Just wanted to pass on my little story since it has me so excited! I purchased an Axe-Fx II XL back at the beginning of Dec-2014 after a long deliberation(almost a year). My rig I have had for the last 13 or so years is a Mesa Triaxis/290 with a TC G-Force for effects running into a Crate 4x12(it came with Celestion G12S-50's which I replaced a few years back with G12T-100's). This has been a great rig with minimal problems and alot of great tone. When I got the Axe, I immediately ran it into my 290 and started playing around, figuring out what needed to be tweaked. I was kind of disappointed in that things didn't sound like what I had hoped, everything had a kind of tinny brightness to it which I could dial out to a degree but never to my satisfaction. I did use the Axe through headphones(Sennheiser HD280's) and it sounded better to me than through the 290 but that wasn't really a solution I was very happy with. After tons of reading on these forums about FRFR and how great it was and how great the Atomic CLR's were in particular, I decided to purchase one. I got it in and played around with it for the 2 week trial period but(for me)it just never sounded right either. Everything was even brighter than with the 290 and I couldn't dial in a sound that I really liked (although clean sounds were absolutely beautiful through it!). I sent it back and did some more research. I decided that maybe the FRFR sound might not be for me and decided on purchasing a solid state power amp to drive my cabinet for a flat sounding amplification and to properly hear the power amp sims on the Axe. I ended up deciding on the Carvin DCM1540L since alot of folks say that it is equal in sound to the Matrix GT1000 with a bit more power and half the price. I got the power amp in, plugged everything up and was COMPLETELY blown away! All of the amp models now sound like what they are supposed to sound like(at least with my limited amp knowledge.) I have to say it really sounds phenomenal and makes me want to play more every time I play through it! It confuses me that the axe actually sounds better through the solid state power amp than through a tube power amp after all of the reading I have done but I can't argue with the results. I may try FRFR again in the future(looking at the XiTone cabs possibly) but for now, this setup really has me pumped! Thanks for listening to my rambling and glad to be a part of the Axe-FX community!
Russ
Russ
