Form Factor:
Line 6 POD XT Live: 1
Vox ToneLab SE: 0
The Vox is a BIG pedal. Very long; not very deep. But very long. Makes getting to the switches very easy, but takes up a lot of floorspace. The two expression pedals are nice; but there is a severe limitation on what you can do with them (I'll get to that in a second). Extra solid construction; very heavy duty. I like the footswitches. One "WTF?" is the plastic "bubble" over the tube. Pretty? Sure! But, ummm, stupid.
The Line 6 is "just right". Much like the little bear's stuff from the fairy tale; the Line 6 is not too big, not too small and really is "just right". One caveat: it is easy to hit the expression pedal (by default a Volume pedal) when using the tap tempo footswitch.
In the end; one wants the smaller footprint on a stage; at least I do. IMHO, Line 6 takes a point here.
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'Ease of Use"
Line 6 POD XT Live: 0
Vox ToneLab SE: 1
The Vox is a no-brainer. You won't need a manual. Outside of configuring it to run out to a full range monitor/FOH or into your amp; everything is right there - knobs to go. I was flying in seconds. You can plug in midi cables and hook it up to your computer; viola - free software that updates on the pedal as you tweak on-screen in real time. Everything worked perfectly. There are no way, that I saw, to update the internal stuff. You get what you get when you buy this; there are no future upgrades to come AFAIK.I could be wrong, and they might update it via midi, but Vox has had this out a while now and I have not heard a peep anywhere on the net about any further upgrade path.
The Line 6 is not very hard to figure quickly either, but you do need to scroll though options. The Line 6 is *much* deeper; you have tons more to tweak if you like (or not!) and to keep it small as it is, it has menus ala the POD XT bean. Not a ton of menus, and not hard to figure out in a few dozen seconds; but there you are. Stupid award: Line 6 again pushed something to market ahead of small things like a computer editor for the box. AHGHSGSHGHH! Stupid! My back and knees are not talking to me; I was on the floor programing for hours. Ouch. Bad Line 6, bad! On the good tip, one is coming (by end November) and also they are porting some form of Guitarport with a recording app to boot. On the plus side for now; the Line 6 "Monkey" utility app to update everything is brilliant; hands off and no-brainer. Hook up USB to the XT Live; click the Monkey and it checks for updates, installs them if found and it all happens hands-free. Ahhh.
The Vox wins - it is a simpler device, and it is indeed easy-as-pie to tweak on the fly. They have software that works and is, well, available NOW!
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Amp Tones
Line 6 POD XT Live: 1
Vox ToneLab SE: 0
The Vox has 16 amps. Some Fender, lotsa Vox, Marshall, one Mesa and one Soldano. There is a wildcard - "Boutique" which is a Dumble model. (My favorite by a mile for clean tones). The SE excels at pushed cleans; tons to work with and lots to choose from. The "clean" cleans are a bit limited in number, but if you like the basic tone it puts out, you'll like this thing plenty. Its weak area is indeed the heavier tones. Much like the Valvetronix... it doesn't have much to offer. The Soldano model is virtually unusable; there is an extreme amount of hiss on that; no amount of creative knob twiddling could remove it; no cab simulation helped outside of the 8" Champ... but it sounded like poo. So what you have is good; but it is not a full deck IMHO. You can get a good clean, a good pushed clean and a good distortion; but heavier players will be extremely disappointed IMHO. With no upgrades, no "model packs" (Line 6 thing I'll get to...) you just have what you have.
The Line 6 is like another world; I'll cheat and admit I bought the two available "model packs" add-ons (for $98) and that gives you like 72 amps in the box. The range is dazzling, the tones are excellent. I'll state for the record I have owned POD 1.0/2.0/XT and sold them all. Overall, I felt 2.0 was better than XT 1.0 for a variety of reasons. With the XT 2.01 update in this thing; wow. Impressive. Cleans of every sort from Hiwatt to Roland Jazz to Fender (and lots of Fender flavors to boot) to even some sweet Marshall cleans if you keep the gains down. The accuracy of the models isn't my major concern; I just want a range of *musical* and *usable* tones. I am not replacing or substituting this thing for real amps; I just want TONE baby, real tone. Of all colors. You got it here. Dazzling stuff. Line 6 has always had the heavy end of things nailed squarely; now the mid-gain of Vox's shine better (extremely close to the SE's if not better(!)): the pushed cleans of the Tweeds sounds authentic and rich; the clinical dry clean of the Roland JC-120 is uncanny. Impressive and useful.
Score this one a slam-dunk-in-yo-face; the Line 6 has so much to offer (with more model packs supposidly coming yet...) that it is silly. The USB update and loading of the model packs with the Line 6 Monkey Utility is again a no-brainer. Simple as pie.
