I got my Powercab yesterday and have done a little bit of playing. I have a behringer pmp3000 going into 2 yamaha 15 inch with horns and some electrovoice EKX powered speakers that I compared against. I am using the axe fx 2 XL+. I do have a peavey 6505 tube amp that I havnt compared anything against yet except for that being my volume benchmark.
I was looking for a light solution for bringing to jams and gigs. I dont gig much anymore but about once a week I am bringing all my gear somewhere to jam.
Sound wise, the PC was actually kindof impressive in FRFR mode, it seemed to add some presence which i think people are calling "amp in the room" sound, which some may not like cause it is a coloration in what is advertised as a zero coloring mode. It did feel in this mode more like an amp than my powered speaker setups. My EV were definitely nicer sounding though, but now I notice they do not have that "presence". I am saying presence because I assume it is some filtering technique which gives a similar effect to the presense treble filtering in amps, but I am not sure what they are doing, it would be interesting to see an FFT comparison between input and output. I noticed the PC is also very directional, which is fine if you just want it for stage monitoring, but it maybe isnt optimum for people hearing it that dont have it pointed right at them, doesnt seem to fill the room well.
I so far do not enjoy the built in cab models, they do not sound optimum for the types of amps and tone setups I have. To be fair, i did not tweak my tones to accomidate them, but I didnt notice anything mindblowing enough about them to make me want to spend time doing that rather than using the IRs in my Axe.
To me, for the price point, it sounds good enough and would work decent for people who do not play with loud drummers. I jam with a jazz group, a prog group, and a metal group. I think this thing would have enough volume for the jazz and prog, but it still will leave me carrying around my 6505 for the metal group. I dont know if there is the solution I was dreaming of, finding something that weighs 30lbs with at least half the volume of a 150W tube amp, but this isnt it. Does the CLR have the volume I am looking for, how about the Headrush?
I am hoping to jam with a drummer this weekend and I will see if it is the last nail in the coffin or not.