benthere77

So it turns out when you use the right cable the HeadRush 108 is actually fan-f'ing-tastic! We just had a small concert in my living room. The backing tracks sounds like a full band playing in the house. (Also sounds good when you turn it down..btw) Thank you for your help!

Folks.... I found my problem. I feel like an idiot but I'll own up to it. I've been using the wrong kind of cable to connect to my speaker. I was using a regular instrument cable. The correct cable (1/4 "balanced") makes all the difference! Just, wow...

My headphones are actually a quite cheap set ($50) "AKG by Harman K52". I keep experimenting and getting closer. Adding compression at the beginning of my effects chain and parametric EQ at the very end are starting to bring out that crispness in the higher notes that I'm looking for. In the headphones there is this very sweet responsiveness and sustain along with the clarity. If it makes sense, my fingers feel more powerful with the B and high E string notes when playing through the headphones. More responsive to vibrato and the vibrato sustains with clarity. Having a hard time replicating that through the Katana probably due to factors you have mentioned. I'm pretty sure I can get there with more tweaking. I've gotten that sound out of amps before and never used headphones at all until this week, and that was just to troubleshoot my POD problems. (Great idea BTW, whoever that was) Thanks to you guys this is starting to become fun. At first it felt solely like frustration and work! Still a little of that but I'm starting to see the potential. I'll let you know when and if I get my "perfect" tone for this particular song/setting. (Riviera Paradise...Lenny...SRV/Mayer clean sound)

Just wanted to give you guys a quick update on my progress. I purchased the Boss Katana 100 Mkii to use the "Power Amp In" with my Pod GO. Much, much better. This is a keeper and the Headrush FRFR is going back. I think you were right about the volume and speaker. I am so much closer to the crisp headphone sound from the headphones but still not 100% satisfied. I think I will get there though. The Boss Katana was a great suggestion. For playing it in my home office I change it to the .5W setting for good results. Also turning off the cab/speaker simulation in helix is a must for clear sound through the Katana (which makes sense since the Katana is now the "cab"). I still don't quite have the crispness and responsiveness in the highs that I'm hearing through the headphones. I'm sure this can be worked out though. Thanks again to both of you for all of the help! This is all sort of fun but also sort of frustrating. Ready to get my tone dialed in so I can just play again.

Guys - Thank you both! I am much much closer with this thing now. Still not exactly there but getting near the ballpark. Voxmann - For some reason I didn't see your full response until this morning. You have given me great hope with this thing and invaluable assistance. I don't even know exactly what I changed but all of the sudden it's better through the speaker. I did put the Headrush on a stand and hit the "contour EQ" button and that certainly made a difference although not a huge one. I think most of my work now lies with experimenting with the various EQ (global and otherwise). My apologies if I'm being dense but can you clarify this statement a little further? <<Make sure you've set your Pod Go so your cab emulations are activated to your powered speaker - see 'Global ins/outs' below. >> Should that say "Pre CAB/IR" or "Main Out"? I think I know the answer (based on my ears) but I need confirmation. grdGo33 - I've had my suspicions also that it has something to do with me wanting to play through the FRFR at an indoor/home-office volume level. However, the Sweetwater rep seemed to be pretty confident that the Headrush frfr sound quality would not be volume dependent and should sound just as good at low volumes. It's interesting because I feel like the B and E strings have more power/punch/sustain/whatever in the headphones than through the FRFR and this really my biggest complaint. It's those higher notes. The bass is super boomy and middle range notes have nice responsiveness and sustain through the FRFR. While everything sounds great through the headphones. I took your suggestion and just played a YouTube video of SRV playing Riviera Paradise through my FRFR and overall the sound was good but I do notice a little of the same thing I"m hearing from my playing...super "bassy" and not quite the level of crispness I would like on those higher notes coming from the B and E strings. Still sounded pretty damn good though. Maybe it's just a matter of tweaking EQ's to tamp down the base and bring out the highs. Sounds a little daunting. Thank you again for the great input! EDIT: After giving your link a listen, that Boss Katana (pre-amp option) might be a good alternative!

