POD Ponderings

shaunyshaun1234

Are the PODs considered to do the job of home practice through headphones?

I have never actually used any iteration of the pod so have no idea what they sound like.

I have seen a POD XT at a good price and not sure what to do!

Legionreturns

I find the headphone out to be the weak link. 

Sounds awful on my HD500

shaunyshaun1234

Legionreturns said:

I find the headphone out to be the weak link. 

Sounds awful on my HD500

Not off to a great start haha!! 

Is there any other output that I could run to a headphone amp in an attempt to make it sound better?

peteri

They will certainly do a job, but I think given the age of the unit - I'd be looking at a s/w solution (Amplitube etc)

shaunyshaun1234

peteri said:

They will certainly do a job, but I think given the age of the unit - I'd be looking at a s/w solution (Amplitube etc)

My Laptop is an actual bag of turd and gave up with that a long time ago! 

bloodandtears

Pod v2.0 bean/pro is still a very useful piece of kit imho.. even with headphones.. it's all subjective..

guitarmangler

I used ( and still have ) a pod xt with headphones for years, sounded great . I've just upgraded to a helix lt and use the same headphones . Still great. There's a thread about using the correct ohm rated headphones for the pods.

guitarmangler

This one 
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/134839/line-6-helix-sounds-terrible/p1

impmann

TBH, as with a lot of these things its all subjective... I borrowed a Helix and couldn't get a sound I liked out of it. Apparently, it could be because of the (good quality) headphones I used being "the wrong impedence"... However, I've owned, gigged and recorded with PODs for about 15 years. I think they're great value.

YMMV

Beexter

Still have my POD2 which is my backup amp.
For quiet home practice I prefer my THR10 but only 'cos I don't like playing with headphones on.

mr-mac

guitarmangler said:

I used ( and still have ) a pod xt with headphones for years, sounded great . I've just upgraded to a helix lt and use the same headphones . Still great. There's a thread about using the correct ohm rated headphones for the pods.

I'd say wisdom.  The l6 amps based on pod2 all produced some fantastic tones.  I dialled in lots of stuff in minutes that i couldn't on an xt or hd.  Tried a pod2 of a friend and found it much more pleasing to the ear.  Yes the modelling doesn't sound like the amp but it does produce some really nice sounds.  If its just a cheap headphone practise amp sounding thing for home I'd get a pod2.

timmysoft

I use a Pod X3 bean at home for practice and all my recordings. Out of the box it was nasty, but with a few hours of tweaking and use of the dual amp function, it now sounds really quite good.

i use some £35 sennheisers with it and it’s great. The modelled amps might not sound like the amps they’re trying to model, but that doesn’t stop there being good tones in it. Already done some great sounding recording with it too! 

normula1

My Pod is a gen1 with gen2 firmware and it's always been really easy to get a good sound out of. A few yesrs ago, I was travelling a lot so bought an XT live to complement a Variax I was carrying around and despite the much improved flexibility I always found it much harder to dial in.

maltingsaudio

Always found my podmk1to be great through my headphones(dt770)

meltedbuzzbox

impmann said:

TBH, as with a lot of these things its all subjective... I borrowed a Helix and couldn't get a sound I liked out of it. Apparently, it could be because of the (good quality) headphones I used being "the wrong impedence"... However, I've owned, gigged and recorded with PODs for about 15 years. I think they're great value.

YMMV

In before all the "User error" posts

bloodandtears

I concur that the mk1/2 pod was better sounding to my ears than the XT successor...

Octafish

I know in reality, it's not practical or possible for some to not use headphones at home, but I feel for you. To me that's like having to liquidise a ribeye steak to eat it!

shaunyshaun1234

Octafish said:

I know in reality, it's not practical or possible for some to not use headphones at home, but I feel for you. To me that's like having to liquidise a ribeye steak to eat it!

Hahah! Don't get me wrong, if no one else is in the house then the amp will get cranked and smiles all round! 

But when the two kids are in bed I need to keep quiet! 

NelsonP

I still have a Pod xt which I used for home / headphone use for years. You can pick them up for buttons now.

Plenty of decent tones in there - even today. But they don't sound perfect - for me there was always a midrange hump at around 2-3 khz that was hard to dial out. You can do it using the sweep function on the parametric EQ though.

Eventually I bit the bullet and bought an Atomic Amplifire, which is much better, despite what that Anderton's video said.

One other thing to consider - POD beans don't have an aux in, which means you can't play backing tracks into them easily. It can be done via USB audio, but then you have to plug a laptop in etc. If the aux in capability is important to you then look for one of the floor based models - XT Live, X3 Live etc.

shaunyshaun1234

NelsonP said:

One other thing to consider - POD beans don't have an aux in, which means you can't play backing tracks into them easily. It can be done via USB audio, but then you have to plug a laptop in etc. If the aux in capability is important to you then look for one of the floor based models - XT Live, X3 Live etc.

Looks like I'll be looking for the floor based models then!! Better try and up my budget a bit!