I agree that out of the box, Helix does tend to give some undesirable sound characteristics, mainly in the high gain. As I've got better at dialling tones in, I've discovered how to achieve excellent high gain tones, which probably explains how some youtubers appear to be able to get almost identical patches out of Helix against Fractal.
I do believe the fractal devices are better straight out of the box though, and I still think they have the edge on sound quality which is why so many people go from Helix to Fractal. Helix is so super easy to use though, which is in it's favour of course.