Good job, Lyle. Always love to see the lesser amps get some love on the channel (if economically feasible, of course). You’re a gentleman and a scholar.
As an owner of a few of pieces of Line 6 (POD 2.0, POD XT Live, Amplifi 150 & HX Stomp, I bought everything on sale or used) gear, this warms my heart. To those of us with modest means, this kind of generosity and integrity keeps us going. I've been told I'm wasting my money on cheap crap, but frankly a decent, gig worthy tube amp isn't in the cards without significant budgetary sacrifices. Thank you for doing this, Lyle.
8:38 Yeah, not a tweed b-man sound but a nice enough tone. I reckon that customer will be quite happy with the work you did and the price you charged. You're a good man.
I loved mine - until it stopped working. After my Line 6 Echo Pro stopped working. After my Spider stopped working. I finally got the message. Went down the tube amp rabbit hole and now love my two Orange solid state amp heads - the Super Crush 100 and the Crush Pro 120. I love my tube amps - but the reliability of the solid state amps is a bonus on top of their great sound. My 1963 Fender Concert amp makes me happy though. Very happy. Shit - now I want to go play my geetar! :)
I have a Flextone 3 that doesn't get much attention anymore as I have many other amps, but they're a solid, "not that bad" and actually pretty good at some things. Kind of clunky to carry around for jams and practice, but it is pretty loud if you need to cut through drums and PA. In that case it is pretty easy to carry around compared to a lot of alternatives. Not a bad amp at all for the money, especially for players on a budget that have the opportunity to pick one up on the cheap.
I have a question I just bought one one like yours. But it sounds too tiny Is that normal???? If you try to play bass sounds it will sound tiny. Is that normal for this amplifier????
I’m tempted to start a business making conversion chassis for common modelling amps that came with decent cabinets/speakers. Just laser cut and bend chassis with the cut outs for the valve sockets/transformers etc.
These companies should stop trying to say their modeling channels replicate some other amp/amps. Because almost never do they sound like the thing they claim it is supposed to sound like. Just give us generic names like: clean, crunch, OD1, OD2, OD3, OD4, high gain, ultra gain, etc. Let us listen and decide if we like it or not. We don't care if it sounds exactly like some other amp. We just care if it sounds "good", and it's affordable.
There is one tone or sound these amps do very very well imho, thats the Insane channel. As long as your EQ it right and keep the gain at 80% max. You get a sweet lead tone and a crunch on rhythm that i really like. But they make a pedal or they use to make a pedal that had this sound in it, id rather have the pedal than the amp. But other than that, i dont like what these Line6 amps offer. The clean channel is garbage imho, unless you love a digital sounding clean channel with no soul. But hey there are people i guess who dont like no soul in their clean tones haha. Cool video, i know you dont like working on these but im glad to be able to watch. I owned the first series of Spider amps for about a month, i really gave them a shot and nope. I did try out each spider series after that when id go into a guitar center or a shop when they had just released them and imho the original spider series (red panel) sounded better than ever new adaptation of same amps. My 2nd (and last) Line6 amp i owned was a spider valve with 6L6's in it, i got the amp for $50 ! That was actually a pretty cool amp. But they never put a heatsink on the dsp chip, so if that chip heated up too much the amp would reset. The same thing happens on the red panel spider models and it may still happen on the newer versions, im not sure. I ended up adding a heatsink to it and that solved the issue. I ended up giving that amp to a friend who still uses it. Was a Bogner designed amp for Line6. If you find one of the 1x12 combos of this amp for $75-100, look to see what speaker it has. Because these came with Vintage 30s, $75 for a V30 aint a bad deal. ;-)
I had a circa-2001 Flextone II 2 X 12" combo that I bought used years ago (2008-ish?) for I think $200.00 or $225.00. I ended up only using the Black Panel amp model; it sounded the most "tube amp-y" to my ears.
my electric "rig" is a Podxt that I got for $40 (I mostly play acoustics and am very not-picky with electrics) from the same era so I'll bet uses the same modeling. I agree the blackface model is one of the better ones -- the one on the podxt that's supposedly based on a budda twin master is nice as well, and basically the only thing I use. All of the higher gain models don't sound realistic at all to me.
