Line 6 Helix Stadium Talk

[Mooselake]

That's all from one user who scrapes the internet looking for any thread or YouTube video the least bit critical of Stadium and then shares it as a new thread. The dude apparently keeps getting banned, and then comes back with a new alt, only to do the same stuff again. If anyone calls him out, he claims he's being "stalked" and then reports them. It's pathetic.

Looks like the mods over there restored it. It does get tedious to have to read through the buzzkills trying to throw shade on devices/companies that fall outside their tribal alignment. I get that modelers are a personal preference item, and it's okay to to prefer device B over device A, and to say so. But to be motivated to be a curator of of negativity about a device you don't use or want seems like a lot of misplaced energy.

 

[Mooselake]

I have noticed that Fractal tends to have more gain in general. It actually makes dialing in medium gain type tones easier for me on the Stadium. Fractal is also a lot more compressed, but some of that is likely due to the advanced speaker parameters (compression, drive, etc....). I don't know how much gain there should be, but it is something I've noticed.

I entered the Fractal world via the AM4 recently and found the same when it comes to those intermediate gain tones. They're just sort of there for the taking in Stadium and in limited experience it seems like it takes a bit more effort for me to dial in the "classic rock" family of tones I tend to gravitate towards on the AM4. Maybe it's just a matter of how the respective devs chose the default values. But they are both very capable of meeting my needs and fun to play. I haven't tried to establish whether I think one is "better" than the other. I like the variety of options that come with a the flagship form factor that I get from Stadium, but also have a need for a smaller footprint for a good chunk of the year. I intend to enjoy both for what they are.

 

[HomespunEffects]

Good question, I don’t think I was using the noise-gate at all, but I’ll check again.

I’m not talking about the gate in the input block. Anything that is sidechained to Instrument 1 won’t be affected by Instrument 2. For example if you have Horizon Gate sidechained at Instrument 1 then Instrument 2 will not open the signal and it will sound low and muffled. You can overcome the issue in this case by placing 2 Horizon Gates in parallel and sidechaining one to Instrument 1 and the other to Instrument 2. Upload your preset.

 

[EOengineer]

OK so I finally got around to running some comparisons of my Mark III against Stadium and the AM4. You can kinda see the Mark III peeking out from behind that pile of madness. Note I did tap off the Surh RL but the 1960A you can't really see there was the the actual load presented to the amp. I dialed the amp to approximate the settings I used in the others, this obviously isn't totally apples to apples as we're comparing 2C+ to the III. I was too lazy to hook up the studio preamp.

I didn't do any hardcore level matching, and am not going to play games. The first pass is the Mark III, the second the AM4, and last is the Stadium in each example.

 

[JiveTurkey]

OK so I finally got around to running some comparisons of my Mark III against Stadium and the AM4. You can kinda see the Mark III peeking out from behind that pile of madness. Note I did tap off the Surh RL but the 1960A you can't really see there was the the actual load presented to the amp. I dialed the amp to approximate the settings I used in the others, this obviously isn't totally apples to apples as we're comparing 2C+ to the III. I was too lazy to hook up the studio preamp.



View attachment 57709

I didn't do any hardcore level matching, and am not going to play games. The first pass is the Mark III, the second the AM4, and last is the Stadium in each example.

Helix has a more 'nasal' quality vs. the other two. Great riff choices \m/

 

[bucephalus]

Helix has a more 'nasal' quality vs. the other two. Great riff choices \m/

Very much agree with this. Not loving the sound of the Stadium in these clips tbh.

 

[GTR37]

OK so I finally got around to running some comparisons of my Mark III against Stadium and the AM4. You can kinda see the Mark III peeking out from behind that pile of madness. Note I did tap off the Surh RL but the 1960A you can't really see there was the the actual load presented to the amp. I dialed the amp to approximate the settings I used in the others, this obviously isn't totally apples to apples as we're comparing 2C+ to the III. I was too lazy to hook up the studio preamp.



View attachment 57709

I didn't do any hardcore level matching, and am not going to play games. The first pass is the Mark III, the second the AM4, and last is the Stadium in each example.