*Hopefully I don't get skewered as I actually have a Pod GO and not Helix, but this forum seems to have more action and these devices are similar. In short, my Pod GO sounds pretty awful through my Headrush 108 frfr speaker. Words like muddy, muffled, flat, and lifeless come to mind. Also volume either way too low or way too high when switching through factory presets. I spent a couple of hours creating my own custom preset and got something that was somewhat playable, but not nearly as good as my strat plugged straight into a Fender Blues Junior tube amp. I was thinking I had made a huge mistake buying this gear when I read a suggestion to try it out with headphones. I did that, and WOW! All of the sudden these built in presets have life, and my custom preset is absolutely inspiring through these 'phones. Now I see what all of the hype is about. How do I get these beautiful sounds that are in my headphones to come out of this speaker? Other than the weird volume swings between the built in presets, my specific complaint about playing through the FRFR is in regards to notes played on the B and high E string. In the headphones they have beautiful punch, sparkle, responsiveness, sustain, etc. Through the FRFR they sound like garbage. The clarity and sustain just evaporate. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated! (Note: I haven't had this device for long and right now I'm just trying to get a good clean Fender reverb type of sound. Think SRV on Riviera Paradise or Lenny.) Thank you in advance!

My tube amp only has a single input. After playing awhile through headphones I now see what all the hype is about. There has to be a way to get these sounds through my speaker. I think it has something to do with "global eq" and high/low shelfs, etc. There's so much more responsiveness and power in the high notes when playing through the phones. The sustain is incredible too.

This is related to my other post regarding struggles with my newly purchased Pod GO. I tried headphones to compare it with the rather dull and lifeless sounds I'm getting out of my frfr speaker (Headrush 108) and there is indeed a huge difference. The preset tones coming out of the headphones sound MUCH better. There is actually some life in these tones. Does anyone have any insight on why the headphones would sound different (as in, worlds better!) than an FRFR speaker? Thanks... (Note: I've come back to edit after creating my own pre-set and playing it through my headphones. It sounds flat out inspiring! Beautiful tone. I would be in tone heaven if I could get the sound out of my FRFR speaker to sound like this. I also tried running the Pod GO into my tube amp (with everything neutral on the amp) and it sounds just as lifeless as the FRFR speaker.)

voxman55 - Thank you so much for that response. That does make me feel better and I have to admit I had the expectation of more or less plug it in and bam, there's my dream tone. I can see now that that was unrealistic. Unfortunately I'm at work and super busy at the moment so I can't give a real in-depth response right now. The song I was working on before I bought this is "Riviera Paradise" by SRV. So the first tone I was after was that beautiful crisp/warm Fender clean tone with some nice reverb. I was getting so much closer to that with my little Blues Junior Fender amp than I have gotten with this GO. And I know that can't be right! I really appreciate your kind response and I will get back to you later with a couple of links to my desired tone.

cristt - Thank you four your response. I am using the Main Out Left/Mono to connect to my Headrush FRFR. I actually don't have any headphones so I haven't tried that. I do intend to get a pair though because that was another draw to this device.

Hello, I received my POD GO today after so much anticipation from reading all of the awesome reviews online. I am running it into a Headrush FRFR speaker (108). Based on my research online this seemed to be a can't-lose combination. But alas after a couple of hours of downloading various custom tones and trying to tweak settings, I am unable to dial in even a playable tone. The closest to decent has been a patch I downloaded for $4.99 called "Mayer Of Toneville" which sounded awesome on the YouTube video but mediocre/playable in person. So far I am unable to get a tone that's even as good as my current set-up of a Blues Junior (with Bill M mods) and Tube Screamer. Not even close really. I simply cannot get anywhere near that bright, clear, sparkly Fender tone that warms up beautifully with a little overdrive. (Mayer/SRV) I've tried doing a factory reset, upgrading the firmware, checking all of my cables and connections. Nothing really works. The SRV and Mayer of Toneville presets that I downloaded sound nothing like the guy playing/selling them on YouTube. Any of the other presents or my ridiculous attempts at building my own preset sound either completely muddy or too weak and tinny. Impossible to get the volume right. On some presets I can barely hear it and others almost blow my windows out. Here's the thing....I've heard what people are doing with this device and I know it can't be the Pod Go. It has to be something I'm doing or not doing. I may be a little old school when it comes to digital guitar tech but I make a great living as a software developer. There's no way I'm too dumb to work this thing..lol Please help. Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated. I'd hate to send this stuff back. (Note: I bought this after giving up on the Spider V 120 MKii. Which sounded infinitely better after I did a factory reset but the Line 6 rep assured me this Pod Go was superior so here I am.)

Hello, I purchased the Spider V 120 MKII this weekend and immediately noticed that the presets sound absolutely nothing like the online demos (Line 6 website and YouTube). They sound so bad, in fact, that I think I must be doing something wrong. There is no way an amp that gets so much praise online and sounds so good on videos can be this terrible. Any ideas? Thanks!