Sir... I've noticed you don't show verifying the customer's complaint. Do you generally do so and not show it in your videos, or do you just open the amp & see what you can see?
I almost always do, and I show it, unless an amp is too dangerous to power on or like in this case where I didn’t need to. The Deluxe Reverb from the other day mostly trying to duplicate the owner’s reported problem.
Not that it would be a great approximation of the sound of the models listed in the DSP even so, but still, I wonder if it would have sounded a lot better without that reverb on, which really seemed to taint all of them. Devil's advocate, ofc, a Bassman is a Bassman and Vox is a Vox. Just sayin'. Loved the Escher alert!
When will "techs" stop using WD40 for everything? The WD stands for Water Displacing. It is great for the purpose for which it was intended, but it is the single most overused and most improperly used liquid that comes in a spray can. When used improperly it actually can do more harm than good.
I had L6 stuff. X3 Live and HD 500x. Did not keep it long. Now people tell me Helix sounds like the real thing. I am sceptical. Katana? They were like a craze in the local NZ guitar groups online. People were saying best thing ever pretty much. Every Tom, Dick and Harry went and got one. Sure enough, six months later they began showing up a lot on our equivalent of eBay. I still have not tried one. I guess they probably sound good for the price, but not best thing ever. This generation's equivalent of the Peavey Bandit I think. The best sounding new production amp from a big company is the 1987x I think. They got that one right. I was also impressed with my old Laney IRT Studio. Sounded pretty good and was bullet proof for four years of being used most days for hours. I have a mini Silver Jube and a DIY Plexi replica now. Freyette Power Station and IRs. TBH, once the signal is loaded down and goes thru DAW it does not sound too much different from amp modelling plug-ins. Doesn't seem worth the hassle sometimes.
Bravo. If one of these failed on me out of warranty, I think it would be going to the county electronic waste collection posthaste. I hate the disposable nature of computers (he wrote from his iPhone).
Good gear is a worthwhile investment...I've made it a rule to avoid cheep China CRAP..Never lost a dime buying Gibson's, Fenders & Marshall's..The vintage gear has been better than buying GOLD..
Do you extend the same sort of elitism to flutists who don't know how to change their own pads and recommend they just switch to nose picking or something? Are there any instruments where you allow a player to just be a player?
No volume pots needed replacing. And most home repairs in amps cause more problems than they solve. Hell, most guitarists don’t even know how to install strings properly…
Outstanding! I always like to see stuff get repaired VS tossed in a landfill. Bravo for giving the Line 6 a new lease on life.
Electrolytes are what plants crave…🤣🤣🤣 very good!!
"BRANDO"
Good job, Lyle. Always love to see the lesser amps get some love on the channel (if economically feasible, of course).
You’re a gentleman and a scholar.
As an owner of a few of pieces of Line 6 (POD 2.0, POD XT Live, Amplifi 150 & HX Stomp, I bought everything on sale or used) gear, this warms my heart. To those of us with modest means, this kind of generosity and integrity keeps us going. I've been told I'm wasting my money on cheap crap, but frankly a decent, gig worthy tube amp isn't in the cards without significant budgetary sacrifices. Thank you for doing this, Lyle.
Nice... An Idiocracy reference!
It keeps this stuff out of the landfill, worth at least a little bit there
8:38 Yeah, not a tweed b-man sound but a nice enough tone. I reckon that customer will be quite happy with the work you did and the price you charged. You're a good man.
I loved mine - until it stopped working. After my Line 6 Echo Pro stopped working. After my Spider stopped working. I finally got the message. Went down the tube amp rabbit hole and now love my two Orange solid state amp heads - the Super Crush 100 and the Crush Pro 120. I love my tube amps - but the reliability of the solid state amps is a bonus on top of their great sound. My 1963 Fender Concert amp makes me happy though. Very happy. Shit - now I want to go play my geetar! :)
Go, play!
Man, I remember starting out and got this amp. Stepping stones to appreciate tone.
Subscribed, because you're a good guy. 👍 Thanks for saving something the owner values.
I have a Flextone 3 that doesn't get much attention anymore as I have many other amps, but they're a solid, "not that bad" and actually pretty good at some things.
