Line 6 Spider V 120: Pro Review Xpress

[Anderton]

It definitely seems that they are going for as transparent of a sound from the amp, speaker and cab as they reasonably can, and letting the modeling handle the tonal changes for the various amps, cabinets, etc.

 

That seems like Line 6's philosophy these days. The Firehawk in particular is at heart a full-range, flat-response amp. As someone who switched from guitar to keyboard amps in the 60s because I got my "sound" before hitting the input jack, I of course like this approach

 

The only downside I see is if someone is using their amp specifically as a processor, and feel that modeling doesn't quite hit the mark. However, I think a lot of what makes modeling sound "real" in an amp context is a speaker moving air more than anything else.

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

That seems like Line 6's philosophy these days. The Firehawk in particular is at heart a full-range, flat-response amp. As someone who switched from guitar to keyboard amps in the 60s because I got my "sound" before hitting the input jack, I of course like this approach

 

The only downside I see is if someone is using their amp specifically as a processor, and feel that modeling doesn't quite hit the mark. However, I think a lot of what makes modeling sound "real" in an amp context is a speaker moving air more than anything else.

 

 

I think that there's a lot to the idea of getting some air moving. In the studio, I'm a big fan of running things that many people take "direct" through an amp and speaker of some kind and miking that up... and oftentimes, it's not a guitar amp I'm running things through, but a full-range amp and speaker. I think it really helps to give a bit of a sense of space to things like keyboards, and it gives them some air and helps them sit in the mix better. I believe you may be correct Craig - just running the models through an amp and getting some air molecules bouncing around really helps the realism... but as you said, the modeling and processing have to be up to snuff too.

 

[olisspider]

Hi Phil,

I also want to thank you for all your work on this review.

I own a Spider IV 75 and this thing has some major problems:

 

a) The line out is absolutely not usable to plug it directly in the mixing console. You must have an additional speaker simmulator!

 

b) The volume pot has a big hump, means that tweaking it just a few degrees the volume goes from nearly silent to extremly loud, so that there is no convenient adjustment of an useable playingvolume on stage.

 

I am thinking about buying a Spider 5 120W to cope with those problems. You said the line out sounds fine. May you describe it a bit more? Does it sound really fine or great or only o.k.? Does the line out through a PA sound like the amp through the build in speaker?

 

What about the master volume pot? Does it have a "linear" regulating characteristic?

 

A lot of people say, that the Spider 4 and 5 are garbage. I only know the Spider 4. My opinion is that the Spider 4 is, as long as you are playing a more backing electric guitar in a "Pop-band", one of the amps with the best cost to effort ratio. It is very versatile and it sounds in my ears really good for this purpos. Do you know the Spider 4? Which one is better - the Spider 4 oder the Spider 5.

 

A lot of questions! I am looking foreward to your answers!

Best regards,

Oli

[Phil O'Keefe]

Hi Phil,

I also want to thank you for all your work on this review.

 

Thank you for joining us Oli!

 

I own a Spider IV 75 and this thing has some major problems:

 

a) The line out is absolutely not usable to plug it directly in the mixing console. You must have an additional speaker simmulator!

 

b) The volume pot has a big hump, means that tweaking it just a few degrees the volume goes from nearly silent to extremly loud, so that there is no convenient adjustment of an useable playingvolume on stage.

 

I'm sorry to hear you have had issues with your Spider IV. I wish I was more familiar with that amp so I could make some direct comparisons, but as I said early on, prior to my tests of the Spider V, it's been a long time since I've looked into the Spider series, and I really don't know much of anything about the earlier generation (IV) amps.

 

I am thinking about buying a Spider 5 120W to cope with those problems. You said the line out sounds fine. May you describe it a bit more? Does it sound really fine or great or only o.k.? Does the line out through a PA sound like the amp through the build in speaker?

 

When I said it "sounds fine" here's what I meant:

• The line outputs have plenty of level.
  
• They're relatively free of hiss, hum, noise or any other audible sonic gremlins that you'd want to avoid.
  
• While the Spider V 120 is a mono amp, the line outputs provide a stereo signal, complete with any stereo effects you have enabled.
  
• The speaker cabinet emulation works fine, and has the same effect on the line outputs as it does on the signal sent to the internal speakers.
  
• The speaker emulation on the line outputs can be user enabled or disabled, allowing you to use it, or an external emulator if you'd prefer.
  
