One of the reasons I started using the Variax (300) was because the Strat sounded so close to my REAL '63 Strat. Moved to a 700 in less than a year. Played it live several nights a week for 4 or 5 years. I waited patiently when I heard about the JTV Variaxs. Finally in 2012 I bought a JTV69. I loved the sounds but I was not thrilled with the way it played. Still not thrilled with the action however the tracking is so much better. The acoustics started to really hit the spot.
The Spanks still sound like my '63 until HD. Neither 2.0 nor 2.1 sound like a good Strat to me. Maybe they are closer to a Squire Strat. I thought I had done a bad flash. After three attempts I realized it was the firmware. I had taken it out on the gig and got funny looks from my regulars that know my tone. The output is lower on certain models. in particular the Spank, Chime and Semi. Probably because the tone is thinner. On the Chime setting the 12 strings sounded terrible. I was not about to take the time to re-program my X3L so I rolled back to 1.9. Back to having balls.
I personally feel that Line6 dropped the ball on this one. Now to add insult to injury the ouput of the guitar itself has become intermittent.