Kind of clunky to carry around for jams and practice, but it is pretty loud if you need to cut through drums and PA. In that case it is pretty easy to carry around compared to a lot of alternatives. Not a bad amp at all for the money, especially for players on a budget that have the opportunity to pick one up on the cheap.
I have a question
I just bought one one like yours.
But it sounds too tiny
Is that normal????
If you try to play bass sounds it will sound tiny.
Is that normal for this amplifier????
@@beto1515 Try using an EQ pedal. Plus I remember that it played better with some guitars than others
Upvote just for the "It's what plants crave" line! Great vid as always!
"Electrolyte" is the correct term for the schmoo inside (and erupting from) electrolytic capacitors. It's what amps crave.
I have fixed some Line 6 stuff. Lots of times it's just a rotary encoder or a pot or a jack. $2-$15 in parts and $50 labor.
Brawndo !! er... Bravo !! 🌱
BRAWNDO: THE THIRST MUTILATOR! Its got what plants crave!
now i want BRAWNDO brand caps for all my projects
I am sure this device has outlasted the warranty period. Kudos to Lyle for giving it another few years b4 it hits the landfill.
I’m tempted to start a business making conversion chassis for common modelling amps that came with decent cabinets/speakers. Just laser cut and bend chassis with the cut outs for the valve sockets/transformers etc.
@@davestephens3246 well then amp techs should get subsidized by the government for keeping these things in service for as long as possible.
Dudes like this who try to protect the client’s interest over just making money?
Yeah, scum.
Stu Mac sells a pot cleaning cap for cleaning pots on Arch top guitars that allows cleaning pots from the knob side of the pot.
Luck of the draw on a solid-state relic like that. The reaper was dutifully denied this time. Always a good thing.
Nice job Lyle! Also loved the Brawndo shout out!
These companies should stop trying to say their modeling channels replicate some other amp/amps.
Because almost never do they sound like the thing they claim it is supposed to sound like.
Just give us generic names like: clean, crunch, OD1, OD2, OD3, OD4, high gain, ultra gain, etc.
Let us listen and decide if we like it or not. We don't care if it sounds exactly like some other amp.
We just care if it sounds "good", and it's affordable.
And a good deed is done, sir. Complements!
Good day for the Line 6
Love the Idiocracy reference.
Good one ole buddy. Kudos
It sounds good.
There is one tone or sound these amps do very very well imho, thats the Insane channel. As long as your EQ it right and keep the gain at 80% max. You get a sweet lead tone and a crunch on rhythm that i really like. But they make a pedal or they use to make a pedal that had this sound in it, id rather have the pedal than the amp. But other than that, i dont like what these Line6 amps offer. The clean channel is garbage imho, unless you love a digital sounding clean channel with no soul. But hey there are people i guess who dont like no soul in their clean tones haha. Cool video, i know you dont like working on these but im glad to be able to watch.
I owned the first series of Spider amps for about a month, i really gave them a shot and nope. I did try out each spider series after that when id go into a guitar center or a shop when they had just released them and imho the original spider series (red panel) sounded better than ever new adaptation of same amps. My 2nd (and last) Line6 amp i owned was a spider valve with 6L6's in it, i got the amp for $50 ! That was actually a pretty cool amp. But they never put a heatsink on the dsp chip, so if that chip heated up too much the amp would reset. The same thing happens on the red panel spider models and it may still happen on the newer versions, im not sure. I ended up adding a heatsink to it and that solved the issue. I ended up giving that amp to a friend who still uses it. Was a Bogner designed amp for Line6. If you find one of the 1x12 combos of this amp for $75-100, look to see what speaker it has. Because these came with Vintage 30s, $75 for a V30 aint a bad deal. ;-)
Great amps!
Them dang ol Brawndo caps, man I tell ya whutt..
My first amp!
A kind, and decent trombone.
The good deed was keeping it out of a landfill a little longer lol.
I had a circa-2001 Flextone II 2 X 12" combo that I bought used years ago (2008-ish?) for I think $200.00 or $225.00. I ended up only using the Black Panel amp model; it sounded the most "tube amp-y" to my ears.
my electric "rig" is a Podxt that I got for $40 (I mostly play acoustics and am very not-picky with electrics) from the same era so I'll bet uses the same modeling. I agree the blackface model is one of the better ones -- the one on the podxt that's supposedly based on a budda twin master is nice as well, and basically the only thing I use. All of the higher gain models don't sound realistic at all to me.
