Adam-

Eric Johnson. Obviously.

Why don't you just model the human ear and then you can automate your testing? A few parameters for lobe size, piercings and tinnitus levels and BOOM, done.

That's pretty clever. Obviously I'd rather have first class support for a Many-to-Many block/switch setup this would cover 80% of my needs.

Gotcha.

That's a pretty bold claim; do you have anything to back that?

Now that I think of it, the Helix does address my other HD 500 gripe:User IRs. While that could be true these are the only features that I would use on a regular basis and Fractal is already delivering. Everything else is just bells and whistles that might be fun to play with but not something that would add every day value (for me). I really want to like the Helix as the hardware/UXis far beyond the AX8 and no amount of firmware is going to change that. Given it has the same processor as an AX8 I know this is at least potentially possible. These are the only 2 effects I've really scrutinized but it does make me wonder how 'advanced' the other effects are. Are they all 'last gen' caliber?

I currently use an HD500 and overall I'm quite happy w/it. It seems to do pretty well both in a FRFR setup asa well as 4CM. There's really only 2 things that I dislike about the HD500 and Helix someone manged to not address them: 1) The pitch shifter. It's still monophonic on a flagship product. As far as I know it also has no concept of formant shifting so sounds pretty 2nd rate/artificial. 2) The 'looper' is very bare bones. No tempo sync. No quantize. No auto start. These effects feel more comparable to an RP1000 or HD500 than an AX8. While the hardware and routing is brilliant, Helix's DSP feels very 'last gen'. My plan is to give it a year and see what happens and if L6 can't up their game, go w/an AX8. That would be a bummer because I've been using line 6 stuff since the Guitar Port came out and, for the most part, been content.