Line 6 Spider 112 Combo

This amp has a lot of lights on it, it may attract small children, perhaps that's why i bought it about 4 years ago before i knew how to play anything but a power chord...... it also has a headphone jack, it sounded pretty good on headphones, i think my dad liked that feature...... but hmmm features, ya it has a lot of them.... probably too much, this is one who tries to excel at all things, but succeeds at none of them........

I started off with a pretty crappy guitar i suppose, a Squire Stagemaster, and about 8 months ago purchased a Hwy 1 Fender Stratocaster (this is mostly american now that i've changed the electronics) with EMG SA's GXP and SPC (something like that). I play a lot of stuff, still a copy-cat but i play SRV, Van Halen, Pantera, (a few of the long list) a lot of different kind of stuff.... let's just say first off if you want to play ANY sort of blues..... DO NOT BUY THIS AMP.... the blues setting is horrible, and the best i could get was on the clean setting, but you try to play little wing on this thing.... it sounded better out of my acoustic, than through my dad's '76 strat and this thing, The insane setting is.... insanely crappy, first of all if you want to play it you have to drop the bass to 0, and then even then you will get not one ounce of clarity, makes Eruption solo sounds like 1 long note....... I realize you have to tweak this amp to get anything decent at all, but after 4 years, i'm giving up..... i just can't get anything good, i bought a few rack effects a Digitech Twintube GFX-1, Alesis Midiverb 3 and within 5 minutes i was getting sounds that blew this thing out of the water, i'm not saying the digitech is great, I still haven't decided that yet. if you are thinking about this amp, don't Go buy a 15 watt crap-amp and a Metal-zone pedal if you want the distortion, at least you will prob want to keep the metal zone pedal and won't havea 300 dollar boat anchor in your bedroom. or better yet spend another 50 bucks and get a 40 watt marshall or fender tube combo used.....i just got a fender blues deluxe for about 350 and i paid almost 400 for this amp new....... makes me sick since i can't get more than 200 on ebay for it, maybe i shouldn't be writing this review..... oh well screw it, if you are smart enough to research i don't want you to be stuck with this piece of crap

Yeah, it's dependable........ never broken....... umm the line 6 sticker fell off the front and i can't find it...... i don't think that constitutes being unreliable.... and i don't gig..... so i guess if i did gig.....i would never use this amp...... so N/A

(p.s.) to you who have not filled one of these out, it has some qeustions, that's why all the answers have someithing about gigging in them.

Oh yeah it's never broken down, but neither has my

I don't remember the warranty length, i'm guessing a year, i don't care anymore.... so this category is totally N/A

I got a few various effects, a Tech 21 Sansamp, Digitech Twintube, Alesis midiverb, and a Korg multi-effects (pretty much a tuner and volume pedal now) I like the midi controlled effects, it allows me to get a lot more presets, and they sound a lot better..... about to get in my new fender amp, a tubescreamer.

If this was stolen i would be pissed casue i couldn't sell it to someone on ebay.... but would not miss it's crappy tones one bit.

if you do buy this thing, either you don't know what guitar tone is, or for some reason don't care, i know people say that a good guitar player can sound good with any guitar...... yeah i'm not saying my playing sounds like shit on this, people like to listen to this amp when i play, but it doesn't let me acheive my potential, the mushy tone and far to bassy sound totally make me sound a lot worse than i do when i play on a fender hotrod, especially when i'm playing clean stuff....... i been thinking about what makes this thing crappy and i think i figured it out..... you ever had one of those little synthesizers?(sp) and put it on a grand piano patch? yeah you can play and it sounds like you are playing to a piano, and if you play good people are like wow you are good....... but if you get in front of a very nice grand piano and play something beautiful, you are gonna hit a nerve in people......