• The sound of the line outputs will depend in part on what you run them into. In my tests, I ran the line outputs into my Yamaha digital studio console, and from there out to a pair of ADAM S3A studio monitors.
  

Do the line outputs sound the same into a PA (or studio setup) as they do into the internal speakers? Maybe not exactly in all cases (any time you use different amps and speakers, you can expect the sound to change, at least a little bit), but it's so close that most people would have a hard time telling the two apart. If you use a less accurate amp and speaker setup in your PA than the highly accurate (and rather expensive) studio monitors I used, you might hear more of a difference between the two.

 

In other words, the sound quality of the line outputs is going to be at least partially dependent on the amp and speaker(s) you use along with them. If your PA is harsh sounding and overly bright, or bass-heavy, that will be reflected in the sound you hear.

 

What about the master volume pot? Does it have a "linear" regulating characteristic?

 

The master volume on the Line 6 Spider V 120 seems to work fairly linearly. There isn't any kind of a jump between 1 and 1 1/2 like you find with some amps. It goes from off (fully counter-clockwise) and goes up gradually from there. Unlike some amps, at the low end of the knob's throw, it's very easy to go from "very quiet" to "only slightly less quiet" if you need to, or to go the other way and turn it down "just a little" without having the sound disappear completely.

 

A lot of people say, that the Spider 4 and 5 are garbage. I only know the Spider 4. My opinion is that the Spider 4 is, as long as you are playing a more backing electric guitar in a "Pop-band", one of the amps with the best cost to effort ratio. It is very versatile and it sounds in my ears really good for this purpos.

 

I certainly wouldn't call the Spider V "garbage" - it seems to be a well-designed, solidly-built product that for the most part performs as designed and as advertised. I would agree that it offers a lot of features at a very cost-effective price point. It's certainly a very versatile amp that is capable of providing a wide range of different amplifier and cabinet sounds, not to mention a ton of different effect sounds too. For someone who is looking for an amp that can provide a wide range of different sounds on stage (or in the studio) and who isn't working with a multi-thousand dollar budget that would allow them to go buy multiple amps (or a top of the line modeller like the Line 6 Firehawk 1500 and the accessories to go with it), it is a very attractive option.

 

Do you know the Spider 4? Which one is better - the Spider 4 oder the Spider 5.

 

Again, I'm just not familiar enough with the Spider IV to comment about it or to make any comparisons between the two. I'm sorry.

 

A lot of questions! I am looking foreward to your answers!

Best regards,

Oli

 

Again, thanks for joining us, and for asking! Please let me know if you think of any other questions!

[olisspider]

Hi Phil,

 

thank you for your detailed answers. It is good to hear almost any answer the way I want to hear. My main intention is not to have a moddeling amp which can reproduce all the famous amps like Bogner, Soldano, Mesa and the others, but to have a good sounding and versatile guitar amp with the oportunity to Play directly in the PA, because our band want to switch to in ear Monitoring, so it is neccessary not using a microphone to play the amp into the PA. So it is really important, that the line outs produce a good sounding guitar Signal, because additional Speaker simmulators are very expensive (Mesa Cabclone, Palmer etc.) and in high gain sounds often not that convincing.

I wanted to buy a Kemper, but it is too expensive for me. So now the Spider V 120 seems to be the a really good and cheap alternative for that. Unfortunatelly it is not available in my country - so I have to wait at least 8 or 12 weeks to test one of those amps.

Thanks a lot!

Best regards,

Oli

[Phil O'Keefe]

You're quite welcome Oli, and again, thanks for posting your questions!

[Anderton]

I have a lot of experience running direct into PAs, and think it's the best way to play live. However when you listen to a modeling amp by itself, no matter how hard Line 6 tries to make a flat response cabinet, the cabinet will influence the sound. There will be less of an influence with something like the Firehawk because it's a big amp with six drivers, but even so, any amp will make its own contribution to the sound. Similarly, the PA system itself will make a contribution to the sound that will be different from a guitar cabinet.

 

Another consideration is when you're playing through a PA, you'll either be listening to the PA or something like a monitor wedge. That is a different experience than playing in front of a guitar amp.

 

What I've found is that in most (not all) cases, you can use EQ processing in a modeling amp to "fine-tune" any differences between what you hear from the amp by itself, and what it sounds like through a PA. Usually I need to reduce the highs a little bit, and boost the midrange around 900 Hz - 1 kHz but it depends on the PA aystem itself.

