Just got the NUX Amp Core Studio

KingsXJJ

KingsXJJ

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Haven’t hooked it up yet but wanted to mention the build quality and form factor seem superb! The gold finish is rough with a powdered like finish. Very tactile and unusual. Knobs feel solid.

Here’s a quick pic. The plastic protective cover over the display looks a bit dirty in the photo. You can see the pull off tab in the top right corner.

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First thoughts… display is tight! Looks HD and colorful. Navigation and tweaking on the unit seems easy, intuitive and pretty complete even without the editor. Sound? Still in the evaluation stage but patch #5 “Brown Sound”. Uses a Friedman HBE amp in to a Recto 4X12 and immediately got my attention as did the set flat 10 band EQ to tweak. Super neat so far… playing through Yamaha Studio headphones.
 
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Mighty Plug Pro is great for the money and has perfect feature set for a practice tool, but IMO does not sound on par with POD Express, or even current Boss stuff. Wonder if Amp Core Studio features updated algorithms?
 
I used to like Nux... however, they strongly failed with the Trident, both in design flaws and lack of commitment with its further upgrades and development. They launched their flagship unit, it had severe flaws... and instead of fix things and improve the unit, they abandoned it.

Besides, in every shootout I watched on YT, tonewise, Nux units were always the worst ones to my tastes.

So currently I have zero interest in their future offerings.
 
Sedaxel said:
Besides, in every shootout I watched on YT, tonewise, Nux units were always the worst ones to my tastes.
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That's funny - on all shootouts for "B-tier" modelling hardware i heard, i always liked Nux the most. I was particularly impressed by their DSL 100 model on a couple demos.
 
When I first started going digital I tried out the Nux Amp Academy and…I wasn’t impressed. They seem to have had some success since then, I hear about the “Mighty” stuff a lot.

When I first saw the picture I thought it was a modded gameboy. It actually looks really cool!
 
ChefYetti said:
When I first started going digital I tried out the Nux Amp Academy and…I wasn’t impressed.
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Same here. I still have the Amp Academy and it worked well as a one trick pony clean channel on my previous pedalboard (slapped into one loop of a loop switcher), but that was it. All dirt amps didn't impress me at all, too much compression. No idea whether they really upped their game, but from the website and available updates it seems as if the Amp Academy should still get the latest stuff.
 
KingsXJJ said:
They are the TSAC-HD models with a higher rez IR.
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The NUX Amp Academy uses TSAC-2K amp models versus the Core Studio’s TSAC-HD, so I’m not sure if they are different or just a change in naming conventions. I will say that the Amp Core Studio seems quieter and the noise gate is much improved on it comparatively. I’m willing to bet that this and the 10 band EQ are just a sample of the improvements over the Amp Academy. I’ve had both so I’ll try to discern any more differences between the two. For the naysayers that consistently pop up whenever NUX is mentioned…

In a small pedal with headphone out, a loop and midi for under $150 you are getting 26 amps, 33 built in cabs and slots for 12 user IR’s, realtime switching between amps, scenes, 1.2ms latency, noise gate, EQ, patch level adjustment, an editor and color LCD screen. In addition to USB audio streaming, reamp, normal or dry. And knowing NUX, there will be firmware updates as time goes on.

Trident and Cerebus both disappoint me. While the form factor was fantastic they dropped the ball on execution. I suspect different teams are involved at NUX. NUX isn’t perfect but they have delivered some compelling products that I have enjoyed. I have a hunch they will hit their stride over the next product cycle or two and release something quite competitive and respectable. My thoughts anyway.
 
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Nux's top of the line Amp Algorithms are the TS/AC-4K - the majority of their Amps still have not been "upgraded" to this 4K algorithm.

The majority of their Amp algorithms are [still] TS/AC-2K.

I have previously emailed Nux directly about this and they were very quick, open and honest in their response.

So .... where do the TS/AC-HD algorithms fit ?

