In terms of project management and communication handling, this is just an epic fail.
Yes, Blug seems to be a pretty nice guy, but he shouldn't have done the PR things here.
Apparently he got so excited about his new baby (understandable) that he had to get the news out of the door without some pretty essential issues being adressed beforehand. When you promise something to be "almost there", the core technical issues should be solved already, at least the main framework should be pretty much bulletproof already. That very clearly hasn't been the case.
One of the huge mistakes possibly has been that he kinda announced "analog modeling", as in being able to deliver pretty much any classic amp tone in one single unit without using digital components in the dry signal path. Not only is that like dragging you into a corner you can't escape from anymore, it's also an incredibly tough task, especially in case you have high standards. Oh, that Vox sound isn't just right yet again? Time for another hardware revision whereas in the digital realm it'd just be some lines of code.
Add to this that over the years this took, the average quality of digital modelers got a lot better. Even some pretty cheap devices produce very convincing tones by now. The very same devices are packed with features. And when you look at the higher ended bracket, there's now things such as the HX Stadium. Which, from all I would imagine given the currently available information, would munch the AmpX for breakfast, especially as I also happen to think that the UI on the thing sucks (we've been talking about standard pots vs. endless encoders already).
The only things in favour of the AmpX would be a) that it's analog (but who really cares these days?) and b) that the dry path would have no latency (but again, who cares about 2-4ms of total latency?).
So, what's the target audience? Does Blug expect some analog afficionados to get rid of their existing rigs? That very likely isn't going to happen, at least not much. Or does he expect being able to compete with digital modelers? That's even less likely, especially given that the thing certainly won't come for cheap.
We can only hope for the dude that he's sorted financially, because AmpX will very likely never be able to even just recoup all the R&D costs, let alone be profitable.
