I own a Pod HD Pro X and a Pod HD 500. The Pro X is my main setup, I run direct to the PA and use 1 or 2 Tech 21 Power Engine 60s for stage monitors. I use my HD 500 for practice and as a backup.
I recently noticed that my HD 500 was really sounding like garbage in practice: volume was lower, there was more noise, gain, and compression (I don't use compression). The sound was thinner. Yet my Pro X sounds great. I was thinking that they should almost identical because I backed up the patches from the Pro X and using the cut and paste method along with the HD Edit software, transferred the patches to the HD 500. Well after about a week of wondering WTF, I pooled all the gear together and did some troubleshooting: I checked the Pro X in both Power Engines to make sure one those hadn't crapped out. With the Power Engines dialed up the same, they sounded the same so no issue with the amps. I then setup both Pods to a Power Engine each and the difference was night and day. Again the HD500 was thin, compressed, fizzy and noisy, and the Pro X was full sounding with no issues. I looked at each patch parameter and they were all the same.
I then rebuilt a patch on the HD 500 and it sounded great. I have no idea what could have changed unless there is something in the transferred Pro X patch that doesn't work with the Pod HD. I know there is a transfer program but it does not support the Pro X yet.
Any thoughts? I hate the idea of having to rebuild all my patches, and then doing that again for each time I tweak my Pro X patches. I was liking the notion of having the HD 500 as a back up and my practice rig.
Ivan