Charlie_Watt

Models are same on all JTV guitars. The guitars are different so they probably do sound slightly different. Boards and FW are the same.

I made a quick unloaded measurement at the TRS cable. The DC supply going to the Variax from the XPS is 7.06VDC (7V)

No problem. I have been inside my 500 several times - most recently to install Ghost pickups. I can measure there or in the XPS as you suggest. I have not had that apart for years - don't use it. I have two of them.

I don't hear it. My 69 has great sustain. Don't know what you are talking about. It has more sustain than my real strat.

I was going to try to measure it sometime this weekend - under load. This requires measuring it on the board though because I can't get at the TRS when it's plugged in. We can easily measure it unloaded if that's good enough. (at the TRS when the cable is unplugged.)

The XPS conditions the power (AC to DC with filtering) before sending it out the TRS cable to the Variax. I forget what the DC voltage is but it's a bit more than when running with the battery. (my 500) I never use the XPS - prefer running on battery.

I have tried alternate tunings on my 69 and I do not hear any of the unaltered tuning in my output.

I wonder if the feature to mix the mags and the modeling is not partially on then. That would be very bad on any alternate tunings. That is a new feature in 2.0. You can blend a percentage of the mags with the modeling output in WB.

I forgot another issue. I looked into this myself and I could not find a battery box like the one on the JTV that would interface nicely with the battery and fit in the Variax 500. That would be necessary unless you want to figure out a way to charge the battery in place. Then you could hard wire it. I don't recommend this though.

Yes it will work but there is one potentially serious problem. Anything running on lithium batteries needs to have a reliable cutoff that prevents over discharging the battery. It may cut off early enough. The battery voltage is compatable. I was thinking of doing this but I am reasonably satisfied with my 6 rechargables that I use now. Same capacity as the JTV battery so it wouldn't run any longer with a JTV battery than it does with my NIMH rechargables. The JTV must be much lower power because it runs much longer.

I am surprised that the 69 you tried had a "chunky fat neck". Mine is slimmer than my normal Strat neck - very similar to the neck on my Variax 500. It is way slimmer than the neck on my Les Paul Std and easier for me to play.

I agree that it would be very cool if Line6 could add models to the mix and a way to select which ones are loaded. Whether it's easy or hard depends on things that only they know and we can speculate on.

I have not noticed any lack of sustain on my 69 with 2.0.

I think they have fixed the fretboard problem with the newer 69's. I have seen early pictures and mine (one month old) has much better string spacing and they are away from the edge of the fretboard.

Then you already have the work-around for the Strat 2-4 bug. IT takes time to generate a new FW release. We want it to be less buggy when it comes out.

The 69 has a perfect neck for my small hands. I also like the Strat Scale length better than the LP. Pick the model that fits you best. They all have the same FW.

I had to raise the Low E and A strings on mine at the bridge to eliminate some slight fret buzz. Plays great now.

I use regular 1.2V NIMH rechargables in my 500 all the time. They work fine. Not sure why you would have trouble with them. I have two sets of 2500MaH that I cycle through. The board has a regulator so the slightly higher voltage batteries would also work. I wouldn't use anything less than 2000 MaH batteries though due to the high current drain of these guitars.

Piezo's allow very good isolation of each string which makes many of the Variax features possible.

Try reading the other posts here. There is lots of info about the 2.0 Strat sounds. There are some workbench patches you can download to improve it!

That's the way it works. You need to move the tuning wheel to model.

You can blend the Mags and the models - just keep in mind that the mags can't be pitch shifted.

Sorry - not set up for recording.

Nope

The X3 has much more processing capability than the 2.0 It even has Dual tone capability which allows two independent signal paths. When the capabilities are so different, it's not practical to make the old technology patches sound the same on new hardware. It's a lot of work to get good sounding patches though. Most of the ones that come with the X3 just plain stink.