That was was on the list too (off the top $ side). Or maybe it was the POD Go. Either way - I watched a youtube with that as one of the reviewed models that was compared to 2 or 3 of the others I listed, and it was amazing how well the cheaper ones did! But the Line 6 was really good out of the box, the presets were very solid, and I thought the control system was very gig friendly (especially the colored buttons).
Line 6 has certainly been in the game a long time, and I know there is a great community there. I’ve never owned a modeling anything other than the two Katana’s and those just don’t do it for me anymore. Amplitube 5 into my studio monitors sounds amazing, but that seems like a PITA to play live with.
A few of these modelers (I think the Line 6, and the Mooer, and one of the others, seemed to have REALLY good stock presets. Like minor tweaks out of the box and could be off to play. Although tweakability and stuff is fun, I have to make a real effort to not go down that rabbit hole all the time. The other night I was going to practice 8 songs for an upcoming show, most of which are newish to me, and I instead after the first song I spent 2 hours messing with my tone in Amplitube. And I don’t even use that live! It can be a real problem. That’s actually when I decided I need to look at these sim/FX units, find one that has a handful of GOOD tones out of the box (or close) and ideally has gig friendly controls (for patch/scene changes, live sets, etc) and just make that my main rig for 90% of the time. Get my 4-6 sounds/patches set up and be done.
Amazon has good return policies, maybe its time to make a best guess and buy a couple and return what I don’t want.
Advantage: Line 6 - they sell those at Guitar Center - so maybe time to go spend some time with one. One local musician I know uses their top-end one from a few years back, but I have to be honest I have never liked his tone. It has that “digital” sound to it (metal/rock) and I could never really get into it. But maybe its his patches… Or it is also an older model.
I could also easily do without a good built in Wah, and Whammy, since I own those two already and both generally go in the front of the signal chain. FX loop would be nice though.
The NUX MG30 was actually the one I was thinking of buying (of the cheaper/less known). I thought the models/IRs in the reviews I listened to were very good and sounded very real and responsive.
Time to go and try some of these out in person I guess. Frankly I wish there were NOT so many decent ones! But I guess I should be thankful!