Just for fun you should try the Fractal Suhr reactive load impedance curve
I know you used the real thing here but it would be interesting to see
AM4 model w the model of the Suhr and maybe Fractal 1960 Dyna-Cab , it would be cool to see if you could get closer to the amp clip

 

[Orvillain]

OK so I finally got around to running some comparisons of my Mark III against Stadium and the AM4. You can kinda see the Mark III peeking out from behind that pile of madness. Note I did tap off the Surh RL but the 1960A you can't really see there was the the actual load presented to the amp. I dialed the amp to approximate the settings I used in the others, this obviously isn't totally apples to apples as we're comparing 2C+ to the III. I was too lazy to hook up the studio preamp.



View attachment 57709

I didn't do any hardcore level matching, and am not going to play games. The first pass is the Mark III, the second the AM4, and last is the Stadium in each example.

Honestly..... Stadium sounds properly wank there. I don't know how you even got that sound tbh. It doesn't sound anywhere near that shitty when I use the 2C+ - despite the accuracy conversations we were having.

(sorry!)

 

[EOengineer]

Just for fun you should try the Fractal Suhr reactive load impedance curve
I know you used the real thing here but it would be interesting to see
AM4 model w the model of the Suhr

I do eventually want to compare some of the fractal amps with that curve against my own real ones where there’s overlap. Definitely crossed my mind.

 

[EOengineer]

Honestly..... Stadium sounds properly wank there. I don't know how you even got that sound tbh. It doesn't sound anywhere near that shitty when I use the 2C+ - despite the accuracy conversations we were having.

(sorry!)

I’m not offended. The Stadium wasn’t dialed in to sound good, it was dialed in to match the settings of the other examples. The Fractal and Mark III both dial in about the same. The Stadium model sounds VERY different to me with the same settings.

I’m seeing sporadic reports of weird SIC behavior in certain scenarios so at some point I’ll try with a new Stadium preset and the same IR. I triple checked my presets today and am puzzled as to why Stadium sounds so different.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

OK so I finally got around to running some comparisons of my Mark III against Stadium and the AM4. You can kinda see the Mark III peeking out from behind that pile of madness. Note I did tap off the Surh RL but the 1960A you can't really see there was the the actual load presented to the amp. I dialed the amp to approximate the settings I used in the others, this obviously isn't totally apples to apples as we're comparing 2C+ to the III. I was too lazy to hook up the studio preamp.



View attachment 57709

I didn't do any hardcore level matching, and am not going to play games. The first pass is the Mark III, the second the AM4, and last is the Stadium in each example.

I appreciate you doing the test. Real amp sounds really awesome. Much like the Jubilee and EVH examples I’ve heard, I really can’t believe that it’s how Agoura is intended to sound given what we’ve come to expect from L6. I hope it’s a fixable bug, but I would also expect something like this to have been flagged in testing if it was. Time will tell, I guess.

I really wish we could just trust modelling from the get go in 2026, but IMO, it just shows why we still need to check over how the models behave and suss out all their quirks.

 

[Orvillain]

I’m not offended. The Stadium wasn’t dialed in to sound good, it was dialed in to match the settings of the other examples. The Fractal and Mark III both dial in about the same. The Stadium model sounds VERY different to me with the same settings.

I’m seeing sporadic reports of weird SIC behavior in certain scenarios so at some point I’ll try with a new Stadium preset and the same IR. I triple checked my presets today and am puzzled as to why Stadium sounds so different.

We all know that you can get a Mark 2C+, Mark III, Mark IV, Mark V, or Mark VII ..... set it to the highest gain channel... choose a mode.... cut the channel EQ lows... boost the mids and highs.... then on the graphic EQ, boost the lows, cut the 750hz slider, boost the highs... and get a fat as fuck sound.

The fact it is a real struggle on the new 2C+ on Stadium, coupled with the darkness of the 5150III amp, coupled with the overall sensation of dullness across all of the high-gain amps .... it paints a pretty bleak picture for Agoura amp modelling to be honest.

Genuinely - I wanted to be a fanboy. I wanted to sell my Axe FX III. I wanted to evangelize about this thing. But I just can't. I've not turned it on in a week. I can't bring myself to do it. I just don't really like how the high-gain stuff is sounding, and I don't really know where to go from here. I'm well outside my return period, otherwise I would return it.