For the most part, I am OK with Guitar Centers, at least I go in there a lot and continue to go back.
 
A slightly frustrated Mike was trying to demo a Pod HD500 for the first time yesterday.  I have never seen one that was available to demo, so I jumped on it while I could.  The HD500 was hooked up to a Peavey Valve King for the demo.  So the first question I asked was, can I just listen through some head phones.  The sale guy said...well.  we have it hooked up to the amp because it sounds really good that way.  So I replied, but wont the amp color the tone?  Fair question I thought.  Anyway, he replies, no..not if it is going through the effect loop.  Which, I am thinking to myself, well its still being colored by the power tubes then.  So, anyway, I knew this was going to be like talking in circles, so I just said, OK, then I will demo it through the amp and the fx loop.  And the guys says, well it is not hooked up right now to the fx loop.  
 
I rearranged the hook ups.  Now I am going into the fx loop.
 
Now I asked the guy if he could show me how to dial up...just the amps with no fx on them.  He wants to know why I would not want use the fx...he said you can get up to 5 fx on each patch and they are really cool.  Again, I thought it would be obvious, but I replied that I just wanted to hear the amps themselves because I wanted to hear how accurate they were when not drowned in fx.  He didn't know how to do that...he was going to have to get his buddy who was like the Pod guru.  Buddy shows up and I have to go through the whole thing again. 
 
Finally after 45 minutes, he was able to dial up a Fender Bassman model all by itself.  I played it for a while and he asked, well..how does it sound.  I said...like a Bassman sim through a Peavey Valve King.  

That's what you get for not completely reading the manual and knowing everything about the product before you deal with a GC sales dweeb.
 
HTH.

 
I don't get it. Why would you not want to use effects?
 
 
 
 
 
;-)

Classic. :)

MakeShift 
 
Finally after 45 minutes, he was able to dial up a Fender Bassman model all by itself.  I played it for a while and he asked, well..how does it sound.  I said...like a Bassman sim through a Peavey Valve King.  

Good answer

I have similar when I order oatmeal in Starbucks and they say do you want the brown sugar with that and I say no thanks just the nuts will be fine and they say why would you not have the brown sugar it's delicious and I say please can I just have the nuts please.

 
I get that when I order my Big Mac without the double O'Pattys.

Mike,  I just recently bought the Line 6 UX-2 Guitar Interface which can be used standalone or in any DAW, and it sounds FANTASTIC!!  Granted, I do like the F/X, but the amp models seem very realistic to me when I listen to it on my computer monitors.  (I have never tried to hook it up to a guitar amp.)  It comes with their POD Farm 2.5 software, and there are expansion paks you can get for it.  I ordered POD Farm Platinum upgrade, and it has every sound available in it.  I heard the HD500 on YouTube, but my vote goes to the UX devices.  (My brother has the UX-1).  You can find them on eBay for quite a discount (I got my UX-2 for the price of a UX-1).
 
There is some very cool stuff in it which I hope to use in a couple of new tunes in the near future, so stay tuned.....

Hey Tony,
 
I actually have a UX 1 and use PF 2.5 in some of my recordings.  The UX1 is just a computer interface as far as I know.  I also have the old red kidney bean, Pod 2 which I will occasionally use as more of a personal practice tool.  I just have been really interested in the tones of the new Pod HD series because of all of the hype on how good the amp tones are.  I have heard comments as to being almost as good as the Ax FXII and such.
 
I guess I just thought the whole experience was strange in that:
a.)  they would not have had it hooked up to a set of phones, or
b.)  had it playing through the Line 6 amp meant for the Pod HD, the DT25 or DT50.
 
What an odd choice to have it going through a Peavey Valve King.
 
I don't play with a lot of FX any way, so the FX are not going to be the selling point to the Pod HD stuff for me.  For me, I want to know if anything is approaching the tone of my tube amp.  If it's amps were that good, and do not have that digital fizziness so common with these type of units, it could possibly replace the UX1, the Pod 2, my tube amp, etc.  Granted, I don't think I really got a good feel on Friday for what the system actually sounds like, but it still was n't close enough for me...in what I was hearing.  I know that my red bean has a switch on the back that needs to be in the "amp position", if you are using it as a pre in front of an amp.  Then your amp needs to be set up in a real neutral setting.  I don't even know if these 2 guys had the unit set up correctly to run through an amp.

I get frustrated every time I go into GC... because I don't have the money to buy everything.