Review of the @Line6 AMPLIFi 150: a super cool amp full of tones

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For Pierre Journel

Published on 2014-07-28

The AMPLIFi line is the latest offering from Line6 regarding guitar amps. The brand from Calabasas is not new in this market but it is really coming with something new with this range of products because they put in one box the best of their modeling technology and the ease of use of a classic guitar amp we all cherish.

Guitars used for the test

A Strat : Monster Relic (neck and body), Hepcat Pickups (Serie L set), mounted and tuned by Guitars Addicts in Paris
A Van Halen signature from Ernie Ball Music Man circa 1995

Sound presets used

Here's a list of the presets I used during the review. Feel free to download them and modify them to suit your needs and guitars:

Double Verb (for clean tones) : http://line6.com/t/k4dzKuMMgL
Europa (for the Santana part, you guessed it): http://line6.com/t/56BznSj5aA
Smoke (for the Deep Purple part): http://line6.com/t/848BrUGgqp
Hey Joe (for the clean Hendrix tone): http://line6.com/t/r6rBns5qLK
Hey Joe Fuzz Oct Spangled (for the Hendrix overdriven lead tone): http://line6.com/t/X9gBoFpxyL
JC120 Welcome To The Jungle (for the intro of the Guns And Roses song): http://line6.com/t/r6rBnf5GAz

What I liked the most

The quality and the variety of tones
The realism of the sounds, including the clean tones
The ease of programming the sounds
The access to presets for any songs from your music library
The Bluetooth controlling from the iPhone/iPad

What I liked the least

The fact you need an additional pedalboard controller (not included) to switch sounds
No output to be used for the PA (the headphone jack turns off the speakers)
The almost non-existing stereo image of the amp when used to play music

Conclusion

I really enjoyed playing this amp. Once you have settle for a sound you tend to forget you have still an unlimited amount of possibilities to go through. The interface of the amp is ultra classic: there're only knobs, not one display to distract from what is important, the music you get out of it. And if you need to do an on the fly adjustment to the sound, you can as you would do on a 40 year old guitar amp. For around 450€ you get a hell of a deal with the AMPLIFi 150. The quality/price ratio is simply awesome.

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