valve vs SS .... wallet vs time ... practicality vs joy

[willo]

What about this:

http://www.bluetoneamps.com/PRO30M.html

It's not much more than the £400 you were talking about for the Line 6 (although in reality thats more like £330)

You do have the question of whether 30W ss are enough to be heard on stage - some say it is, some say it isn't; all I can remember was really having to crank my 150W line 6 to get heard over the other guy's valve amp

[Window-Licker]

As for differences with the different pods etc...

Pod 2 is the main thing youd want to look at, its the most supported by line6 really, lots of models heads/cabs and effects.

Guitarport, which ive owned, mainly for direct computer recording, in my opinion its not so good.

Toneport, again computer recording, a little better then a guitarport and has more options like xlr input and output to connect into amps or pa systems.

Bass pod, well, for bass not tried it.

Pod xt pro, the rackmount version of the pod2, same setup/sounds as the pod2 but has more outputs for live performance.

I have used and do use guitarport and toneport, theyre good for practice and recording quick ideas down, you can upgrade all of the pods etc with model packs, you can get loads of sounds but recording to computer you dont get the same punch that you get off a real life large speaker/cab setup, maybe if you used a pod2 through some form of poweramp to cab setup youd get the punch then, but ive never tried it.
For home recording theyre great products, but despite what they say in their adverts you wont get the studio quality sound.

[dave_mc]

Thing is its not just the gain that makes stuff sound good at low volume :( If the speaker isnt being pushed enough it still sounds a bit shitee, at least in my experience

yeah but that'll happen with SS amps too, surely?

agreed though. Once you've tried it cranked, it just sounds a bit "flat" or something- like there's gain there, but no real "balls"...

but yeah, my question stands...

:drink:

EDIT:

@ dave_mc    The engl isnt really in my price range unfortunately.. pretty much purely based on the extra costs for OD pedal + maybe a hotplate for bedroom levels.

i'm not certain you'd "need" either (i mean you could probably make do till you could afford them), but yeah, an attenuator and/or OD pedal wouldn't hurt, lol. And i wouldn't recommend buying without trying, unfortunately...

[badgermark]

how is the spider II for chunky low end crunching ?

Oh, and nothing against (Badger)Mark, but I owned a Peavey Bandit and swore off Peaveys for life.

I actually hated the sound of it for the first few days, then after a good tweak I got it working to my liking.