L6 Powercab 112+ is the real deal

InsideOut

Power User
I'm not going to list all the features and functions because you can see all that on the L6 website. What I will say is, this is the most promising solution I've tried since I switched to modeling. I'm using the Powercab 112+ with the AX8.

I've always loved the immediacy and thump of a real guitar cab and the way it interacts with the guitar for easy feedback etc. For this reason, sometimes with the AX8, I use a poweramp and 1x12 cab with a V30 in it. The thing I don't like about it is, I'm stuck with a single speaker (not a big fan of V30 for Fender cleans etc) and it is not FR so my piezo equipped electric sounds like it has a blanket over it no matter how much I EQ it.

I also really like using a powered PA monitor because it is FR and I can use any cab IR I want, and my piezo sounds great. I convinced myself that the convenience was enough to compensate for it sounding like a mic'd cab and not a cab on the stage behind me.

Enter the Powercab 112+. It does both, and it does them remarkably well. I can load IR's into it and then create presets that can be selected by midi PC from the AX8. This removes the burden of cab block from the AX8 so it frees up a chunk of CPU. Also, since my AX8 preset can specify which Powercab preset is active (per scene), it means I can switch from any IR with high and low cut if wanted, to FRFR, or bypass the tweeter and use just the woofer, effortlessly. And since the woofer is a custom designed speaker from Eminence, it genuinely gives you the "in the room" feel - even with IR's.

I wish a youtube video could convey this, but it really is something you have to try because it's more of a feel and interaction difference than a sound difference. But it combines the best of using a speaker cab and powered PA monitor into one really well thought-out unit. I have never really been a fan of L6 amp modeling, but they really thought this powered speaker through and it puts a giant sh*t eatin grin on my face every time I crank it up.
 
Well, you can do direct through to PA (XLR output) which puts a mic and speaker sim on it. So yes, FOH still sounds like a mic'd amp, but on stage it sounds like an amp.
 
Awesome that it is working for you. Mine is here today. Looking forward to making IRs specifically tailored for use with it.

Will use it with all my amps including the AX8 and AXE III.
 
you run the piezo through it? so it's a full-range speaker? i'm confused by how Line 6 describes it.
 
Is the cabsim always on for XLR out? I think I read that somewhere as well but it didn’t say if you could turn that off? The reason is obviously when you use a piezo and want to disable IRs all together.

I guess if you run mono you could tweak the signal so that left only has the amp’d guitar signal and goes to the L6 Powercab and on to FoH with cabsims on, and right out from the Ax8/Axe Fx 2 would have the piezo out so you’d run right out direct to FoH from the Ax8/Axe Fx 2.

It looked pretty cool on the demo, glad it’s working out for you!
 
you run the piezo through it? so it's a full-range speaker? i'm confused by how Line 6 describes it.
Yes, it has a guitar woofer and a tweeter. So when I set my guitar to to piezo, it can be full range. In my case, I use a 3 sigma acoustic IR so it's using the woofer and tweeter. It's the most convincing acoustic sim I've ever had.
 
Is the cabsim always on for XLR out? I think I read that somewhere as well but it didn’t say if you could turn that off? The reason is obviously when you use a piezo and want to disable IRs all together.

I guess if you run mono you could tweak the signal so that left only has the amp’d guitar signal and goes to the L6 Powercab and on to FoH with cabsims on, and right out from the Ax8/Axe Fx 2 would have the piezo out so you’d run right out direct to FoH from the Ax8/Axe Fx 2.

It looked pretty cool on the demo, glad it’s working out for you!
Thanks! Actually as I said above, I'm using an acoustic IR specifically to compliment a piezo equipped electric. It sounds amazing. I'll have to see if you can defeat the cab and mic sim on the XLR out.
 
Thanks! Actually as I said above, I'm using an acoustic IR specifically to compliment a piezo equipped electric. It sounds amazing. I'll have to see if you can defeat the cab and mic sim on the XLR out.

Yeah, I use an acoustic IR with my piezo as well and it sounds great. It would be annoying if you couldn't disable cabsim's when going direct so it sounds awesome on stage but muffled through FoH. Or maybe you could load a flat IR into the Powercab so that it's in effect disabling the cabsim? Or run the acoustic IR in the Powercab as well?
 
Yeah, I use an acoustic IR with my piezo as well and it sounds great. It would be annoying if you couldn't disable cabsim's when going direct so it sounds awesome on stage but muffled through FoH. Or maybe you could load a flat IR into the Powercab so that it's in effect disabling the cabsim? Or run the acoustic IR in the Powercab as well?
I'm not sure I'm understanding. I am running the acoustic IR in the Powercab - no longer need to use cab block in the AX8 at all. In a bit, I'll do some testing with the XLR output and report back what it's doing.
 
Nothing to worry about. I just tested the XLR output. It sounds exactly like what comes out of the Powercab speaker. Everything (clean, high gain, piezo acoustic) sounds exactly the same going into my computer soundcard as it does from the amp. The only difference is the XLR sounds like a mic'd cab and the cab sounds like, well, a cab :) Hope that makes sense.
 
The fact that it's a Coaxial system is nice! The plus model that gives you the option of loading I/R's is cool as well. A wedge style offering would be great!
 
The fact that it's a Coaxial system is nice! The plus model that gives you the option of loading I/R's is cool as well. A wedge style offering would be great!
I don't know that you see a wedge offering anytime soon. It has the kickstand legs which work really well for aiming like a wedge. For $200 dollar difference, the plus seems like a no-brainer to me. The ability to have presets and remove the cab block from the modeler to free up CPU is worth the price of admission for me.
 
There's 3 modes. Flat (which can be woofer and tweeter, or just woofer). This is basically FR like a powered PA speaker. Mode 2 is Speaker mode. This applies a speaker model only vs. an IR which is speaker/cab/mic. So it makes the speaker sound like the speaker being modeled in a 1x12 cabinet. Mode 3 is IR mode where it applies your IR that you load to the woofer and tweeter. I thought originally that using IR's would be a compromise also, but it really isn't. I've loaded Ownhammer and Redwirez IR's and they sound fantastic. So far I'm not a big fan of the speaker modeling built in, so thankfully using IR's still has the amp in the room feel.
 
I think if someone has an amp in the box pedal, or a modeler that doesn’t have user IR’s, this product makes good sense. It’s basically solving the problem of an IR loader and a monitor or FR speaker or whatever you want to call it.

If you have a modeler that has the ability to load Ir’s though already I don’t see it adding that much over just having a powered FR speaker.

With my axe III I can load 4 different IR’s and mix those right in the unit, then I output that to my atomic CLR. I don’t know the exact spec but I’m assuming it probably doesnt have the ability to blend IR’s or a library of over 2000 etc, right ?

So maybe I’m simply not the target market, but they seem to be marketing this product to modeler users as much, if not more so than just guys who want to plug into a pedal board only solution.

Just seems if you already have a FAS product you have a great cab emulation and all you need is any old FRFR and your in business.

Point taken you could save a little cpu not using a cab block but that block isnt a real hog anyways, and especially with a II or III very few people seem to be really running out of cpu in most cases.

Again not knocking the product and I know it serves some good purposes but I can’t see it bringing much to the table for most FAS owners

I personally dont have a plan to sell my CLR’s and get this
 
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