 

There will always be people who believe that any modeling amp or processor is "garbage" but I have to tell you a story. I bought the original kidney bean POD. I didn't like the presets, and I learned it well enough to make my own presets. People would tell me the POD was crap, and I'd say no, just learn to change the presets to match your playing style, and it's fine. But they'd still insist it was crap.

 

After doing some recordings, I played them back for one of the people who hated the POD. When he listened, he said "Ha! I'm glad you stopped using that digital crap. This sounds sooo much better!" Guess what I used for the guitar sound

[daddymack]

Indeed, like most commercial products, modeling amp presets are created for the lowest common denominator. Same as when you buy a new guitar...the set up isn't for you, the strings are too heavy, etc.

In the case of the Pod, the presets were crap, and sadly most players just accepted them and...sounded like crap. There are always usable sounds in any decently made gear; finding the sounds is the tricky part.

[James Clausen]

When I buy a digital unit, I always go through and select the presets that I find usable, dump the rest and modify or build presets that fit my needs. I also build banks of presets for my various guitars. My Tele effects an amp a whole lot differently than my Gretch. I usually find that I can get most any tone that I want with a little tweaking.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Those are really good suggestions James. And speaking of presets, we've talked about how to change things like the volume level and basic amp controls (bass, volume, treble, gain, etc.), but it's possible to go much, much deeper than this when it comes to editing.

 

The deeper editing is handled with the controls you'll find immediately surrounding the display.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31881739[/ATTACH]

 

 

Everything we've been doing so far is just editing whatever preset you happen to have called up. How do you call up a different preset to begin with? It's super easy. If you're on the FX or Amp page, hit the Home key (represented with a house icon), which will bring up the name of whatever preset you're currently using. From there, you simply scroll through the presets using the black rotary knob that's centered directly below the alphanumeric LCD display. This knob has a pushbutton incorporated into it too, which is used for selecting things. Again, there are a total of 32 presets, with four banks (A-D) per preset.

 

 

One thing about the amp's operating system that I'm not really crazy about is the fact that you can't scroll through the presets continuously, with them returning to the beginning once you get to the last one. Instead, you have to run back through all of them again. In other words, if you're at Preset 30 and want to go to Preset 1, you can't just rotate the knob further clockwise and go past Preset 31 and 32 and have it come back around to Preset 1... instead, you'd have to go the opposite way, down through Preset 29, 28, etc. until you get back to Preset 1. It's a bit of a time-waster, and it would be nice if the knob cycled through the presets continuously.

 

 

Saving presets is also fairly straightforward. Suppose you've made some edits to a preset and you want to save them to that same preset. Press and hold the rotary knob until the save screen appears.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31881740[/ATTACH]

 

 

Once it does, turning the rotary knob will scroll through the characters of the preset name, with the currently selected letter highlighted, like the letter "U" is in the above image. Once you have reached the character that you want to change, push the knob to select it (giving it an underscore instead of being highlighted), then turn the rotary knob to scroll through the available alphanumeric characters until you have the character you want. Once that's selected, push the knob again and rotate the knob to move on to the next letter / character of the preset title. Helpful tip: The Tap/Tuner button lets you quickly select upper/lower case letters and numbers/symbols. Repeat the process for all the letters until you have the name you want for the preset.

 

 

You can skip the naming steps if you already have a name you're happy with, such as when editing a factory preset. You can also use similar methods to select a different preset number to save your edits to. Preset 32, Banks A-D are left blank and are a good place to start if you want to experiment with editing and saving presets. Once everything is set, you just hold the knob in for a few seconds and the data is saved to the indicated preset and bank.

[Anderton]

I assume there's an app for editing...have you tried it?

[Phil O'Keefe]

I assume there's an app for editing...have you tried it?

 

There is, but I have not tried it yet with the Spider V. I've been having some computer issues I wanted to take care of first. I hope to soon though, and will definitely report back on that.

[Antmax]

For the smaller Spider V amps like my 60. The Post EQ section of the presets between the Compressor and Distortion sections aren't used much in the factory settings. They are a godsend and more than compensate for the smaller size speakers offering much more headroom to play with at lower volume levels. boost the low, low mid and hi mids carefully and dial down the gain on the factory presets and you can get a much fuller sound more like a 1x12" out of mu 10" 60.

