How good is the Axe into a tube power amp or even a really good SS power amp or even FRFR?

If you have tube amps too, I would get a Fryette PowerStation.

1) You can use as attenuator to reamp your tube amps quieter (or louder if it's a smaller watt amp).
2) You can use the loadbox to run your amp DI into the Axe FX to apply cabs, effects, etc.
3) You can use it as a tube power amp for your Axe FX using the amp models.

Best of all worlds in one box. With that said, I have always wanted to try a Matrix for comparison but never have.
 
Axe FX III should sound good via power amps.

If have lots of money there is nice variety of different power amps.
I just bought one cheap one (after I read peoples experience about it).

My gear is Guitar -> Axe FX III -> HB GPA-400 -> Laney Lionheart LT212 and stereo

And one very nice thing is that same time I can get sound also via my audio interface / monitors ;D

And sounds just great.
 
axes said:
Thanks! Which SS PA are you using?
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Hi, sorry for late reply, now I used A very cheap two channel Yamaha PX PA amplifier, "class AB", or you might go to class D like seymour duncan, and just get a good pair of decent FRFR 12 inch speakers, more is merrier, i use celestion FX. for a room. it's feels like 4 x 12. on lower volume. unless you want go full all out high volume which i cannot do (small house).... after switch you will notice there is a subtle diffirent, but after a while.... it's not bad at all. i used even more cheap chinese "ASHLEY" VLP 300 generic PA amp and it sounds good. i triedmany routes, like calibrating and flatening the EQ etc... in the end, i ended up be happy to play any of it without feeling sounds too bad. good luck.
 
tobafett said:
Plus one here! There is something about the LXII that is so awesome! Heavy at 20 pounds, but if you are going the power amp cab method, it is tough to beat. I use it with the power amp modeling on, and bypass the cab block on the output feeding the LXII.
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How does it work across the different amp models? Do you get a sense of authenticity with it or does everything sound "similar" - of course I know that's also down to the speakers/cab.
 
Back in my Axe-FX II days, I put the CAB block at the end of the chain before Out1 (FOH), and grabbed the signal just before the CAB block to send to Out2 and my Mesa 20/20 => 2x Mesa Thiele Cabs (EVM-12L, of course). I felt - at the time - I was getting the best of both worlds: amp-in-the-room and superior modeling / effects to FOH.

With my AFX III, I'm using an AccuGroove Latte (powered) cabinet, just for a little feedback on stage. This after many (re)configurations involving a Matrix GT1000 and several other cabinet / speaker combinations. I've found that - if you play in a variety of locations - you have to be satisfied with being close to what you hear in your home / studio environment. Typically, you're at the mercy of the room and the sound guy, so mostly you need to find a cabinet that sounds right wherever you spend the most time programming. If you wear IEMs, your presets need to sound right in your head more so than your on-stage cabinet.
 
axes said:
How does it work across the different amp models? Do you get a sense of authenticity with it or does everything sound "similar" - of course I know that's also down to the speakers/cab.
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If you run the same real world guitar cab, a lot of amps will sound similar. Easy enough to experiment in the axe now - use one IR and roll 4 amps in the cab block.

Also if you can explain what you mean by “authenticity” better, I think other users can give you better info.
 
Dave Moore said:
Sure thing, The LX sounded great but it was heavy and needed a second rack. To me neither sounds "authentic" when I put it next to a real fender amp. I obsessively A/B'd them and the LXII sounds better but the PS fits in my bag and is cheaper, the difference between the two was not great enough to keep the LXII. Also under that setup the board is getting a direct signal so it's just about what I am hearing on stage and they were pretty indistinguishable when on a loud stage. One other personal reason is if I was going to carry the heavy LXII why not just grab my super reverb head as they weigh about the same and the real thing always sounds great. I keep the power stage in my save a gig bag in case my amp dies I can just switch over to the hybrid patch and keep going.
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love this logic! :) :sunglasses: :sunglasses:
 
ESW said:
Exactly - I use power amp modeling and have the output mode set to "SS Pwr Amp + Cab". I mostly use Marshalls, Hiwatts and the Komet 60, but I haven't found an amp it doesn't like. The drawbacks are that it's kind of heavy, and at lower volumes you'll hear the fan noise.
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on this setting, and through tube heads, i too can attest that my AxeFx III sounds insanely great in the room or at gig/rehearsals
 
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axes said:
I know it's been discussed several times in the forum but I'm looking for brutal honesty here.
I have a Mesa JP-2C and some other tube heads that I love to death. I've decided to stick with these amps even though I have the Axe III but I finally got to testing with a Suhr Reactive Load and now I know how accurate the Axe's JP-2C model is. Therefore I feel like it would make total financial sense to sell the JP-2C and possibly the other amps as well.
Even though I mainly play through studio monitors now I don't want to lose the opportunity of having the amp in the room sound when I feel like it. So I've been thinking with the money recovered by selling the heads I'd have plenty of budget to get 2 or even 3 tube poweramps, maybe a Marshall 9100/9200 and a Mesa 2:90 (and if I really want to go all out then a Fryette 2/90/2) to be able to cover both "british" and "american" tones. Since these are all stereo poweramps the stereo appeal is also huge and with my budget I could easily go for 2x212 Greenback and 2x212 V30 cabs to have all the options I'd ever want.
However, I live in a very small European country where I don't have the opportunity to try any tube poweramps because even the largest music stores are not stocking any of them and even the used market barely sees 1 or 2 of these every year.
So I don't have any other options than to ask for your brutally honest opinion on the matter: if i were to plug the Axe into a tube poweramp on the JP-2C model, would it sound and feel just as good as if for example plugging the slave of my JP-2C into the same tube poweramp?
Or am I on the wrong track and should go for a very high quality solid state power amp and just let the Axe PA modeling and impedance curves do the rest? Or should I just go for MF10s and trust in the tremendous amount of praise from everyone how "guitar cab-like" it sounds?
I'm sorry for asking these questions like this but I really don't have any opportunity to try these possibilities and will probably have to pull the trigger blindly which I really hate doing. Thanks.
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may want to see this... :)
 