Given the huge feature set of this pedal and the Midi i/O and the low price, I cant see any way Nux are going to put either their 2K or 4K models in it ..... my guess (?) would be the TSAC-HD is a new "level" below the older TS/AC-2K "quality level"
 
BenIfin said:
Nux's top of the line Amp Algorithms are the TS/AC-4K - the majority of their Amps still have not been "upgraded" to this 4K algorithm.

The majority of their Amp algorithms are [still] TS/AC-2K.

I have previously emailed Nux directly about this and they were very quick, open and honest in their response.

So .... where do the TS/AC-HD algorithms fit ?

Given the huge feature set of this pedal and the Midi i/O and the low price, I cant see any way Nux are going to put either their 2K or 4K models in it ..... my guess (?) would be the TSAC-HD is a new "level" below the older TS/AC-2K "quality level"
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The Studio sounds better to me than the Amp Academy which I think has mix of 2K and 4K. But your guess is as good as mine. I’m surprised that since NUX was open and honest that the question wasn’t fully answered. But perhaps that wasn’t what you asked them about. It may be that then studio has newer algorithms that are improved in someway but have lower overall definition. But I’m just guessing as well. I do know that having higher technical specifications doesn’t always mean better tone. They can of course but the final result likely relies upon a number of factors IMO.

It may be that dropping the reverbs available in the Amp Academy and others allowed NUX to focus the Amp Core Studio to dedicate more horsepower (or the same) to the amp tones themselves. Hence the “Core” name and where it sits in their product line over all. But this is all speculation on my part. I’m sure the exact answers will come at some point. In the meantime I have flipped my two Amp Academy units because I feel the Amp Core Studio sounds great and the screen adds a lot IMO.
 
Sedaxel said:
I used to like Nux... however, they strongly failed with the Trident, both in design flaws and lack of commitment with its further upgrades and development. They launched their flagship unit, it had severe flaws... and instead of fix things and improve the unit, they abandoned it.

Besides, in every shootout I watched on YT, tonewise, Nux units were always the worst ones to my tastes.

So currently I have zero interest in their future offerings.
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The trident look cool because it had a lot of knobs. You can tweak on the fly for just about Everything. Am I correct? Reminds me kind of of my tone lab SE or even the zoom G 11.
 
KingsXJJ said:
The Studio sounds better to me than the Amp Academy which I think has mix of 2K and 4K. But your guess is as good as mine. I’m surprised that since NUX was open and honest that the question wasn’t fully answered. But perhaps that wasn’t what you asked them about. It may be that then studio has newer algorithms that are improved in someway but have lower overall definition. But I’m just guessing as well. I do know that having higher technical specifications doesn’t always mean better tone. They can of course but the final result likely relies upon a number of factors IMO.

It may be that dropping the reverbs available in the Amp Academy and others allowed NUX to focus the Amp Core Studio to dedicate more horsepower (or the same) to the amp tones themselves. Hence the “Core” name and where it sits in their product line over all. But this is all speculation on my part. I’m sure the exact answers will come at some point. In the meantime I have flipped my two Amp Academy units because I feel the Amp Core Studio sounds great and the screen adds a lot IMO.
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My emails to-from Nux were around 10 months ago when I was tinkering with the A/Academy - it ended up getting 3 or so 4K Amps which certainly sounded much better and I wanted to know if they were all going to be re-done - they said almost certainly not - very honest of them and given the AA FW hasn't been updated for 12 months, they weren't kidding :)

From my perspective, I just cant imagine / see Nux putting up to 26 x 4K Amps with Midi and IR's and movable mics and some EFX Blocks etc.... in such a small package and such a low price point. Just like L6 doesn't put the post-FW 3.1 "alias fixed" algorithms in the Pod Go or Pod Express.

Buyers have to have a reason to justify spending the $$ on the top Tier Model(s) from any brand.
 
EOengineer said:
I’d assume these are the same amps that are in the mighty plug, which honestly surprised the hell out of me for $100.
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Yep

Mighty Plug uses the same TS/AC HD algo's as this new Amp Core - the latest M/Plug FW is 3 Years and 1 Month ago - so I think we can say with %100 certainty that the Amp Core Models are well and truly pre 2K ..... at least 2 Generations ago in the Nux World.
 
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