 

Combined with G10 wireless it made the difference between me liking and loving the Spider V amps.

[Anderton]

That's a really good tip...thanks!

[Phil O'Keefe]

Now that we know how to recall and save presets, let's look some more at how you edit them on a deeper level. Again, this is pretty straightforward, and can be done using the controls right next to the LCD display. Take our EQ example from earlier. Suppose you wanted more Mids to go along with the increased Treble you just dialed up. You could of course just grab the Mids knob on the front panel and give it a twist, but you can also hit the Edit button and scroll down the list of parameters to the EQ… where you'll find you have more options than just a fixed Mids knob that you can turn up or down. There is a four band EQ that gives you the ability to set not only the amount, but also select the frequency you want for the lows, low mids, high mids and highs. As you scroll through the various parameters it quickly becomes obvious that you can do much more with deep level editing than you can from the main knobs. There are many more options available - not just for the EQ, but for the amp settings, noise gate, cabinets / mics and effects too.

 

Again, to save your changes, you just press and hold the rotary / pushbutton knob below the screen for a couple seconds.

 

There is also a Global Menu where you can do things like check the software version, change the wireless from auto to manual and assign a channel for the G10, change the looper position in the signal chain (pre/post), turn the front panel tap tempo light on or off, change the knob behavior (relative or absolute) or do a full factory reset.

 

To access the Global menu from the front panel, just press and hold the Home button. The software automatically exits the Global menu after a few seconds of inactivity.

[Phil O'Keefe]

With as many options as you have with the deep level editing, things can get a bit tedious trying to create a preset from scratch or doing extensive edits from just the front panel controls. While it's nice that you can do them from there, something much faster and more fun is available. Remember we have those USB ports around back, and Line 6 offers software for editing using your Mac / PC, iPad or Android device. I'm limited to using computers and an iPad since I don't own an Android tablet, but my understanding is you'll need an Android device that supports USB Host Mode, and if your device does't, the app won't show up for you in the Google Play store. More information on using an Android device with the Spider V can be found at this link. http://line6.com/support/page/kb/_/a...ity-check-r837

 

 

I downloaded the free Line 6 Spider V Spider Remote USB editor / librarian app from the Apple App store. You'll need iOS version 9 or later to run it. The very first thing I did when I connected my iPad to the Spider V is to check for and install the latest software update for the amp, and sure enough, one was available.

 

 

To check to see if an update is available, go to Settings (the "gear" icon at the bottom of the screen) and look at Device Flash. You'll see this if there's an update for you to install.

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31889745[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

If there is, select Device Flash. The software walks you through the steps from there. I don't know if this is true for all updates or not, but this particular one came with a notice that it wouldn't delete or affect any of the edits I've made to presets, which is nice.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31889746[/ATTACH]

 

 

The process is really easy and the software walks you through all the steps, but it does caution you strongly to not use other apps while it's in the process of updating, and not to power down the iPad or the amp while the update is happening.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31889747[/ATTACH]

 

 

It displays a second warning notice while the update is happening, again cautioning you not to unplug or shut anything down until it's completed.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31889748[/ATTACH]

 

 

The whole process took only a few minutes and the amp automatically rebooted after it was completed.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31889749[/ATTACH]

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

Now let's take a look at the editor / librarian software itself. Despite what this image says…

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31893726[/ATTACH]

 

 

…the current version of the software is 1.0.6, and it was just updated yet again between when I took this image late last week and today. I'm running it on an iPad Mini with retina display using iOS 9.3.3.

 

Look in the upper-right hand corner. See the lightning bolt indicator next to where it says 100%? One REALLY nice thing is that the iPad will charge when it's connected to the amp!

 

 

When you first open the Spider Remote app, assuming you have the tablet connected to the amp's back panel USB port and the iPhone-iPad / Mac-PC-Android USB select switch set correctly, you land on this screen.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31893725[/ATTACH]

 

 

The page is broken down into two columns. Let's focus in on the left column first. When you connect, it will display whatever preset you have called up on the physical Line 6 Spider V 120 amplifier. Change the preset there, and the display on the connected tablet will update itself accordingly, although there is a slight bit of delay when you make the changes on the amp before the software view updates - nothing too horrible (only a couple of seconds) but it's notable.