Say what you want, tubes feel like i'm playing something real

See the other reviews there are lots already

The ear candy is pretty good. At high gigging volumes it starts to fall down as the dynamic range isn't there when set up next to some big valve amps but if you're the only guitar you can control the volume on stage and this amp is sonically as good as valves when you have some headroom. It also has the small benefit of being massively more tonally flexible! Unless you only use two sounds or you've got room for ten different valve rigs this is a great way to go, period. At present Line 6 are selling these for #200 including the FB4, that is one seriously good set of sound for the cash. I use washburn idol, westone 335 copy and a Jap strat and they all sound great. When I compare this to how hard it used to be to sound good when I was as regular gigging guitarist in the 80s and 90s all I can say is you simply have never had it so good. THis is the dogs bollock (UK for very good) as a recording amp, versatile yet very easy to get great sounds.

Total reliability. I've had mine for 3 yrs, done several gigs and had my kids climb all over the thing and still its faultless. Some say valve sound better, I really can't tell the difference when my amp is in the zone, but this does n't blow up or need revalving every five minutes, you also don't burn your hands on the front panel (Marshall) need a noisy cooling fan like everything else with valves. I've never needed a back up although my vintage amp obsessed friends always need theirs, oh and the effects are totally reliable so I get the "can you play the chorused jangly bit 'cause my peadle boards gone down".

Line 6 have a great web site and constantly pass on their high end experience down to this end of the market.

9 - This amp can take you a very long way, they're now so cheap you can start with one and you may well still be gigging with it as a semi-pro. It covers nearly every tonal/timbral taste from clean to blue to knarly saturated rock, its musical too, turn the volume down on your axe and the tone changes, heay! just like valves. Try one, use it with some taste and you'll sound damn good. Then later when you settle on your own few sounds you can buy a boutique rig just for you, I bet you'll keep this as a spare though.

$200 new. Had it for over 2 years now.
Dsp modelling, 5 channels digital delay, flange, chorus.

the chorus is ok, so is the delay. the flange is fucking shit, its far too weak.

OK, for a beginner id say this is ok, you get an array of sounds, built in effects, and it costs next to nothing.

If you have been playing for more than a day though, This amp sounds synthetic, lifeless and irritatingly shrill. You cant turn the shrill sound off. Insane mode is about the best but it sounds so arfiticial, and again the shrill sound ruins it. It will make you insanely pissed off.
At full volume this amp loses all of its definition and clarity and sounds like a wet fart. Under ALL settings. Very shrill and weak to the point of pain. Never use this amp in loud circumstances ever. It WASNT designed for volume. it vanishes in a band situation, quicker than you can say "bin laden".

Its about at its best when directly injected into a mixing desk. It still retains is toneless lifeless shittyness.
If you want to feel your playing and you want others to feel it, dont buy this box of dog shit. It sucks life out of the guitar and should be banned along with the rest of line6 and their robofaggot crap.
Remember, your guitar goes through their code, they shape it. you dont.

They have a very insidious marketing campaign paying the slipknot idiots etc.. It is commercial lies. Dont be fooled into thinking this amplifier or manufacturer has any credibility.

The channel switching is crap. It randomly switches after about 2 hours use. The speaker packed in when the software decided to assume i was always directly injecting. line out works. speaker dosent.

Line 6 are shit, poor to deal with and seeing as they have discontinuted this model, completely ignorant. They wont respond to email. These bastards are only in it for the money. Unless you own their latest product they ignore you, or rather try to force you to buy their latest monstrosity because "person x" who plays for "commercial devils cock sucker band y" gets payed thousands to claim to use it. Lifeless, soul-sapping, false scum.

If someone stole this, id find out where they lived and thank them. Ive moved on from this amp and would NEVER buy from line6 again.
Do youself a favour, save up for a real tube amplifier, you wont be dissapointed. Dont waste your $200 on a short term shithouse.

This amp is great. Its a definite improvement from my old 20W Stagg amp that I got with my first guitar hehe... It has amp modelling built in and a few FX thrown in for fun too... I am currently tryin to sell my GFX-707II Multi FX pedal, but I fear I will not need a new one with the sound that comes out of this thing.... Well, I would need a footswitch for around #80 :(

I can get all the tones I need out of the amp - the only problem I have is 4 presets :( I need more. However, you can get from the very clean, to country twang, to punk to heavy metal - its all there.. from one end of the "tonal spectrum" (hehe i made that up) to the other...

