SaschaFranck

Nah, that's an entirely different thing, really. Especially once you're using the volume and tone pots of your guitar, different input impedances can make a difference almost like night and day. And the new global "impedance follows first active block" option (fwiw, I wish it wasn't global...) to allow the Helix to impersonate an analog pedalboard, is highly useful. Fwiw, in many patches I chose 230k, even when just running a single amp block. That setting just seems to work better than 1M with some of my most used guitars (almost all of them feature a 500k volume pot and a treble bleed cap). Hence I can't use "auto", because that'd automatically set the impedance to 1M in most situations (and I couldn't be bothered assigning the impedance to snapshots or switches). That's why I wish things weren't global - or, alternatively, I'd like to select 230k as the default for all things by now defaulting to 1M.

So, have you tried plugging straight into the HXS yet, just using an amp&cab block, monitoring through headphones?

See, we're all set then.

Sure. But the very first thing to do would be to check things with the Powerstage and cab taken out of the equation.

Such as? With all my guitars but one, when their volume pot is all the way turned up, input impedance is almost irrelevant.

So, are you running your drums through a Helix?

Checking cables: Yes, definitely. But as far as speaker impedance curves or input impedances go, these should be pretty much irrelevant. I mean, we're not talking about whatever finetuning tips here but about a situation where someone apparently needs to turn up presence and treble all the way up. That's pretty much never related to whatever impedance issues in case everything else is working properly.

Yeah, that'd help nailing down whether it's an HX issue or not.

Ok, so, when you use headphones and add the stock cab usually loading with the amp, do you need to add treble/presence as well?

Are you using just the amp models and no Amp+Cab blocks or any separate cab blocks? When running the Stomp through a guitar cab, no internal cabs should be active. Otherwise yes, it would be odd. Usually, IMO at least, the Helix amps are pretty much on the bright side. Edit: waymda beat me to it.

Oh, as far as sun protection goes, I could actually use the lid of my case if it was a mixer-style case. But as you can see (or rather guess), the lid is kinda L-style, so that very L-part is getting in the way quite a bit. And once there's light from the L/R side or diffuse light conditions, it all won't work too well anymore anyway.

You could use angled plugs (which is what I'm doing, even on the XLR out which I use to feed the FOH system). But yeah, in case you're using the sends/returns as well, angled plugs may not work anymore. But I could almost fit straight plugs in there (by lifting the Helix while plugging in, it's only held by velcro), so they really only need a little more space (and there's pretty small ones around, too). If I were to build a case around the Helix (which I planned but abandoned, see above...), I would give it a little more space in the back, use straight plugs and cables running into a patch bay (there's pre-made ones just for these purposes, but on an older pedal board, I built one myself, really no rocket science). For that patch bay and an additional expression pedal (which I'd like) to fit, I'd possibly need another 3-5cm more space on the right. But well, for the time being, this is working quite fine for me and I've got no plans on adding external pedals or whatsoever any day soon. I may go back to a half-analog setup, though, we shall see next year (when all the live stuff will possibly be happening again).

Fwiw, this is my current case. I know, the foam looks lousy, but it's working well. I'm using cable extension "adapters" (don't know the english word) for anything that goes in/out, so no cable ever has to be connected on the Helix itself, the cables connecting to the Helix are locked at the side of the case (just using some binders), so there's no pull happening either. Originally I wanted to build some kinda patch bay into the case but there wasn't enough space - and for the time being I didn't want to build a new case (this one is absolutely high quality and I may not use the Helix for live playing anymore next year due to the issues described in this very thread).

As far as protection of the connections goes, build a case that protects them (a mixer-style case will do, or a sort of flattened L-rack kinda case). As far as the sunshield goes, it won't do much in diffuse lightning conditions. I have tried some things with cardboard for a test, better but still very bad. Line 6 should adress the issue - and they could, at least partially.

If you wanted to do that without the split box MGW-Alberta mentioned but still use it on any patch, insert a send anywhere in the signal path and grab the dry signal from the send's output jack.