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Roadie
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Something like what you’re describing would be my preferred home rig. A real 3/4 tube powered preamp with the option of running into a digital power amp sim. I’d not have to worry about wearing out power tubes and can practice and record without disturbing anyone. I guess this is basically the Astro 20 without the power section?Hughes & Kettner Grandmeister is sort of in that direction, just without having several full channels.
ENGL Ironball SE has e.g built in delay, reverb and noise gate. While they got positive reviews, I don't think many would go for that. Many people have their favorite fx pedals or processors so they don't want an amp that contains all that.
By comparison the more beginner market is meant to offer a more comprehensive all-in-one solution so people don't need to buy the fx to get started.
The weird thing is that there don't seem to be that many complex amps with built in IR loaders. Most of them are bundled with 1-2 channel amps, 20 watters and whatnot. Maybe it would cost too much to have a loadbox that can handle above 100W on something like the JVM410?
You'd also think Synergy would jump at that but we seem to be getting a 20W head instead, probably basically a Soldano Astro 20 with a module bay? Where's the SYN2 with an IR loader and poweramp sim? That would be a pretty perfect usecase for what they have. Or is their expectation that if you can afford to buy the SYN2, you probably can also buy Two Notes Torpedo Live or whatever?
The SYN-2 today is too expensive for lacking any power amp/IR-loading and other solutions haven’t looked as interesting to me(Friedman IR-X etc. is too crippled by the format IMO).