The only problem I do have is the noise of the really high pitched notes.. I might not have it set up right yet (only tried it a few times so far) but really high notes hurt your ears...

I laugh at the 1 review where someone is upset because his roommates circuit board was fried. Look at all the other reviews and take no notice, this thing is build like a tank. That one review must have been something like spilling some beer into it and then tryin it out.. Its not like the circuit board just breaks on you - im glad it was out of warrenty... TAKE CARE OF YOUR BABY!!!

No chance, this thing will never break...

I use this thing with my Vintage Raider (H/S/H) and my Stagg Strat Copy.. OK not the best guitars in the world hehe, but it sounds awesom. I also tried my friends Fender USA Strat through it - doesnt sound any better hehe.. well until he plays it ;)

Overall, its great for the money. If you see it used, buy it (cos it wont break) unless ure picky about the couple of scratches that may be on it. I got mine for #135 used, immaculate condition and im glad I did...

Same features as all the other reviews. I bought it for when I want to travel light, i.e. for when I know one of the band members isn't turning up to a rehearsal so I don't have to lug my main amp in and out of the car.

The effects are very limited in turns of tweakabilty, but they are good generic sounds as long as they are used with discretion.

The only complaint is that Line 6 make it so you have to buy a footswitch or floorboard in addition in order to get best use out of it, adding at least #70 to the price. Luckilly I have the floorboard already for use with my Flextone II XL. If they just put a standard non-latching footswitch plug on so that you could scroll through the four channels it would be an improvement.

I use it with a Fender Texas Special Fat Strat for general pub rock music.

Now, I get fed up with hearing folk who are obviously crap with technology whining on about how anything with valves in has to sound better. This is a pathetic mantra that's been circulating the music industry for decades and saves ignorant people from actually having to think about their own sound. I've heard people with the cheapest guitar in the word and an old tranny amp making music to die for, and equally I've heard peole with a wildly expensive guitar and valve amp set-up sounding awful. So let's clear the decks of all the pre-conceptions before we go any further shall we?

Now, having said that, this amp is not a perfet emulation of six classic valve amps, but it IS a very, very good compromise, and sounds and responds far better than all of the competition, such as Vox Valvetronix, Marshall VST, Peavey Transtube, etc. The message for everyone who complains that it doesn't sound the same at high volume as it does at low volume is to type EQUAL LOUDNESS CONTOURS into a search engine and get clued up. The problem with this sort of technology is that it takes time to tweak it , so we all want to fiddle with it at home, then take it to the gig or and rehearsal the just crank up the master and it'll sound great, right? WRONG! The ear responds to frequency differently at different sound presure levels, so your EQ needs to be set appropriately for the level you're playing at. (and this goes for ANY amp. The difference with this is that with a dozen channels to set up we're all less inclined to do the job properly when the rest of the band are there.)

I use a Line 6 Flextone II XL as my main amp, and it sounds brilliant: far better than the other guitarist's rig with his digital floorboard, and this amp is capable of producing similar sounds, albeit with a bit of compromise. Once again, no, it does not sound precisely like whatever classic valve amp it's named after, but it does such a good impression of it that once embedded in the mix there's no way you or anybody else is going to tell the difference. How many punters at a gig are listening solely to the guitarist's tone, eh? Only the rather anally-retentive other guitarists in the audience. Hey, here's an idea. How about we all get out there and make music instead of getting up our own arses about our TONE eh? The vibe comes out of your fingers and from the band's groove, not from the gear you buy.

So stop wanting something for nothing guys, and at least be willing to put in a bit of time learning to use it and settting it up at appropriate volumes. I swear most of these complaints are just regurgitation of things guys have read in music mags, written by guitar journos who are too far up their own arses anyway.

