Line 6 Helix Stadium Talk

[dean701]

It isn't the only amp that has the phenomenon.

@Nathan
we all know what an amp block sounds like without an IR
what happens if you pull cab off completely, does it sound like there is still a cab?

 

[[Nathan]]

@Nathan
we all know what an amp block sounds like without an IR
what happens if you pull cab off completely, does it sound like there is still a cab?

Still sounds like there's no IR but its the same sonic differences. The Legacy is crazy shrill and the Agoura one is mid heavy shrill

 

[dean701]

Still sounds like there's no IR but its the same sonic differences. The Legacy is crazy shrill and the Agoura one is mid heavy shrill

there's that mid frequency thing again. I think it's on all Agoura amps. It's welcome for certain amps, in the sense it feels more AITR, if that's what you're looking for, but for the high gain tones, perhaps not so much. For the plexi and Princeton, I like it generally because it's in the direction of the sound I'm driving for. For others not so much.
Like him or not, Leo had a video comparing his Soldano and the Stadium and he struggled with getting it to sound close. (no latency or null tests in that one)
Overall, for the folks that were hoping the Stadium would be a step towards authenticity, I think it's gone the wrong way. Once again, this isn't a debate on if it sounds good or not, because it does.
I think with the focus view lens feature, a good tone can be achievable in seconds. If you are trying to mirror your amp, it may or may not work for you depending on the amp.
Clones are another story. It is up to L6 on where the goal post is. It's pretty good right now. The bugs with the unit itself are more an issue for me than anything else.

 

[EOengineer]

Agoura sounds fine. It’s all the amps that sound wrong.

 

[Southpaw-DD]

 

[[Nathan]]

Like him or not, Leo had a video comparing his Soldano and the Stadium and he struggled with getting it to sound close. (no latency or null tests in that one)
Overall, for the folks that were hoping the Stadium would be a step towards authenticity, I think it's gone the wrong way. Once again, this isn't a debate on if it sounds good or not, because it does.

This pretty much sums it up "right now" for me. I can't imagine they'd spend all this time and R&D for the amps to NOT sound authentic. The feel is there but just something about it feels off, I have to think its some miscalculations or something that can be fixed (I have no idea im just speculating).

I genuinely can't entertain the conclusion that this is the end result vision of Agoura for the Panama, a bunch of things just dont make sense. It's not how the real amp sounds, its not how other sims sound, its not how their own legacy version sounds... its just not the Panama, it's obviously borked in some manor. I can't speak to Agoura in general because I dont know the other amps inside out... I guess the SLO had the same phenomena that I picked up on as well... but I'll still stick within my lane of the Panama on these conclusions. But yes more than likely an issue across the board but I have less confidence saying that etc.

 

[dean701]

This pretty much sums it up "right now" for me. I can't imagine they'd spend all this time and R&D for the amps to NOT sound authentic. The feel is there but just something about it feels off, I have to think its some miscalculations or something that can be fixed (I have no idea im just speculating).

I genuinely can't entertain the conclusion that this is the end result vision of Agoura for the Panama, a bunch of things just dont make sense. It's not how the real amp sounds, its not how other sims sound, its not how their own legacy version sounds... its just not the Panama, it's obviously borked in some manor. I can't speak to Agoura in general because I dont know the other amps inside out... I guess the SLO had the same phenomena that I picked up on as well... but I'll still stick within my lane of the Panama on these conclusions. But yes more than likely an issue across the board but I have less confidence saying that etc.

On the other side of the coin, it's now 6 months since the XL shipped, and I can't see how it is possible to distribute so many devices to this point, with so many happy customers, that this wasn't the intended result for these amps. If it is truly only a few amps then sure, they could revisit them but if it's the underlying core algorithms, I honestly don't see these amps changing. As always, I could be wrong.

 

[[Nathan]]

On the other side of the coin, it's now 6 months since the XL shipped, and I can't see how it is possible to distribute so many devices to this point, with so many happy customers, that this wasn't the intended result for these amps. If it is truly only a few amps then sure, they could revisit them but if it's the underlying core algorithms, I honestly don't see these amps changing. As always, I could be wrong.

