I have been running my AXE ULTRA with SS poweramp and guitar cabs. But I was still running my rig with cab sims on, tried turn it off, but never got that great sound with them turned off. But being a newbie I didnt "blame" the AXE, I thought I didnt master all the tweeking yet.
With firmware 11 lots of people were very thrilled and happy with this update and even posted great sounding patches which I downloaded, and still didnt sound that "WOW".
So I thought to myself Fxxk it!! Im downloaded a firmware 11 patch (forgot who created it but god bless his soul and knowledge) and reset my AXE to cab sim off and all gobal settings flat. Tweeked abit of amp level up, fine tuned some amp eq... and OH MY BUDDHA!! This is the shit!!
So now its all good, most of my patches are WAY better than before and the punch and the "stringyness" of the sound is just awesome.
Just a hint if any other person runs guitar cabs with sims still on. Give it a shot, a REAL shot and turn them off, you might find things you never thought was possible.
Rock on!