The Clean sound is very good, but I prefer the Twang sound for clean work. The Blues setting is the least useful setting for me, but the Crunch, Recto and Insane settings are all really good. Pretty dynamic and responding well to attack, etc.

A word of caution here. The guys at Line 6 have deliberately given the last three setings far more gain than any sane person could ever use, so go easy on the drive for a better sound. If you drive it too hard it will compress the crap out of your signal and rob your sound of any individuality.

The amp's very new but no problems at all so far.

Never Contacted them.

I've been playing over 20 years and I also use a Flextone II XL, which I'm very happy with. Guitar-wise I use a Fender Texas Special Fat Strat as my main guitar, with a Washburn WG 580 (Super strat to you) as a spare. I also use a Yamaha APX5 acoustic with a Zoom 504II Multi-FX unit.

Overally this amp is great for what I want it for. It sounds great, but no, it doesn't sound exactly like a valve amp, and like all non-valve amps it will be quieter than a valve amp with the same power rating.

If you need Marshall stack, then buy a Marshall stack. If you want a highly versatile, highly portable unit with more flexibilty and features than you will find on anything in it's price-range then consider one of these.

Heck of a lot of features compared to a regular old 2-channel tube or solid state amp with reverb. Needs a speaker out. I've got the smaller foot controller and it works well. I like being able to adjust my tone and quickly save it to memory. 8 presets instead of 4 would have been much better of course. You do get a lot of features in one box though. I bought it for band rehearsals so I wouldn't have to lug my half stack around.

I bought this primarily to play Drop-D, one-finger chord Metal, and for soloing. The overall sound of the amp is powerful, thick, flat, unresponsive, and shrill. It sounds great at first, but the highs are irritating after a while, and cause ear fatigue. You can turn every tone control off and still hear the shrill frequencies.

The best model is the Recto, which is what I bought it for. I use 2 settings: Recto for rhythm, and Recto for solos with a volume and mid boost. The clean are ok, but like all the models on these amps they color and even mask the tone of the guitar. It simply doesn't let the wood of the guitar breathe. There are no adequate models for a good Blues tone; that JTM/Plexi stuff is crappola, so you can just throw those two out. It would have been better to just make a JCM800 sound instead. Why they didn't, I'll never know. The Insane model is, well, insane.

It gets decent Recto for band rehearsals, and at $300. I can just leave it there without worrying about it getting smacked up.

The effects are ordinary. The chorus and flange are total ass, the reverb is passable, and the delay is ok. I've certainly heard much better sounding choruses in mono.

It's quiet with the noise gate active. It has no feel, no life.

Seems reliable, except for the RJ-45 computer network cable and jacks for the footswitch. Why doesn't everyone simply standardise this kind of crap and just use MIDI cables and connectors?

You'll get a nice punchy Recto tone. That and the two cleannels are the only models I found reasonably useful. The amp sounds like what a beginner would learn on before getting a real amp (something that sounds and feels better). This ain't Pro tools by far. It lacks dynamics and feel. However, beginners get to hear a number of tones that may help them choose their style a lot easier than if they'd just gotten a Peavey Rage amp to practice on.

I've been playing for 25 years and own a number of Marshalls, Fenders, and Gibsons. I like this amp a bit. It's fun to kick around, but this modelling stuff still has a looong way to go before it's the end-all be-all of guitar tone that it aspires to be. In the case of the Spider 1x12, it's a good deal for $300. currently.

Does Metal or Jazzy cleans ok. Doesn't do Blues very well.

brand new.i love the insane and and crunch sound. the crunch sounded alot like my old marshal which had a great sound.it has 4 channels that all sound great.right now im just starting off in a heavy metal rock band so it packs plenty of punch. all around it is just a great amp.

since im just starting off i am using a fender stratocaster which is a great begginer guitar ( by the way im only 13). in my opinion it is perfect for kind of music i play which is heavy metal hard rock. as i said before the crunch and insane settings are awesome.in my opiniopn the clean very clean but the louder it gets it gets a little little distorted but no much nad the distortion sounds very. its definately a loud amp for the price great for small bands.

very reliable. its never broken down on me.

never had to deal with it

ive been playin for about 2 years and its the best amp that ive used.just an all around great amp. thats all i have to say.

