a necessity... to varying degrees depending on the amp model, mic choice, clean vs dirty tones, etc. etc. The need to cut frequencies you don't want to hear tends to become more pronounced as gain increases.

I've gone back and forth with IR's vs. the stock cabs... currently using a mix of both, depending on the patch. Overall, if you find an IR or three that you like, they're a bit less work than having to play around with mic choice, distance, early reflections, etc... as all of that is "baked in" each IR. So either you like it or you don't. The only rub is auditioning a bunch of IR's gets tedious.... on the other hand, you only have to do it once. Both approaches will work in the long run... theres nothing "wrong" with either one. Happy hunting!

Allow me to spare you the suspense...Helix will not have an additional 200 amps a year from now, so you might as well break out the credit card and beat the Christmas rush.

You don't want an answer. You want an argument... same as the 1000 others before you who showed up breathing fire, to complain about a product that they don't like. You're not exactly a pioneer. But just for the sake of closure... rock stars get paid to be seen using the products they endorse. You do the math.

Harrumph! Feel better? Take your victory lap. No one could possibly argue with logic as nuanced as this...