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Cab Tones
Line 6 POD XT Live: 1
Vox ToneLab SE: 0
The Vox has some nice sounding cabs... and some awful ones. The best of the cleaner type is the Tweed 4x10; it is great!!! The 4x12-75 is the mack daddy of the heavier tones.... but that is because the others are so lame, not because the 4x12-75 is so good. The 2x12 cab simes are okay at best. I found this to be one of the disappointments of the SE. Using cabs not so much because I dug them, but because the rest sucked is, well, not cool.
The Line 6 Cab Sims - in this XT 2.01 version; are very good. It is hard to pick one or another; they all sound pretty darn good. There are more to choose from; and very few are bad. Impressive.
The Line 6 runs away with this catagory.
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Effect Tones
Line 6 POD XT Live: 1
Vox ToneLab SE: 0
The Vox has good usable effects; they are not a weak point at all. The wah is great; the modulation effects are outstanding. The "Stomp" group are good, but here we hit the #1 negative on this product - you can have only one at a time. The Line 6 has this too; to a degree. But there is one thing in particular that knocks the Vox down... you have to assign your "pedal" group to the wah if you want wah. Well, I might want Compression and a distortion pedal for a lead boost..... AND a wah. Can't have but one of those due to the way the Vox is setup. Pffft.
The Line 6, which comes with the "FX Pack" loaded for free, is over-the-top with effects. It lacks some of the killer chorus that the Vox has, but offers so many things - including a wicked cool hold-and-sample feature - and so so so much more; that it is the easy choice. Because it regards Compression as a seperate thing for each preset (not part of the "Stomp"; "Modulation"; or "Delay" groups; you can add compression to any preset no matter what. Same thing holds true for Wah. That is a major feature IMHO and one that puts the Vox SE in a seriously bad position in this A/B comparison.
In short, the Vox is extremely limiting with what you can do effect wise; though its effects do sound damn good. Chalk this catagory up to the Line 6. BOOM!
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Feel
Line 6 POD XT Live: 0
Vox ToneLab SE: 1
The Vox's Ace-in-the-hole. No other modeling device I have ever tried or owned (and I mean pretty much everything date) has the feel of a tube amp. That elusive thing; I call it "bounce" or "pop"; you pick your own term - that you get interacting with the tubes/transformers/speakers. It has give, feel, pop, sag and bounce. The louder you crank it, the more you feel it. Well, the Vox SE is, in this regard, just like a tube amp. The Vox uses the tube in it not as a tone coloring device, but to drive a dummy load for the output of the thing, NOT the tonestack - MUCH the same way the EL-84's are used in the Guytron preamp. They drive a dummy load to give you the feel. It works, and there is no denying it.
Here is where Line 6 takes its lumps. The knock you'll read on Line 6 is that they sound less like an "amp in the room" and more like an "amp on a record"; the feel is flat. The tones are happening, but the "life" give, feel, pop, sag and bounce are NOT there as a player. When you listen back to a recording, you can't tell if it is there IMHO. When you are standing there playing, you can not ignore it.
In short, the Vox is the one modeling unit that gets the tube amp feel right; and the Line 6 does not. Simple choice. BAM!
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Wildcards
Line 6 POD XT Live: 1
Vox ToneLab SE: 0
I'll try to limit these to things not mentioned above:
The Vox has the following in its favor:
a) Carrying bag is included (it isn't top quality, but workable).
b) Balanced 1/4" outs; you can use a 1/4" TRS - XLR cable out to go to the snake for FOH.
c) LED is easier to read - not as much info, but bigger is better
The Vox has the following knocks:
a) No upgrade path
b) No "Model Pack" add-ons
c) Expensive as compared to the Line 6
d) Headphone jack is 1/8". Not a biggie, but there you are.
e) No Aux In.
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The Line 6 has the following in its favor:
a) Variax direct input; you can power your Variax with this and switch guitar models with the XT Live. Opens up incredible tonal
palettes. Impossible to ignore.
b) Easy upgrade path
c) Model packs upgrade options
d) The XT 2.0 "Post-EQ" feature. Perhaps the one thing that makes it all work for me - an independant POST quasi-4 band parametric EQ. If the tone is nailed, but you have fizzies - *poof* gone. This is extremely powerful and works perfectly. I am utterly impressed that they added this in; the Line 6 boards have bashed Line 6 over this for a long time; they can all relax now. It works, and it sounds great. Extremely useful feature; the one that "sealed the deal" for me.
e) 1/4" headphone out.
f) Aux in (though 1/8" input) you can plug in your IPod or a CD player and use it to jam along. Kudos to Line 6.
g) The price is a world beater. $400 or under? Ka-SLAM!
The Line 6 has the following knocks:
a) Software not available yet (mentioned above, but it sucks!!!) (10/11/04)
b) Carrying bag.... extra $$$
c) 1/4" outs are unbalanced. Not cool Line 6, shame on you. I need two DI's to run to FOH. Pffft.
d) Variax Cable is extra $$$.
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In the end, the Line 6 POD XT Live is deeper and offers more. The variety, better function set and superior depth of controls wins over the feel of the Vox SE.
Winner? Line 6 POD XT Live.
