My journey into amp modelers began recently, driven by a desire to explore a wider range of tones especially with my American Stratocaster equipped with single coils. My home setup consists of an Engl Fireball 25 (KT77) paired with a Victory 2x12 closed-back cabinet, which is a perfect match for my primary use case: playing metal. I run only a reverb pedal.
However, a high-gain amp like the Fireball isn’t well suited for SRV-style Strat playing unless supplemented with multiple pedals and effects. I play at home at moderate volume through a real cabinet and have never considered headphones or studio monitors - the feel of a real amp and cab is irreplaceable to me. At the same time, I wasn’t interested in investing in additional amps or a large pedalboard just to gain tonal versatility and that’s why I went trough modelers journey.
Starting with Nano Cortex, which was an absolute failure and is not really suited for this use case (only captures and not models, which translates into low end boomy sound (despite global CAB/IR bypass) when played via amp return and cab), followed by Hotone Ampero II Stage (very nice unit, but sound wise all models sound quite the same, DSP is extremely underpowered, and no customer support available at all) and now it is Neural Quad Cortex mini. Placed an order I think within first 5 minutes when it popped up on Thomann. Price could have been another 100 EUR lower, but still look at the demand.
First impressions – wow!
What a variety of tones, routing capabilities, DSP power (you can blend in four amps and it still handles) and the sense of real tube amp (same dynamic response and openness). User interface could have been better (the of one of Hotone is definitely), but it looks like its main purpose to be controlled by foot, so a lot of stuff makes sense – like dual footswitch operation, still getting used to. Reverbs are simply mid blowing. I also tried 4 cable method and that's incredible by having a possibility to switch back and forth between tube amplifier's preamp and models.
Despite power brick is mentioned as not included it comes in a box.
P.S. I had some issues with gain staging (boomy sound), but with the help of Neural community and feedback from Thomann it was sorted out.
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