Lots for the price. Four channels sounds good doesn't it? 6 Amp models? So does lots of footswitchable effects? With separate reverb? I would honestly love to be able to sing this amp's praises... it's so hard to find a truly awful piece of equipment out there today. Maybe I became complacent and spoiled, but I think I found one at last...

I bought this exclusively to use a small amp for home use and small gigs - I also use a Tech21 Trademark 60 with a coupla external overdrive pedals (TS9 and Boss DF-2), and a 2002 Roland Cube 30. I wanted the "package in a box" with a bit more volume than the Roland, and less cables to lug about than the Tech 21 rig. I play an Ibanez SZ-520, Yamaha Pacifica 904, and a Gordon Smith Graf.

Now, there is no subtle way to say this... each of my guitars has character in abundance through the Roland or Tech 21, but this *thing* kills them dead. It has the least character, feel, and expressiveness since I had a 12Watt "Badger" combo when I was about 14. My seven year old is learning to play with a Samick LP half-scale copy, and though initially wowed by all the knobs and lights, he went straight back to Mr. Roland. At any setting, any level, the thing is truly horrible. The speaker has the frequency response of a pair of stockings, the power stage is woefully underpowered, the reverb truly *HORRIBLE*, and the amp "models" about as appealing as chhosing which piece of roadkill you want to scrape up for your dinner. OK, it was #125 off eBay, new, boxed and unused... it's going straight back there, pronto! You *can* get some nice sustained feedback off the "Recto" model, but thats the only point at which I thought "hey, that's one good point, maybe I can find some more...". I couldn't. And I'm being generous giving it the rating I have... it gets a 2 bacause it works and makes a noise.

I have no intention of being seen in public with this thing, even if they sponsored me, so I'll never know.

I'm thinking of mailing them to mock the descriptions of the amp models in the manual.

Probably my bad - this thing would probably be adored and revered equally by someone starting out and on a tight budget But for a minimum selling price of #199 new in the UK, it doesn't come anywhere near close to the Roland Cube 30 #179 here) in terms of sound quality and the inspiration that can produce.

I've owned Boogie, Marshall, Peavy... "Badger"(!)... oh hell, just about everything and have settled on my main Tech 21 rig cos it sounds superb, just needs a bit more gain and oomph at times. Those amps show what you can do with modelling... this thing offers a lot, promises everything, and delivers nothing. But it's fun for the younger/novice player at a good price to suit - unfortunately, my rating is based on more than that - it works and makes a noise.

In general, one must consider exactly what this amp is before approaching it with assumptions on what it should be. It's not a "solid state" amp for one. Just because it doesn't have tubes doesn't mean it's a solid state. It's a digital modeler, a newer technology that vastly outweighs solid state technology. For $300 you cannot match it.

The clean tone is very good. With a some fine tuning you can get a very good distortion that I've tried to match with the 8 or so BOSS pedals I own (running through a Fender Deville 4x10 cabinet...yes a tube amp! wow!) but I just can't seem to recreate my Line 6 sound on this so called better amp. The Line 6 has it's own sound that is very interesting especially in a recording situation. So as far as coming up with your "identidy" sound...it's somewhat true. If you fiddle with it long enough, you will come up with something interesting. I've been playing in various bands for years, using lots of different equipment...I now use this little amp almost extensively in rehearsal so I don't have to lug my monster 4x10 (70 plus lbs.!)...which at first was hard for me to understand, because how could this amp compare with a tube amp I kept asking myself??? It's a question of economy people. Do you want to lug all that shit and weight that's associated with a tube amp??? Unless you have roadies the answer should be no. So unless your up your own ass and constantly whine about tone...which by the way, for all you people out there who do, for gods sake, everyone knows that you can't perfectly match a tube amp...and yes tube amps sound great...but it's almost as good so what the hell? And, it's only going to get better. The new Vetta technology is fantastic...great for direct recording, etc... So if all your into is tube stuff then you shouldn't even be writing on this site...if you like having great tone that's not 100% tube but very close plus a library of other possibilities than this is a good starting place. Like I said, it's powerful enough to rehearse with...so go for it.

