Confused about the evolution of LINE6 models

[amaurythewarrior]

Hello,

OK, I'm an old Line6 user, I had a Flextone III back in 2006, didn't keep it very long, until I upgraded to a tube combo, had one of the first TonePort UX2 in the summer of 2006 which I kept for 7 years.

I felt a bit nostalgic and looked at the old gear and models, and I'm actually really confused.

Now the Helix has "HX" models.

At some point they had introduced "HD" models.

And before that I suppose they were just "models". So, how many generations of models were there? Did they coexist on some device? Were they just updates or new models made from scratch? Are there lists?

I undesrtand the Flextone and GearBox were before HD models. But  the TonePort also had Podfarm. and podfarm has HD models?

Can someone shed some light on this?

Thanks

[pianoguyy]

I can't honestly answer that with any authority.

But to make a really simple comparison... think of them like buying an album. You can go buy KISS Alive!, and no matter what format you buy it on, it is the same album. But you can't play your 8-track in your cassette deck. And your MP3 files aren't even something you touch, let alone play on a record player.

Some people claim they can hear the difference between old scratchy vinyl and a cd or a lossless wave file.

Sometimes you buy a CD and they say "digitally remastered".

 

And that is what you are dealing with here. No matter what the answer is (new/old/rerecorded/reformatted), they just aren't compatible with other devices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*please note: the 8-track of KISS Alive! is actually different. They swapped up a few tracks because of the time constraints. Also, cassette is the only format I don't own for that album.

 

 

 

 

[cruisinon2]

On 11/30/2023 at 4:17 PM, amaurythewarrior said:

Hello,

OK, I'm an old Line6 user, I had a Flextone III back in 2006, didn't keep it very long, until I upgraded to a tube combo, had one of the first TonePort UX2 in the summer of 2006 which I kept for 7 years.

I felt a bit nostalgic and looked at the old gear and models, and I'm actually really confused.

Now the Helix has "HX" models.

At some point they had introduced "HD" models.

And before that I suppose they were just "models". So, how many generations of models were there? Did they coexist on some device? Were they just updates or new models made from scratch? Are there lists?

I undesrtand the Flextone and GearBox were before HD models. But  the TonePort also had Podfarm. and podfarm has HD models?

Can someone shed some light on this?

Thanks

 

The HD/HX designations are essentially meaningless... little more than marketing blather for press releases and product descriptions. All it does is allow you to roughly determine the relative ages of different products. The current generation of devices has carried the "HX" moniker since Helix debuted 8-ish years ago. Prior to that it was "HD"... but do they actually mean anything? Not really... but they need some way of announcing "this is our newest $hit" to the masses. Eventually some new platform will put Helix/HX out to pasture, and a snazzy new designation will take its place.

In practical terms all you need to know is that nothing is backwards compatible... you can't load HX models onto an HD device. Occasionally older "legacy" models are ported over in the other direction into newer devices, but it doesn't happen very often, and generally only if they were super popular, and after enough people have all clamored for it.