 Line 6 Pod X3 Live Strengths: Foot control, lots of outputs and inputs
Weaknesses: Initial sound quality was not what I expected and there were some software issues
Summary: Line 6 makes excellent gear. I sold my older model Pod XT and FBV Shortboard fooot controller to get this. The physical design is nice. I was concerned that the display on this floor unit being the same size as the Pod X3 desktop unit would be hard to read. It is not. As you select different channels, it displays the selected bank in a large font for a few seconds. This unit has advantages over the Pod X3 desktop "Kidney Bean" model in that it has XLR outputs to allow for running right to PA or studio boards. The other unit only has an XLR input for a Mic. Did I mention that you can plug a vocal mic or bass in and have independent signal processing for it from the guitar that is plugged in at the same time? Pretty cool! It also has the RJ-45 input for a Variax digital guitar. The table top unit does not have that either. In terms of features, it is pretty happening.
The Pilot's Handbook manual is extensive. I have to say that I enjoy the down to earth sense of humor their authors use in explaining things. I found myself laughing a number of times while reading the tome.
Regarding the sound quality, I had hooked it up to the same decent set of Yamaha headphones that I ran my old Pod XT with. The sound on the old XT was excellent. I cannot say that right off the bat for this unit. While I have only had it a few days, and only payed with it for a number of hours, I am not as pleased as I hoped I would initially be with the sound in this configuration. After some tweaking, some sounds were nicer. It may just take a while for me to learn it and find my favorites.
Also, I had to download and install a driver from Line 6 before Windows XP would recognize it and Line 6 Monkey would run. Once I got it running it wanted a firmware flash update right off the bat. These units have not been out very long and they had bug fixes available. Another software issue at the time I got mine was that the other Line 6 application, Line 6 Edit, did not yet support this unit. It would have been nice to edit sounds on the PC the way you can with the other Line 6 units when I got it home.
Bottom line, the unit has a lot of features and I love my other Line 6 gear. I may grow to love this one too in time, but my initial reaction was being a little disappointed.
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