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I've made enough noise about this - har har har pun intended - over the years that now I've got these units all side-by-side, I can show clips:
www.dropbox.com
There is a baseline measurement of my guitar plugged directly into the Mark V, with the volume rolled off. Every other unit does not have a guitar plugged into it. I thought this was a reasonable way of showing the base noisefloor of each unit.
You've got the Stadium XL, with all of the levels at unit and set to instrument level where required.
You've got the Axe FX III using output 3 with the front knob cranked, at all of the different boost/pad settings.
Then you've got the Quad Cortex.
All input noise gates turned off. all impedance settings at maximum. Although that should not make much difference given we're not plugging a guitar in. No effects in any of the signal paths at all, and everything only taking the silent input from the 1st instrument input - no multi options. So what you're hearing is the self generated noise of each unit.
Oh, and to clarify - the Mark V is set to the highest gain channel, with a very nice crunchy metal rhythm tone dialed in. That is to simulate the kind of noise you'd be injecting into your rig as a whole; even if it is less obvious on the clean channel for example. I'm tapping the signal at the speaker output of the amp, so you're getting the whole amp here with zero cab colouration.
You can hear that the Axe FX III without the boost pad is noisy. But when you start moving through the boost/pad settings, it does reduce noise as you'd expect. With my setup, there's no real difference between the 12dB and 18dB settings.
The Stadium XL is very slightly lower noise than the Axe FX III is on its 12 or 18dB pad settings. Perceptually, I can definitely hear it being a bit cleaner.
The Quad Cortex is more or less equivalent to the Axe FX III without any boost/pad tweak.
I did not run 4-cable-method. But you can imagine that with twice the amount of digital conversion, you'd get at the very least a little bit more noise. Probably not quite twice the amount, since noise is a perceptual phenomenon just as much as it is a measurable one.
Here's an image showing each clip next to each other. Nothing has been gain boosted in the DAW, I've just increased the zoom to maximum so we can see the noise foor.
So... for me Stadium is the winner. Axe III 12dB or 18dB take second position. Quad Cortex and Axe FX III without the boost/pad function are third place; and there's quite a large drop off there in terms of acceptability IMHO.
In isolation, it might not sound like very much. In practice, it is very distracting, and is noticeable even on the clean channel.
Dropbox
There is a baseline measurement of my guitar plugged directly into the Mark V, with the volume rolled off. Every other unit does not have a guitar plugged into it. I thought this was a reasonable way of showing the base noisefloor of each unit.
You've got the Stadium XL, with all of the levels at unit and set to instrument level where required.
You've got the Axe FX III using output 3 with the front knob cranked, at all of the different boost/pad settings.
Then you've got the Quad Cortex.
All input noise gates turned off. all impedance settings at maximum. Although that should not make much difference given we're not plugging a guitar in. No effects in any of the signal paths at all, and everything only taking the silent input from the 1st instrument input - no multi options. So what you're hearing is the self generated noise of each unit.
Oh, and to clarify - the Mark V is set to the highest gain channel, with a very nice crunchy metal rhythm tone dialed in. That is to simulate the kind of noise you'd be injecting into your rig as a whole; even if it is less obvious on the clean channel for example. I'm tapping the signal at the speaker output of the amp, so you're getting the whole amp here with zero cab colouration.
You can hear that the Axe FX III without the boost pad is noisy. But when you start moving through the boost/pad settings, it does reduce noise as you'd expect. With my setup, there's no real difference between the 12dB and 18dB settings.
The Stadium XL is very slightly lower noise than the Axe FX III is on its 12 or 18dB pad settings. Perceptually, I can definitely hear it being a bit cleaner.
The Quad Cortex is more or less equivalent to the Axe FX III without any boost/pad tweak.
I did not run 4-cable-method. But you can imagine that with twice the amount of digital conversion, you'd get at the very least a little bit more noise. Probably not quite twice the amount, since noise is a perceptual phenomenon just as much as it is a measurable one.
Here's an image showing each clip next to each other. Nothing has been gain boosted in the DAW, I've just increased the zoom to maximum so we can see the noise foor.
So... for me Stadium is the winner. Axe III 12dB or 18dB take second position. Quad Cortex and Axe FX III without the boost/pad function are third place; and there's quite a large drop off there in terms of acceptability IMHO.
In isolation, it might not sound like very much. In practice, it is very distracting, and is noticeable even on the clean channel.
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