Let me first say that I am a huge fan of Line 6. These guys are so damn innovative that I envy the people who can be a part of that team. First they brought us the POD who changed the whole direct recording thing, then when everybody else made less expensive crappy copies of this, they introduced the Guitarport… and the Variax…. there is no limits to what these guys can do! Let me also say that I haven’t yet had a chance to play any of their real amps, other than on shows like Namm and Frankfurt, so I don’t really know to much about them other than the first impression, which again was awesome.

Anyway, being a POD owner for a few years I just had to have a POD XT ( I don’t think my wife really understood why, but anyway…)

Why did I have to replace my POD 2.0. Well first of all I liked the idea of the USB interface, and the fact that you can deep edit the thing for the frontpanel without having to hook up to Soundiver comes in handy when you are in the studio. I was also attracted to the fact that Line 6 included lots of their stomp boxes in the effect section.

First impression.
Well, my first impression was rather dull. The problem was that I had not sold my POD 2.0 yet, so I had them both laying at a desk in my home studio, and I looked at them both and thought “ why the hell did they change the shape of the coolest piece of guitar gear ever?”

The original POD had a very well designed “ I look like a pair of boobs or a very nice worked out 19 year old Playboy bunny butt” look, while the XT looked like “ I am 15 years older now, and you aint getting any here” look.

That being said, when you first connect your guitar to this, a little more mature babe, you will learn that she knows her stuff well.

The sound is a lot better than the 2.0, more open and more detailed. The hi-gain presets had way to much gain, but a little tweaking and it sounded awesome. The effects are so much better than the 2.0, and there is a lot more of them too. And of course having all the information in the display is neat.

I don’t know too much about vintage amps, so I can really tell if the modelling is close or not, but they sound good anyway. There is a really nice sounding funk amp in there too.
(preset called Funk 49)

As far as the more shred oriented am models god, the Marshall JMP-1 is pretty damn close, the Dual Rectifier is probably a little better than last time, the Soldano has always been my favorite, but right now my favourite is the line 6 Insane. Way too much gain on the preset again, but when you got it right, this amp sounds great. I also like the “spinal puppet” amp for rhythm guitar, as it has a very tight low end to it.

I have not yet been able to record via the USB as I have some problems with my DAW finding the USB drivers (probably my mistake…), but the editor works great with the USB interface. The editor interface is also a lot better than the Soundiver interface.

Further, I have also tried the XT with the guitarport software, and it works great. However, I cannot play the old backing tracks from my hard disc, as they are not Guitarport 2 compatible. Bummer…

Conclusion:
Again Line 6 has created a hit! My guess is that a lot of the previous POD owners will upgrade to the XT only for the effect section, and will learn that this baby offers more improvements than only the effects. And, I almost forgot. The new tuner is way better than the old one, and is actually useful.

• Negative
  Does not support the FB 4 (which isn’t really that bad, but I had one…)
  Does not fit in the original POD bag (again, I had one…)
  Desing is not really as sexy as the original POD ( but then again, you don’t loose focus dreaming about being at the playboy mansion each time you touch it….)

Link Company - Line 6
Link Product - Pod XT