Thanks Ed. I can't wait to try it. Unfortunately, it probably won't be here before Wednesday, which is the first of our day off, meaning that I won't get to work with it before Friday. 
 
Actually, I came this close to grabbing an older Variax in a local pawn shop, but these days, I'd probably use it only to emulate a Les Paul so I figured it made more sense to save the money for the Gibson I want.

I still have and use a POD 2 and often use a Flextone II for playing at low volume along with songs. I have noticed that the POD plugged int the loop of a Crate Powerblock>1x12 open back cab with Emi Texas Heat noticably kills the Flextone in every way. It sound's MUCH better that the Flextone... of course the PB sounds really good by itself or with most any pedal. I like the alternate amp on the JCM 800 setting, I don't remember what Marshall it models but using it with the speaker emulator OFF... sounds great, to me. With the POD and the Flex I sometimes get out the manual and refresh my memory of what the knobs do and get better tones than I do by just tweaking what I think needs tweaking. I tend to use both dry most of the time though I sometimes add a little reverb or delay but not much, I am pretty much a guitar>cord>amp player... unless I am doing some Trower stuff. I remember when the LINE6 line forst came out. I kelp a catalog by the porcelain throne and ookked at it every day... that or the newest Carvin catalog... I never bought anything from Carvin but I have come close to ordering one of their small single ended class A amps and the SX amps have always intrigued me. I figure the Bel Air is basically the same as a Peavey Classic 30. I have a fondness for a good SS amp, some of them kill but I have a pile of tube amps too. I need to do a family portriat one day of my guitars and amps. I am still looking for a mid 60s Jordan Boss and Boss Satellite. If you every find a good deal on a Jordan J-700 pedal.. get one. It goes from dist to fuzz and absolutely cops the Joe Walsh Rocky Mountain Way sound. It is a great pedal, not metal but a wonder.
Do you remember when the Bad Monkey pedal was all the rage?
 
J
 

I'd have to do some serious remembering to even count how many different POD's I've owned (let alone all the other Line 6 gear I had).  Now I only have Variax guts inside my custom guitar, the rest is all gone...

A friend of ours who visited a few weeks ago strongly recommends that I check out Line 6's DT 50 212. Considering all the amps he could be playing and all the choices he has, there must be something to it.
 
That being said, if I were to invest that much in an amp, I'd most likely go with something simple - Marshall, Blackstar or Laney. No modelling.

Rain
.... there must be something to it.
 

It's his newest toy?
 
Wait until he gets a new amp.

That's too bad that you have to wait till Friday to try it out. I'm sure you'll make up for lost time. :)

bapu

Rain
.... there must be something to it.
 

It's his newest toy?
 
Wait until he gets a new amp.

Nah, he's had it for a while. Says he did try to get back to his other classic amps but that he keeps returning to the DT50.  

Leadfoot
That's too bad that you have to wait till Friday to try it out. I'm sure you'll make up for lost time. :)

I'm sure I will. I've already read all the manuals. :P
 
Funny that it should arrive precisely on my wife's birthday - considering it's a gift from her. :s But at least we'll have plenty of other cool things to do, so it's not like I'll be sitting here and waiting to open the box, or waiting for the weekend or such...

I've only had a bit of time to mess w/ it but - that thing is fun! I didn't try all the models that much - after a quick round through the presets, I went back to manual mode, selected the JT-45 model - a likely candidate to get the kind of tone I like - and tweaked from there.
 
Loved it, loved how dynamic it was - there's even that sour transient at the beginning of the notes, that little surge that's so often missing from amp models. 
 
And I'm glad to see that I can do my tweaking w/o the need to use software - switch cabs, mics, browse through reverbs, etc. Having read the manuals in advance and being familiar w/ the Spider line of amps helped me feel at home w/ the new POD I guess.
 
Overall, a dramatic improvement over my old POD 2 (obviously) and better than the Spider, which tends to sound more like a bunch of static presets than actual amp models. 
 
Anyway, cool new toy.
 

Great stuff rain.. and the audio clips are in the mail?.. :D