Yes to all of the above, its why it was so puzzling to stumble onto this the other day and took the time to look into it more and more.... how is this like this?

Whether it gets redone, they find a fix, find a tweak to their modelling algo's, no idea. All I can say is the current end result of that amp is wrong and I hope it gets fixed at some point. I was using the Panama as a sounding board to test out my pedals when I capture them for proxy packs. I'll be using the legacy version because right now it's more reflective of how the real amp is.

 

[mikah912]

We should all be members of @2112's Patreon anyway, but he just dropped a treasure trove of Proxy captures of his Bad Cat Ocelot, JVM410, Ceriatone Molecular (Cameron Atomica), Headfirst-modded 1959 Plexi and more amps. Some real bangers in there for Jose-mod-style hard rock as well as straight-up tight modern metal.

 

[DG80]

Would be nice if we could actually get some input from Line 6 on this. Not as if it’s only now come to light.

 

[EOengineer]

This pretty much sums it up "right now" for me. I can't imagine they'd spend all this time and R&D for the amps to NOT sound authentic. The feel is there but just something about it feels off, I have to think its some miscalculations or something that can be fixed (I have no idea im just speculating).

I genuinely can't entertain the conclusion that this is the end result vision of Agoura for the Panama, a bunch of things just dont make sense. It's not how the real amp sounds, its not how other sims sound, its not how their own legacy version sounds... its just not the Panama, it's obviously borked in some manor. I can't speak to Agoura in general because I dont know the other amps inside out... I guess the SLO had the same phenomena that I picked up on as well... but I'll still stick within my lane of the Panama on these conclusions. But yes more than likely an issue across the board but I have less confidence saying that etc.

My recollection is that your initial impressions of that Agoura amp were positive. Are you thinking something happened in a recent fw update? You can pretty easily revert the firmware with the L6 Central app.

I don’t use that model and honestly haven’t turned my stadium on in a month or two.

 

[Orvillain]

My recollection is that your initial impressions of that Agoura amp were positive. Are you thinking something happened in a recent fw update? You can pretty easily revert the firmware with the L6 Central app.

I don’t use that model and honestly haven’t turned my stadium on in a month or two.

I think the early positivity - at least mine - is fully down to honemoon period. Once I actually started properly listening and comparing to a range of real amps, there is some phenomenon that the Agoura amp models are not doing as well as it could/should be. In the high frequency content and in the low-mids during palm mutes.

I agree with @[Nathan] - the feel is there, but there is something off with the overall tonality.

 

[EOengineer]

I think the early positivity - at least mine - is fully down to honemoon period. Once I actually started properly listening and comparing to a range of real amps, there is some phenomenon that the Agoura amp models are not doing as well as it could/should be. In the high frequency content and in the low-mids during palm mutes.

I agree with @[Nathan] - the feel is there, but there is something off with the overall tonality.

I was just more or less trying to determine if this specific instance was a continuation of the issues you’ve mentioned or acutely due to some new regression.

 

[[Nathan]]

My recollection is that your initial impressions of that Agoura amp were positive. Are you thinking something happened in a recent fw update? You can pretty easily revert the firmware with the L6 Central app.

I don’t use that model and honestly haven’t turned my stadium on in a month or two.

I honestly don't know, I have a feeling it was like this all along and I didn't initially catch how off it was.

 

[GTR37]

Would be nice if we could actually get some input from Line 6 on this. Not as if it’s only now come to light.

They have not said much
I know it was mentioned they were talking to people via DMs to avoid derailing the thread my guess was a few of those guys might have
Been here Mirror
Orvillian , maybe James Freeman
But even recently I have only seen Igloo here maybe couple of times a month

So maybe they are reviewing and reworking things behind the scenes or maybe they are confident that the current Agoura modelling is accurate
Who knows , not sure they will ever make a statement