A lot of people will disagree with my hardware modeler ranking

I think the OG gear demo guys will always be the benchmarks, everything else that's come after is people throwing their hat in the ring because it works. I'm a metal/gear nerd, I'm not sure I've ever seen one of this dude's videos before, but he's got 12k views in 1 day.

If you demo it, they will come. I was looking at my YouTube analytics the other day after Blabbermouth used one of my videos in an article, the majority of my views/subscribers have come from people searching for gear and every video that mentions a piece of gear by name has quadruple or more views than any other videos on my channel, aside from some oddities. I don't even make videos that are engaging or from the mindset of getting subscribers, they're usually done in 2 minutes for something we're talking about here or because I was stoked about something.
Where can I find this channel @DrewJD82
 
Internally in my one man company that watches YouTube videos to late at night, we call him Mr.fizz

I can’t say I’ve ever heard him get a tone that I thought sounded good. The type of music he plays is nearly amelodic and seems to be intentionally abrasive to listen to, so the tones might be on point for that style. Fizzy and unpleasant might be just what he wants.
 
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I can’t say I’ve ever heard him get a tone that I thought sounded good. The type of music he plays is nearly amelodic and seems to be intentionally abrasive to listen to, so the tones might be on point for that style. Fizzy and unpleasant might be just what he wants.
Well, he‘s a Death Metal guy… I think his sound is appropriate for the genre.
 
I think the OG gear demo guys will always be the benchmarks, everything else that's come after is people throwing their hat in the ring because it works. I'm a metal/gear nerd, I'm not sure I've ever seen one of this dude's videos before, but he's got 12k views in 1 day.

Fwiw, my comment was only meant to be a little snarky...
But then, seriously, the amount of guitar amp (regardless whether it's real amps or modelers, pedals and what not) stuff put through its paces by some heavy riffers/shredders has been increasing quite a bit IMO. Amp comparisons? Real vs. modeled 51something. Real vs. modeled Recto. The least lotsa-gain-oriented things would be Marshall amp types, but usually those are cranked up the Wazoo as well. Or TS-boost-i-fied.
There's very little of truly clean and somewhat lightly hairy amp tone comparisons. Maybe I'm just not looking for the right things, but the vast majority of guitar amp related things seem to be focused on sounds using quite some drive, very often akin towards the heavier side of things.
And fwiw, even if I pretty much don't watch his channel anymore (inflationary amount of completely irrelevant stuff), this is why I liked Rhett Shulls channel for a while, simply because he's using a lot of clean to light dirty tones, which often are exactly what I need, especially for gigs.
 
I can’t say I’ve ever heard him get a tone that I thought sounded good. The type of music he plays is nearly amelodic and seems to be intentionally abrasive to listen to, so the tones might be on point for that style. Fizzy and unpleasant might be just what he wants.

Yeah, those kinds of tones tend not to fair so well on their own, but work great in a band setting where the tempos are up there and you're competing with a wall of distortion/clicky kicks and basses that sound more like guitar tones tuned down 2 octaves.
 
Fwiw, my comment was only meant to be a little snarky...
But then, seriously, the amount of guitar amp (regardless whether it's real amps or modelers, pedals and what not) stuff put through its paces by some heavy riffers/shredders has been increasing quite a bit IMO. Amp comparisons? Real vs. modeled 51something. Real vs. modeled Recto. The least lotsa-gain-oriented things would be Marshall amp types, but usually those are cranked up the Wazoo as well. Or TS-boost-i-fied.
There's very little of truly clean and somewhat lightly hairy amp tone comparisons. Maybe I'm just not looking for the right things, but the vast majority of guitar amp related things seem to be focused on sounds using quite some drive, very often akin towards the heavier side of things.
And fwiw, even if I pretty much don't watch his channel anymore (inflationary amount of completely irrelevant stuff), this is why I liked Rhett Shulls channel for a while, simply because he's using a lot of clean to light dirty tones, which often are exactly what I need, especially for gigs.
There's plenty of everything, you just need to go looking for it.
 
I wonder what mostly makes people choose one over the other? Price.. fanboy ism… I mean they all sound ok as has been proved in Jon’s vids. What if Jon only could afford 1 which would it be?
 
I have learned a few things on the internet about the most important features in a modeler

1. Boot time
2. Boot time
3. Boot time
4. User Interface
5. Silver jubilee?
6. 5150?
7. Asshole in the room?
8. Does it chugg?
1,2,3: Boot time. When I used tube amps, I would make sure that I had my amp rig setup 30 minutes MINIMUM before the gig began to let the tubes warm up so my tone would be consistent. Then, especially in the winter, I had to wait 30 minutes for it to cool off before I felt comfortable putting it into the cold to drive it home.

4: User Interface (valid if you use the interface for editing). I would argue that this would be better divided into 2 categories: A) Ease of editing (either through a PC application, tablet, or front UI), and B) Ease of live playing operation (foot controller, live features, etc)

5,6: Replication of classic sounds. I would argue that this is valid for people that just want replication. Again, break this into 2 different categories: A) Replication of classic sounds. And B) Creation of desired sounds.

7: Amp in the room: Sadly, this is important to many people. Again, I would break it into 2 categories: A) Sounds good to guitar player and B) Sounds good in PA in the mix.

8: Does it chugg: Interestingly, I think this is more a matter of speakers than it is the digital or tube amp. If I have a high gain amp dialed in with a good amount of low frequency in it and run it through my full PA (double 18" subs and tops) .... OF COURSE it chugs. It will chug your heart into palpitations. Not sure this has much to do with the digital amp though.

This is at least a good start to a list of metrics that could be used to determine what a device is "best" at and how it compares to other units in the market.

I would defiantly add "durability" and "ease of stage setup" to this list as well as "expected longevity", customer support, and release to release stability of tone.

These are the kinds of things that I think should be evaluated in a review.
 
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