 

 

The left- hand column of the display has two tabs, one for Tone, and the other for Details. Selecting the Tone tab gives you a list of all the various parameters that make up that Tone. For example, in the image above, the Silky Deluxe preset is called up. Notice how each one of the virtual units in the signal path chain (Noise Gate, Compressor, 4 Band Semi-Parametric EQ, etc.) has a virtual On/Off button. As you no doubt have figured out, these allow you to quickly turn those various virtual units on or off, and the button itself will illuminate when the unit is "On". In the above image, the Compressor and Volume are both on, but the Noise Gate and FX 1 Stomp (Screamer) are not.

 

 

 

Touching one of the items on the screen opens up a window with all of the various editable parameters for that item. For example, if you want to edit the Amp, simply click / touch the middle of the Amp tab and this window opens up:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31893727[/ATTACH]

 

 

Notice how you have all the same basic options here as you do via the front panel knobs - the usual drive, bass, mid, treble, presence and volume controls that you'd expect. But you can also change the basic amp model itself by clicking on the icon of the amp. This pulls up a window with all of your various different amp model choices, and there are a bunch of them. So many in fact that they're broken down by types - American (18), Clean (10), British (18) and High-Gain (26), and there are multiple models available in each category. The names have all been modified a bit but with with monikers like "1993 Match D30" "1985 Cali Crunch" and "1958 Tweed B-Man" (just to name a few of the "American" models) and with icons that are vaguely reminiscent of the appearance of the modeled amp, you'll be able to figure out what each one is based on / modeled after pretty easily.

 

 

The same process allows you to edit the cab separately, regardless of which one of the amp models you've selected. In other words, you can run a Brit J-800 amp into a 1x6 Super O cab if you want. Try THAT in real life, and I guarantee you a blown 6" driver, and quite possibly a blown amp too. To edit the cab simply click / touch the word Cab on the far right side of the Amp tab. This screen opens up:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31893728[/ATTACH]

 

 

You can edit the amount of early reflections and the virtual mic here too. The Early Reflections and Mic virtual knobs are both sliders, and moving them from side to side selects the amount of ER, and with the mic, which one of the options you want - (SM) 57 S (straight/on-axis), 57 A (angled/off-axis), (MD) 421 or (U) 67. The mic options do change the character of the sound, and give you the flavor of the microphones and positions modeled, although the recording engineer in me would still rather use the real things in front of the speaker cabinet itself… but for going direct and giving you the vibe of a miked cabinet, these are pretty good.

 

Tap on the cabinet icons and you get screens that are similar to the amp screens, only with different cabinets instead of amps.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31893729[/ATTACH]

 

 

Again, there's plenty to select from, with everything from a 1x6, 1x10, 1x12 and 1x15 options on up to multiple 4x12 cabinet options loaded with different models of speakers. Again, the names, while changed enough to keep the trademark and copyright police at bay, are indicative enough that you'll have little trouble figuring out what most of them are based on.

[HenryF]

"One thing about the amp's operating system that I'm not really crazy about is the fact that you can't scroll through the presets continuously, with them returning to the beginning once you get to the last one. Instead, you have to run back through all of them again. In other words, if you're at Preset 30 and want to go to Preset 1, you can't just rotate the knob further clockwise and go past Preset 31 and 32 and have it come back around to Preset 1... instead, you'd have to go the opposite way, down through Preset 29, 28, etc. until you get back to Preset 1. "

 

 

The newest 1.03 firmware provides this feature, and was released just before the new year.

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

As you work your way down the editor's left hand column and open the various parameters you'll find a lot of things that you'd never see without diving deep into the Spider V 120's deep editing, and it's soooo much easier to edit everything using the app! Just look at how much easier it is when you have the visual aid of the app when you are trying to edit the 4 Band Semi-Parametric EQ.

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31895301[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

Moving around those sliders is a LOT more intuitive than selecting items and using a data knob, plus you can see everything at once, which also makes things easier. Again, while it's nice that you can do those things with the amp's controls alone, after using the app, you'll never want to do it with the amp alone if you have a choice.

