Charlie_Watt

The 69 is a fine guitar. I think they must have cured the neck problems long ago. Mine is perfect. String spacing is great and well centered on the neck side to side. The 5 way switch is MUCH more solid - just like a regular Strat. I really have no complaints with mine - except with my poor guitar playing talent. :)

I really have not seen any robust RJ45 plugs. That connection was not designed to take a lot of abuse. It was designed to connect computer equipment and not for setup / takedown. The shell on the VDI cable helps a bunch but the connector itself is still kind of fragile. (as compared to a 1/4 inch plug)

I do not think he said he did not change strings - just did not change string guage. If you play mostly acoustic models and are used to playing an acoustic guitar I would think that going to 11's would be a good idea. You may have to re-intonate and balance the Trem due to the extra string tension. These are easy to do on a JTV69. You may want to wait until you have had a chance to play more with the 500x. You can alter your tone a lot with that and you may get what you are looking for. I am not a great guitar player but in my experience you have to play the JTV much more like an electric. It responds best to fairly light playing.

Anything that affects what the Piezo pickups see will affect the modeled tone. The various JTV's have different scale lengths, different bridges and different bodies. These will all affect the modeled tone but the differences won't dominate the modeled tone. Sustain will be different for sure.

I too have noticed this. I believe that this is the dry Piezo sound. Piezo's pick up high frequencies better than mags do. That's why they work so well on acoustic guitars.

Not happening in the US.

I think the reason they ship a 2000mA AC supply with the XPS is because they use that supply for many of the pods. I know for sure that the XPS / Variax doesn't use anywhere new 2 amps. If you have a 9VAC supply that is good for 1 amp (1000Ma) that will work.

If it were me I would repair or replace the faulty connector.

The only thing that they owe current owners is bug fixes not "free upgrades". If the product works as advertised then they do not have to make it better once it's in production. R&D will focus on new products.

One thing that is unique about these power supplies is that they are AC. If you replace it make sure the replacement is also AC! I do not believe that you need 2000mA for the Variax. Half that should be fine based on the battery run time. DO NOT USE A DC POWER SUPPLY!

Tubes fail and 8 years doesn't tell the story. How many power on hours? When power tubes fail they often take out another component or the fuse if there is one. Nothing you do to the input really can cause a good tube to fail like that. You would kill the speaker long before you would kill the power tubes.

You may want to check the tuner spacing. Not sure how flexible it is.

I am waiting patiently for Pod support for WB. I will pull the trigger on a 500X as soon as I can use it to connect to WB. Since this is the newest Pod and it supports the JTV in many ways I would expect that Line6 would put some effort into getting drivers out that support this. It can't be that hard to do if the JTV USB interface is already doing it.

I program for a living but I find the interface on pods hard to use because I don't use it every day. I find the computer based Edit programs solve that problem and make it easy to see what you are doing. I do most of my editing on my X3 with Gearbox. I am about to buy the 500X to upgrade to HD for use with my JTV69s.

Never had a problem with my Variax and VDI. I worry about that kind of connector though. They really are not designed for a lot of insertions. They are a standard Cat5 connector with a shell. Not as robust as a 1/4 inch audio jack.

It is not that uncommon for a tube failure to happen like that. It often takes out the screen grid resistor.

I get some unwanted noise when I try to play with my fingers with many of the models - especially the acoustics. I don't get it with a pick at all. I do not get that with my Variax 500. I need to work on my playing style to get rid of this I guess. It's only there with the modeling not with the mags.

Not sure why you broke a string. My JTV is just about due for it's first string change. It's still got the ones on it that it came with. I have had it a couple months now. With my other locking tuners I have not gone overboard tightening the Thumb Screws and I do try to put at least one wrap on the post.

VDI cable is the best way to go if you are using a Pod that supports it. Get yourself a good VDI cable with the shell on both ends. The one that comes with the Variax is not going to hold up for playing.

Your pod had nothing to do with that failure.

You can replace all at once if you shim the back of the trem so it doesn't get out of wack with no string tension. You need to tune up all of the strings together and they will interact as the trem adjusts when you tighten the new strings. If you don't need to clean the board I would replace them one at a time. It's quicker and easer to get back in tune that way. I have not had problems with locking tuners but I usually lock with enough slack to put about a wrap on the post. My JTV69S came with only a fraction of a turn on the tuners. I have locking tuners on my old Variax 500 and I have never had a string break at the tuner. I used the Planet Waves self trimming tuners - really like them. They cut off the end of the string when you turn it about a quarter turn from the starting point.

The TRS cable and power supply that powered the old Variax will work with the JTV.

Yes it should turn off when you unplug the 1/4 inch cable. There is a switch in the jack that powers it up. Maybe that switch is stuck closed.

Not sure what is going on with some JTV's but my Strat sounds good with 2.0 in all 5 positions. The Quack is definitely there in 2 and 4 as it should be. My JTV came with 2.0 installed from Sweetwater - at my request. I have not rolled it back and I don't intend to. I have a Variax 500 if I want old models. The JTV sounds better on most models than the 500 but not lots better. It's a nicer guitar though.

The 2 and 4 problem has a very easy work around in Workbench. They should fix it but the work-around gets the two pickups turned on and the quack is there.