Do you think these rotary pots could malfunction in a way that causes random volume drops?
Water? Like outta the toilet?
Repair costs vs purchase costs are not the only costs.
Does it has any TUBES ? This model sound like tubes
But the owner might love the sound of that amp. So value really isn't an issue.
Good job on the amp………it was good for the ecomony.😳
I forgot how connect the cables inside the flextime 3 plus...😢
Who the hell got Brawndo on that circuit board?!
Haven't watched the video yet...
You can be nice... Fair enough.
But why? Asking... For a friend.
Cheers 🍻
I had the same the tones or not very good like you said the jcm 800 sounds sick like not good.The vetta is better
The Alpha pots in these amps are known for failing I’ve fixed two Flextone iii amps with the same fault.
Sir... I've noticed you don't show verifying the customer's complaint. Do you generally do so and not show it in your videos, or do you just open the amp & see what you can see?
I almost always do, and I show it, unless an amp is too dangerous to power on or like in this case where I didn’t need to. The Deluxe Reverb from the other day mostly trying to duplicate the owner’s reported problem.
Not that it would be a great approximation of the sound of the models listed in the DSP even so, but still, I wonder if it would have sounded a lot better without that reverb on, which really seemed to taint all of them. Devil's advocate, ofc, a Bassman is a Bassman and Vox is a Vox. Just sayin'.
Loved the Escher alert!
Yeah, I didn’t care for the fx in the presets but I didn’t take the time to turn them off. Working as designed = my job done on this.
MC Escher reference. Lol.
When will "techs" stop using WD40 for everything? The WD stands for Water Displacing. It is great for the purpose for which it was intended, but it is the single most overused and most improperly used liquid that comes in a spray can. When used improperly it actually can do more harm than good.
😎👍❤🖖
Nice guy... Whatever
I had L6 stuff. X3 Live and HD 500x. Did not keep it long. Now people tell me Helix sounds like the real thing. I am sceptical.
Katana? They were like a craze in the local NZ guitar groups online. People were saying best thing ever pretty much. Every Tom, Dick and Harry went and got one. Sure enough, six months later they began showing up a lot on our equivalent of eBay. I still have not tried one. I guess they probably sound good for the price, but not best thing ever. This generation's equivalent of the Peavey Bandit I think.
The best sounding new production amp from a big company is the 1987x I think. They got that one right. I was also impressed with my old Laney IRT Studio. Sounded pretty good and was bullet proof for four years of being used most days for hours.
I have a mini Silver Jube and a DIY Plexi replica now. Freyette Power Station and IRs. TBH, once the signal is loaded down and goes thru DAW it does not sound too much different from amp modelling plug-ins. Doesn't seem worth the hassle sometimes.
Yup sure sounds "different"
Better than new and still fits in mommy’s basement.
Who knew electolytics are full of brawndo!
Bravo. If one of these failed on me out of warranty, I think it would be going to the county electronic waste collection posthaste. I hate the disposable nature of computers (he wrote from his iPhone).
It got lucky. Could have been the trash can instead :)
we need a few electrolytes to thrive, also, so eat your vegetables!
Never pour Brawndo on your amp.
Still a cool amp in my book. Run it with a tiny bit delay and chorus on Jubilee model and it's all I need to practice on.
Braundo
Good gear is a worthwhile investment...I've made it a rule to avoid cheep China CRAP..Never lost a dime buying Gibson's, Fenders & Marshall's..The vintage gear has been better than buying GOLD..
Any guitar player who can't figure out how to replace their own volume pot in their own amp should switch to flute.
Do you extend the same sort of elitism to flutists who don't know how to change their own pads and recommend they just switch to nose picking or something? Are there any instruments where you allow a player to just be a player?
@@stevencraig Well said. And I applaud you for using the term elitism rather than foolishness.
No volume pots needed replacing.
And most home repairs in amps cause more problems than they solve.
Hell, most guitarists don’t even know how to install strings properly…