Sixstringflannel
Active member
I own the Suhr RLIR and have played through the PowerStation, though not in my own setup — but I was paying attention to the load's effects. Tough to tell in the moment, but undeniably both are great tools for going direct into your DAW.
I started out with the OX and was happy as a clam until I got a plexi and felt like a smidge was missing. Bathtub curve, limited cab selection, yada yada. No wifi issues on my end, but UA pisses me off that they've only pushed one big update with new cabs since inception. The cabs and FX in it were awesome though — perfectly fine for what I needed at the time.
Moved it for the Suhr. Stock IRs were lackluster but you can load your own. Mirror Profiles makes compensated IRs for both the Suhr and the St. Rock if you want to push past the stock GB curve closer to a V30.
The Friedman is incredibly interesting — I believe the load itself is a fixed analog 3-stage reactive circuit and the machine learning piece is on the power amp side, not the load. If so, it'd be the first 3-stage on the market. The U-curve loads like the OX and Captor appear to use simpler networks, while units like the Fryette, Suhr, St. Rock, RedSeven, and Fractal use more complex multi-stage designs — though exact stage counts are hard to confirm. "Better" here is subjective. If you hear clips of your amps through a particular load and dig the sound, it's probably a safe bet.
St. Rock seems to have the closest Mesa OS 4x12 curve, plus another mode that measures close to the Suhr — and tons of onboard features if your computer can't handle heavy IR processing. RedSeven is rumored to be a GB/V30 hybrid curve (can't confirm), but well regarded.
Default recommendation is the Suhr. Priced right, great, simple, gets out of the way. 8-ohm only though, so if you need variable impedance your list narrows. Lots of great info on rig-talk to dig through, and i agree with all of the rec's everyone has given you so far. Take the suggestions here then let your ears guide the last mile.
Hybrid solution Suhr or Fryette + OX stomp if you REALLY want those UA cabs. Genome is a good alternative and extremely flexible.
I started out with the OX and was happy as a clam until I got a plexi and felt like a smidge was missing. Bathtub curve, limited cab selection, yada yada. No wifi issues on my end, but UA pisses me off that they've only pushed one big update with new cabs since inception. The cabs and FX in it were awesome though — perfectly fine for what I needed at the time.
Moved it for the Suhr. Stock IRs were lackluster but you can load your own. Mirror Profiles makes compensated IRs for both the Suhr and the St. Rock if you want to push past the stock GB curve closer to a V30.
The Friedman is incredibly interesting — I believe the load itself is a fixed analog 3-stage reactive circuit and the machine learning piece is on the power amp side, not the load. If so, it'd be the first 3-stage on the market. The U-curve loads like the OX and Captor appear to use simpler networks, while units like the Fryette, Suhr, St. Rock, RedSeven, and Fractal use more complex multi-stage designs — though exact stage counts are hard to confirm. "Better" here is subjective. If you hear clips of your amps through a particular load and dig the sound, it's probably a safe bet.
St. Rock seems to have the closest Mesa OS 4x12 curve, plus another mode that measures close to the Suhr — and tons of onboard features if your computer can't handle heavy IR processing. RedSeven is rumored to be a GB/V30 hybrid curve (can't confirm), but well regarded.
Default recommendation is the Suhr. Priced right, great, simple, gets out of the way. 8-ohm only though, so if you need variable impedance your list narrows. Lots of great info on rig-talk to dig through, and i agree with all of the rec's everyone has given you so far. Take the suggestions here then let your ears guide the last mile.
Hybrid solution Suhr or Fryette + OX stomp if you REALLY want those UA cabs. Genome is a good alternative and extremely flexible.