axes said:
How does it work across the different amp models? Do you get a sense of authenticity with it or does everything sound "similar" - of course I know that's also down to the speakers/cab.
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For my use case it pairs well with the different models that I use: Severe 2, Euro Blue Modern, Solo 100, and Archean Clean. The LXII is trying to be as neutral as possible, so the characteristics of the amp do come through, however, since the speaker plays a very important part in the sound, it is not night and day different.

When I was looking for a rack mount power amp, the LXII was the only one that was available that checked all the boxes for me:

Power/standby on front, I/O in the back, fit in a 1 U space.

The downside is that it is pretty heavy. One of the bands I am in is doing a travel gig this weekend, that is not going to have IEMs and is going to rely heavily on stage volume.

I am really debating whether to take my FXIII rack with the LXII or my FM9 with the SD PS170. My eight space rack is almost too heavy to lift by myself.

The fan noise is pretty loud, but if you're using it on stage it will not be an issue. Even at practice/bedroom volume it is not too bad.
 
eddyrox said:

may want to see this... :)
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Thank you for sharing that! In a mix it would probably be pretty hard to tell the difference. I did a shoot out of the LXII vs the SD PS170 that I need to put together and check out. I am interested to see what the difference is. A while back when I owned a Fryette Power Station 2 I did a similar shoot out and in the mix the difference was so negligible, the SD PS170 was the winner to me in terms of price and ease of portability. Granted, it did not have all the features of the PS-2, but for me personally, I did not need them.

For me when just playing by myself the LXII just does something for me that the PS170 does not. That is totally subjective and will be different for everyone....Just my .02.
 
That fryette LX II absolutely smokes the matrix in that comparison, good lord. And it doesn’t even have the presence and depth turned up. That is not at all subtle to me personally. That would stop me immediately from buying the matrix personally, wow.
 
VESmedic said:
That fryette LX II absolutely smokes the matrix in that comparison, good lord. And it doesn’t even have the presence and depth turned up. That is not at all subtle to me personally. That would stop me immediately from buying the matrix personally, wow.
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In order for the LXII to be "neutral" and not need the power amp settings disabled in fractal land, the presence and depth are supposed to be off, granted I've never tried it with them on, it might be glorious! =0) That is dumbest thing about the LXII, if you wanted to use and adjust the presence and depth, the adjustments are through holes in the top of the case, which if the amp was in a rack would be a pain in the A$$ to get at. I am not sure what they were thinking there......
 
tobafett said:
In order for the LXII to be "neutral" and not need the power amp settings disabled in fractal land, the presence and depth are supposed to be off, granted I've never tried it with them on, it might be glorious! =0) That is dumbest thing about the LXII, if you wanted to use and adjust the presence and depth, the adjustments are through holes in the top of the case, which if the amp was in a rack would be a pain in the A$$ to get at. I am not sure what they were thinking there......
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Yea that is quite stupid, and for how much it costs, I’d just buy a 2/90/2 personally anyways, which probably sounds even better. But man, that matrix does not sound good at all compared the LX II to me personally.
 
Anyone tried feeding a Mesa Road King yet? Wondering if the el34/6l6 tube switching is worth it's weight.
 
tobafett said:
In order for the LXII to be "neutral" and not need the power amp settings disabled in fractal land, the presence and depth are supposed to be off, granted I've never tried it with them on, it might be glorious! =0) That is dumbest thing about the LXII, if you wanted to use and adjust the presence and depth, the adjustments are through holes in the top of the case, which if the amp was in a rack would be a pain in the A$$ to get at. I am not sure what they were thinking there......
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Agree. I’m not sure why they didn’t make the knobs accessible on the front. This is why I went with a PowerStation for multi-use case but have always wanted to try to a 2:90:2 stereo power amp.
 
Thank you all for chiming in.
At this point I've narrowed it down to the Fryette 2/90/2, Mesa 2:90 and Marshall 9100/9200, considering the possibility of purchasing all three of them for different flavors. I'm still considering the Lx II (especially that I've recently seen a video of Steve Vai using them in his Synergy rig) but I'm leaning towards disabling the PA simulation in the Axe and letting the PAs do their thing.
The reason I've started thinking in this direction is that from what I've gathered reading through lots of forum threads and even longer stories of people going through different poweramps, I've found the most positive experiences were closely related with the above tube PAs which I'd definitely not consider neutral sounding. However, it's also fair to say that the Lx II is under represented simply because the 2/90/2 has been around longer (under the brand VHT before Fryette).
I wish I had the opportunity to try all of these options before buying but since I won't be able to do that I guess I'll just have to get started somewhere and see how I like it. The two options I could easily source would be the Fryette 2/90/2 or the Lx II. So my question for now is: would you pick the 2/90/2 or the Lx II? Why one or the other? Would you even consider going for both?
 
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