Has anyone played one of these things yet?

http://www.line6.com/hd147/

If so, what do you think?

And please, if you're a tube guy, don't lecture me on what a piece of shit all solid state heads are -- save your wind for teenagers.

I have been playing a Line 6 Flextone II for about 5 years now, I haven't sunk a penny into it, and it still sounds the same as when I first got it. I was just considering upgrading.

I'd say to try and find a used Vetta 1, and upgrade it to II. Many more possibilities, etc. The 147 is pretty cool though.

played one at daddy's boston a while ago.
it was pretty cool. i liked the features and you could dial some cool shit in but-
just wasn't my cup of tea..considering other things out there in a similar price range. honestly, i actually like the flextone II sound better...but thats just me.

for what its worth, ed of disgorge was tellin me once that diego used this head for a bit...

any one know the difference in solid state wattage vs tube watts?

largefreakatzero said:

I don't mind them, I almost bought one, but ultimately decided I liked the sound of my solidstate shockwave better.(which I think you might like to try out. It would fit life at zero perfectly.)

From what i've heard though, you haveto use line6 cabs with it to get any decent sort of tone because all of the different tones on that amp were designed to be heard through line6 speakers and other speakers color the tone too much.

and if you ask me, line6 speakers are rubbish. they project sound in such a unidirectional way that they sound crappy if you're anywhere but directly in front of the cab. That's just my experience with only one of their cabs though. You may already have one and love it.

corpus_colostomy said:


Power consumption.

there is no wattage to volume ratio between solidstate and tube amps.. although everyone after me is probably going to say 'yeah there is, asshole!'

more of an explanation would be nice...

I have been with Line 6 since the original AXsys212, I now run out of 2 Vetta 1's, and I have owned or do own just about every thing L6 has ever made. The HD147 is an absolute monster, and in it being so monstrous, you need to have a cab or better yet, CABS worthy of it or it is useless. Trying to play that thing out of a Crate or Marshall or something along those lines does not do it justice. L6 made a cab specifically designed for it, or use it through a Vader. I love the HD147, I had one for awhile along with my 2 Vettas. For the money I definitely would go with the Vetta1, way more versatility.

corpus_colostomy said:


wattage dictates how high your power bill is.

a 50 watt class A tube head isn't necessarily louder or quieter then a 120.

wattage is just how much power is used to turn the amp on. Volume is dictates by SPL (sound pressure level)

and spl is dictated by?

how much pressure is created in the air by soundwaves. high enough sound pressure levels can crush your organs like if you were 4 miles deep in the ocean.

corpus_colostomy said:
By the amout of air being pushed out of the speakers.

generally the maximum for guitar amps is 110 SPL weather it's solid state or tube amp. tone and proper EQing is responsible for most of the volume after that.

right on fellas..thnx.

wait, wait...tell me about impedance now. i hate to sound like a noob but i read and hear so many conflicting reports about this and that..

OH boy next we are going to get into OHMS law!

yep. say for instance i run a 50 watt head with 2, 8 ohm cabs at 4 ohms each, am i gaining any power or volume through the lower impedance?

impedance is a measure of resistance. the unit of measurement is ohms.

the lower the impedance, the more the resistance.

for example:

ohms law dictates that total resistance is found by sutracting the sum of your total circuits from the product of your total circuits.

if you were to combine two 8 ohm cabs, it would equal 4 ohms.

because

cab1 = 8 ohms
cab 2 = 8 ohms

first multiply them to get
cabs1&2 = 64 ohms

then add and get
cabs 1+2 = 16 ohms

then divide the 64 by 16 to get your total resistance. 64/16=4 ohms.

of course, as you add more speakers that your head has to power, it uses more electricity, so your wattage will increase while your impedance decreases.

a head rated at 100 watts at 8 ohms or 200 watts at 4 ohms will be able to run either one 100 watt cab at 8 ohms, or two at 4 ohms.


sorry if the explination is complicated, but it's hard to find words to explain alot of it.

if you're uncomfortable with resistance and crap, just use cabs that were made for your head and you probably won't have any problems.

Ok, think of a 10ft high brick wall, it represents your speakers and the impedance of their voice coils, on 1 side of this wall is your amp and the other side is the sound coming from your amp. Your amp "sees" the impedance of you speakers and that governs the amount of power that comes from your amp.
So if you have an 8ohm cab and the amp puts out 100watts @ 8ohms then you are properly matching the "load". Now take half of that wall away making it a 5ft wall. Some amps have the ability to double in power when run your speakers in "parallel" which means you take 2 8ohm cabs put them together in parallel and it makes the impedance 4ohms.
Hopefully that makes some kind of sense to you. I know all this because in my earlier years I did competition car audio, and the same principles apply to all amp/speaker configurations, that is if the amp is made to run safely and not burn up when it is bridged, some amps are made for this and some are not.

Niccolai = way faster typer!

corpus_colostomy said:

it also depends on the speaker outs of your head.

if you have two speaker outputs and one cab was plugged into each, then you'd be getting 50 watts at 8 ohms each.

but if the cabs are connected into eachother, then your wattage consumption doubles to 100 and each cab is producting 8 ohms each for a total of 4.

you just haveto make sure that 50 watt head can dish out enough power for both cabs with that amount of resistance.

also, adding a second cab doesn't increase volume. since both cabs produce the same SPL, the same SPL is still in the air.

however, you're doubling your speakers so you have more sound sources... so even though there's no actual volume increase, your sound will be bigger because there's more total area that's spitting sound out.

GodlessRob said:

fix'd

I'm a tube snob. Line 6's sound great in a bedroom

brian_dc said:

I have 2 - 4x12 Line 6 cabs (straight & slant) that I currently use with my Flextone II, and I've been pretty happy with that. So, I don't think I would have any cab issues with the HD147.

Niccolai -- it looks like the Shockwave is discontinued? I've only owned shitty Crate products, so I don't know much about their higher end heads.

GodlessRob said:

thats what i was lookin for brother. good metaphor...

brian_dc said:

My current full-stack set-up would make your bedroom windows explode on "3".

yea, the shockwave is discontinued. it's not hard to find one second hand for around 300-400 bucks (not bad considering they were 650 new)

I own two of them. They have the same preamp used in the old ampeg 1s that suffocation used, pig destroyer used, I read that death even used them briefly. they are essentially an old ampeg with a crate badge.

and they don't sound like your typical Crate product. obviously they are still no 4000 dollar diezel herbert, but if there's a better solid state amp for playing deathmetal and grind, I haven't found it.

Composted used on on there recordings, I think there are youtube videos of it.

It's power section consumes a greedy 350 watts at 2 ohms too, meaning you can plug 4 8 ohm cabs in at once, or even eight 16ohm cabs at once.

.. can you even imagine playing out of 8 4x12 cabs?

if you can make it out to the Tyag show this friday, you're more then welcome to play through mine.

brian_dc said:<<I'm a tube snob. Line 6's sound great in a bedroom>>

My current full-stack set-up would make your bedroom windows explode on "3".

oh boy, here we go...

andy, in my opinion the series 2 flextone/pod products get the best high gain sounds. i wouldnt bother with the HD, sounds WAY fizzier than your flextone.

I have had this head for 4 years. I run it through a mesa. The thing about using only line 6 cabs is bullshit, they just want more people to buy their cabs.

Yea, it's not a "cool" head but it gets the job done. Extremely versatile amp. You can get amazing clean tones and very crushing, heavy tones as well. I would definitely recomend it to someone who wants something like that. Im looking to get something better soon, but it has lasted me this long and I've never had a problem so I can't complain.