Let's talk load boxes!

Orvillain said:
I've not used the RL, but I own the RLIR, and don't use the IR portion of it really. Yes it needs to be powered, which I'm perfectly fine with. It sounds really REALLY good to me.

Am I missing anything by not having the original RL ???
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I don’t know. I recommended the Suhr to DD, he got the RL IR, thought I was nuts for recommending it because he didn’t like it, and I said “well I had the OG”, and then he got that one and likes it. So, anecdotal and all.
 
Achilles said:
It depends on the amp though. Some of the modern offerings get 95% of their tone from the pre-amp. I definitely wouldn't do this with an old Fender combo. :rofl
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hmm I don’t agree, yes the gain and tone is coming from the preamp but even a clean poweramp still has a sound that you want as part of the tone.

A 5150/Rectifier/Friedman/2203 etc all sound limp and rubbish without their poweramp. The presence and depth controls behave much better with a proper load attached too.
 
MirrorProfiles said:
hmm I don’t agree, yes the gain and tone is coming from the preamp but even a clean poweramp still has a sound that you want as part of the tone.

A 5150/Rectifier/Friedman/2203 etc all sound limp and rubbish without their poweramp. The presence and depth controls behave much better with a proper load attached too.
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I agree with you 100%. I use a Tone King reactive load myself. But for someone trying to do silent playing on the cheap this is a good solution. Basically the same as the Speaker Off switch on a Mesa Boogie Mark V:25. That just bypasses the speaker for an internal load resistor similar to what I posted.
 
Achilles said:
I agree with you 100%. I use a Tone King reactive load myself. But for someone trying to do silent playing on the cheap this is a good solution. Basically the same as the Speaker Off switch on a Mesa Boogie Mark V:25. That just bypasses the speaker for an internal load resistor similar to what I posted.
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My jvm sounds terrible recording from the direct out. I'd rather use a free amp sim plugin for recording than use it that way.
 
paisleywookiee said:
I don’t know. I recommended the Suhr to DD, he got the RL IR, thought I was nuts for recommending it because he didn’t like it, and I said “well I had the OG”, and then he got that one and likes it. So, anecdotal and all.
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This is true, and while not necessarily consensus, I've seen my initial opinion shared by a few youtube guys and on a few forums as well. The Captor was my first load box, and I loved it, but I started going through gear like crazy because I just couldn't get the sound I was looking for perfectly. Then the Captor X came out and I had to have it. In my mind, this puts the amp, cab, and mic in front of the mic pre on your board, so it's a more accurate simulation of a miked cab. This has worked great for me, but I still have been wanting more from it, I'm always EQing the hell out of it.

Then I read a few opinions that Two Notes stuff has an interesting speaker impedance curve that not everyone jives with. This was about the time Fractal put the Two Notes and other load box speaker curves in the FM9/AX3, etc, so I could test these out virtually and see what I liked.

Talking with @paisleywookiee he suggested I try the Suhr boxes. So I went big and got the Suhr RL IR for reasons stated above. I never tried it without the IRs, but it was a big let down. Truncating IRs to 20ms is terrible and even the ones I loaded from my own IR captures or Ownhammer, York Audio, etc., all sounded fizzy and harsh in it, and I made sure they were matched to the device sample rate.

I punted for a few months, and then I saw a deal on the older unpowered Suhr RL without IR loading and I tried it out. Instant bliss. It's perfect and really sounds raw and awesome. This really negates me using my WA76 compressor in my signal chain as I'm now loading IRs in my DAW, but the sound quality of the Suhr more than makes up for it.

I still think all of these devices are great, but if I'm buying one, I'm buying one that has either a longer IR time like 200 ms as the Captor X does, or one that is just a reactive load and is the best at that, like the Suhr RL. I still need to try out the Fractal X Load and the Fryette devices as well, but this is my experience.
 
I’d like to pick up a Suhr RL one of these days to have the tonal option of that more authentic 4x12 greenback thing when silent recording/reamping.

I picked up a Captor during Covid because the Suhr was unobtanium for a while and I needed something quick. It’s ok when I want more of a generic open back cab sound, but more often than not I use it with a guitar cab connected so that I can get the authentic cab interaction and the captor basically acts as a transparent DI at that point.

I’m still undecided on whether I prefer to just use my modeling stuff.
 
EOengineer said:
I’d like to pick up a Suhr RL one of these days to have the tonal option of that more authentic 4x12 greenback thing when silent recording/reamping.

I picked up a Captor during Covid because the Suhr was unobtanium for a while and I needed something quick. It’s ok when I want more of a generic open back cab sound, but more often than not I use it with a guitar cab connected so that I can get the authentic cab interaction and the captor basically acts as a transparent DI at that point.

I’m still undecided on whether I prefer to just use my modeling stuff.
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The modern modelers get the job done, for sure. I still prefer real amps through a reactive load, but there's no one right way to do any of this.
 
Just got this in since it’s the one I haven’t tried. Always on he hunt. I’ll have to amend my previous posts about Tone King being in my top preference. They do sound good but for me this and the Suhr are now my preferred. If I want a greenback type impedance curve I use the Suhr and everything else goes through this Fryette.

The IRs that come loaded are nice and the ability to do a quick tweak to the IR’s with the switches to the far left are such a cool feature to tweak to the PA changes from gig to gig. Crazy enough one of the reasons I got this to try was because it comes loaded with Fryette’s IRs of the Sound City cab I have. Man I love that cabinet especially for heavy stuff. The SLO sounds glorious through it and sounds good through the Sound City IRs too.

Still haven’t dove into the analog out so still some experimenting to do there. I’d like to try mixing the analog and IR but I’m sure there will be phase issues which can be fixed in a DAW but would be cool mixing the two in something like my Helix for live but not sure how I’d fix any phase if there is. Anyway still some things to explore but I can really recommend this one as a good one as well.

71106791513__B3F94E1C-4739-400F-BAD6-78E5210030AF.jpeg
 
TheTrueZoltan! said:
The Two Notes Captor is clearly an inferior product compared to the Suhr Reactive Load, Fractal‘s LB-2 or St. Rock‘s React:IR. The key to the success of this product was heavy marketing and a competitive price, not quality.
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I hate to say it but I’ve returned or sold off every Two Notes product I’ve ever owned. Their virtual cabs sound good but IME they have noise issues that just aren’t necessary and I really don’t feel like the price justifies the quality of product you get.
 
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