New Amp - Line6 Spider IV 15

[Bro Blue]

I'm sorry to tell you but the Line 6 Spiders are almost the worst modelling amps out there.

 

 

Troll is trolling

[Promit]

Oh one last thing, and then I am done with this thread. I wonder how many people that bash the Line 6 amps have actually played them ? I was very pleasantly surprised when I plugged into this little gem. That's all

I played through nothing but one for a year, maybe a year and a half. What really got to me was that the Crunch channel constantly sounded like i'd jammed my guitar in a large pool of mud and begun playing. That was with BG pickups, too. Maybe the IV doesn't have that problem but it's really irritating when the amp can only do totally clean, high gain metal, and extremely high gain metal. Eventually I figured out I could trigger the boost on the clean channel, which let me push that into overdrive instead. It...was passable for a few months.

[HELSTRUME]

I had a Spider III 15. I liked the insane distortion. I might just get the IV 30.

[BoneNut]

Congrats on your new amp AND getting it for your son!!!

[Thamel]

I think it really boils down to a matter of personal tastes. Some people love the Line 6 Spiders and others wouldn't come near them. For $99, as a good beginner bedroom practice amp, I think it's a good deal.

There are some sound samples in this review:
http://en.audiofanzine.com/modeling-combo-amplifier/line-6/spider-iv-15/reviews/

[cratz2]

I played one not long ago. It wasn't a bad little amp for around the house. I think the cheap modeling amps in the 10 to 30 watt range are great for sitting at home, just plug and play, and fiddle for fun. My first amp was a Gorilla 10 watt covered in gray fuzz with booger-green knobs. I would have loved to have had something like this when I was just starting out.

This is my take on modeling amps in general. I started out playing a Teisco through a console stereo (granted, it had tubes in it ). Then got a Holmes amp which was about $40 less than the similar sized Gorilla. To those of us that were around back then, the Vox and Line 6 stuff is unbelievable for the money.

I always love it when some guy comes in and says he got a VT30 or something like that used for $150 and everyone is telling him he should have got a real tube amp like a Twin or a JCM800. Let me tell ya, the guy that bought the VT30 isn't the idiot in that conversation.



I bought a Spider II 30W about three years ago to have something smaller to carry around that could get a variety of tones. Sounded fine in the store, didn't get along with it too well at home. Mostly because of the fairly bland cleans and very low gain tones. The Insane channel with some reverb was VERY decent for the money. I kept it and also got a Vox AD30VT which in my opinion, for my types of tones, was about 20 times better, but the high gain tones weren't as good as the Line 6 in my opinion.

There is no right or wrong answer but again, for something cheap and lightweight that serves as a great practice tool, it's pretty hard to beat the entry level Vox or Line 6 stuff.

[Saint Frank]

I played one not long ago. It wasn't a bad little amp for around the house. I think the cheap modeling amps in the 10 to 30 watt range are great for sitting at home, just plug and play, and fiddle for fun. My first amp was a Gorilla 10 watt covered in gray fuzz with booger-green knobs. I would have loved to have had something like this when I was just starting out.

 

 

This is easy to forget to us old hands. When I was starting out in the late 70s-early 80s you couldn't GET a new amp for $100. Hell, Crate was just starting up! Even most used amps that you could get for $100 sounded like ass..and you had clean ass or distorted ass, that's it.