So far so good...have had it 3 years.

No problems so I can't comment.

one by one here...
---i don't know when it was made, but it's all digital, so it doesn't matter much
---it's quite versatile for me, but i only really use one of the models on it anyways, it's the effects that make my 4 preset channels any different from each other
---it's got 4 channels you can save yourself (6 if you have the good floorboard). and a headphone jack which sounds like ass, even with expensive headphones
---i HATE the smart control effects, because i don't want the delay volume/feedback to be on one knob and all that...

features-wise, it does pretty well... 6 amp models, chorus, flange, tremolo, 3 delays, and a decent reverb (and all that is before the hidden features).

right now, i've got an Epiphone G-400 with 2 Duncan Distortions in it, and w/Gibson electronics (after the mods, a nice little instrument).

the "clean" model isn't half bad at all. is really best for your stompboxes to be used with this channel. doesn't break up unless you want it to, nice and clear, not too shabby.

the "blues" model is mediocre, i think. i stopped using it a long time ago.

the "twang" model is pretty fine, in my opinion. it's supposed to model an old Fender (can't remember which one), and it's not bad. it' doesn't have the tube-sizzle you can get when you really push it, and it doesn't quite have the same sparkle, but it retains that high-class chimey Fender sound to it. sounds great with a decent outboard OD and some slight echo...

the "crunch" setting is supposed to be a Marshall SuperLead, and i find that very disturbing. if this is what a Plexi sounds like, i dont' know how the hell all these legends got to where they are today by using them. again, i don't really use it, because i dont' like it.

the "recto" setting is BY FAR the one i use the most. it cleans up nicely when i roll back my guitar's volume, and i can get a nice, defined, clean sound this way. with the gain halfway up (which is as high as i ever put it) i can pick lightly and get a cleaner sound, or pick more aggressively and have the thing distort and send some damn fine crunch my way. isn't quite the Mesa it wants to be, but it isn't very far off either.

the "insane" setting is another one i barely use. high-gain is all well and good by me, but not like this. if it could clean up, or if there was any note definition, i might use it, but that's not the case, so it stays dormant.


all in all, the thing sounds pretty good, if you take the time to mess with it a little. can't sit down in front of this and have it immediately sound like gold, you've gotta put some time into it. play with the EQ, explore the hidden settings, program your 4 channels, and then let me know. this isn't really a good or bad thing, people say that alot about the Mesa Mark series as well, and those things are freakin incredible.

hasn't broken down on me in any way, and i've had it about 2 years. not bad.

again, amp hasn't broken down, haven't really needed support.

although i did download the manual on their website after mine disappeared. but i can't really rate their service for that, since most companies that sell ANYTHING digital will do this for you.

like i said, it's versatile, and it sounds good, but there's one problem with it, and it's a pretty big one. i found this to be true with most Line 6 products, the sounds will be pretty good (if not great), and all that, but they have NO FEEL!!! sat down in front of a Vetta the other day, and got a really awesome setup running with a "jumped" Plexi and an Engl Powerball, it totally kicked my ass sound-wise. but a few minutes later i went and played a Marshall DSL50, and although i didn't like the sound quite as much, the feel was soooo much better that i would've bought the Marshall long before i bought the Vetta.

since i believe that your real sound is contained mostly in your hands (literally), and this thing doesn't give you much feel at all, i can't exactly give it a stellar review. however, if you're just starting out like i was when i bought it, it's quite fine.

i like it and everything, but i wish i had saved the money and bought something a little better. oh well, you live and learn.