 

 

The various effects are similarly well-equipped with virtual options that you can edit, and the editing is done the same way as with the amps and cabinets - click the name to call up the various parameters, click the icon to select the model / type of effect you want to use... and as with the amp and cabinet models, Line 6 gives you plenty of different effects to choose from.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31895302[/ATTACH]

 

 

You can also do Expression pedal assignments, tap the tempo in for time-based effects and change the pedal's location (Before / After the amp) in the signal path. If you're changing a control and can't hear anything changing with the sound, don't forget those virtual On/Off buttons! I'm not admitting I caught myself doing that once or twice (editing an effect that was turned off and wondering why I wasn't hearing anything), but it's certainly possible. Of course, it's crucial to have the ability to quickly turn things on and off when editing so you can make quick comparisons, and the app makes that easy to do.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Notice how the name of the preset ("Silky Deluxe") has changed - the name was originally in white (see previous images in the post directly above this one) but it is now in red and in italics (top-left) in the following image:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31897233[/ATTACH]

 

 

This tells you that you've made edits to the preset and that those edits are not saved / stored yet. To write them to the amp at the same preset position you have called up, click on the icon directly below the Time display (center-top - the square with an arrow pointing up) and away you go. The pencil / paper icon in the upper right corner of the screen can be used when you want to create / write a new preset from scratch.

 

 

Clicking on the Details tab (left column, near the top) brings up various other details about the preset, such as the name, who created it (author), when it was last updated, what song(s) it is associated with and so forth. You can of course click on these and change them, which is important not only for your own archiving and cataloging, but also if you decide to share (publish) any of your creations with the Line 6 community.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]n31897234[/ATTACH]

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

That seems like Line 6's philosophy these days. The Firehawk in particular is at heart a full-range, flat-response amp. As someone who switched from guitar to keyboard amps in the 60s because I got my "sound" before hitting the input jack, I of course like this approach

 

 

 

One more advantage that using a full-range amp and speaker system on the Spider V gives you is that you can run other things through it with much better fidelity than you can with a "regular" guitar amplifier; most of which drastically roll off frequencies above 6kHz or so. That makes the Line 6 Spider V not only good for electric guitar, but also for things like keyboards (as we briefly discussed) and of course acoustic guitar amplification too. There are even presets included to accommodate exactly that, as well as several presets tailored to cop the guitar sounds of popular songs.

 

Not only does the full-range amp and speaker system come in handy when using your mobile music player to play along with your favorite songs (using the Spider V 120's rear panel 3.5mm Aux In jack to plug it in), but it also allows Line 6 to include extras like the onboard metronome and Drum Loops. That's right - there are 19 different drum loops that are built-in to the Spider V. (I expect the next generation of guitarists to have even better timekeeping abilities due to their access to practice-friendly tools like this). While you can't change them, chain them together or add your own drum loops, this does give you something that you can call up and jam along with.

 

To access the loops, hit the Play/Pause button on the front panel, which calls them up. From there you can use the rotary / pushbutton knob to scroll through and select which of the various loops you want. Styles include metal, two step, rock, funk, and punk, just to name a few. Unfortunately you can't use the tap tempo button to change the tempos of the loops, but there is a fairly decent selection of styles and tempos available and you can adjust their playback volume relative to the level of your guitar.

 

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

I just wanted to drop in and give everyone a quick update... while we've covered most of the features of the amp itself, there's still some stuff on the FBV3 to cover, but I'll be leaving for NAMM tomorrow, and that's going to be all-consuming as far as my time for the rest of the week, so we'll pick this review back up next week.

 

Please stay tuned!

[Joseph Smith]

I was really hoping for an unboxing video.

 

Maybe next time...

[Phil O'Keefe]

I was really hoping for an unboxing video.

 

Maybe next time...

 

Yeah, maybe.

[olisspider]

Hi all together,

 

I have just unboxed my new Spider V 120 half an hour ago. At this time I am very disappointed. Every preset I have tried sounded completely dull, no clarity at all and too much bass. Tweaking the EQ-knobs can´t really solve this problem. Even the acoustic amps with the acoustic guitar sounded dull

I don´t know how the guys in the you tube video from sweetwater or andertons managed that the amp sounds this well. It sounds through my tiny litte PC speakers better than the original thing standing next to me.

Now I understand why fearless gear review says, that the Spider IV is much better. At this time for me it is. The spider IV is plug and play and having an usefull sound without dialing anything.

But it´s way too early to send the amp back. I have to check for updates, check some more adjustments and most important to chek the line outs. If they fail this amp goes back to sender.

I wish I could say something better.

Regards,

Oli