IK Multimedia Amplitube 2.1

I'm a Flamenco guitarist (35 years), but I've been on the learning curve for the past 5 years in sounds and effects. I play nylon string Flamenco (for high gain, I use a Yamaha Silent Guitar).
Upgraded from Live 2 (stealthplug) I've installed Pickup-The-World pickups in all my Flamenco guitars.

So far I'm using it for recording (testing), experimenting with the new sounds.. I also have Line 6 Toneport (all expansion packs save the bass) and Guitar Rig 2.

I am running Core 2 Duo E6700, 2GB Corsair DDR, Asus P5B Deluxe, SATA drives.. WinXP Pro (Sonar 6 Pro, Live 6, Fruity Loops)

I'm using the Toneport for I/0 on my Laptop, Vm3100Pro/RPC-1 on my Mini-Tower.. M-Audio Bx5a Speakers.

I find the interface very clear, intuitive and easy to use. IK Multimedia has ditched the stealthplug, and registration over the internet was flawless. As of now, there is no MIDI support, but Amplitube Live 2 had it, and I'm sure it will be present in a revision in short order (Live 2's is very easy).

The controls are easy to tweak and laid out very logically. Amplitube is now a standalone as well. AND I Repeat: Amplitube 2 HAS DUMPED THE DONGLE!!!

I'm not too much of a high gain expert, but everything I've tried is right up there with GR2 and Line 6 (which also sound great). The presets are excellent as starting points in my experience, however, not overly loaded with effects. It sounds great right out of the box.

The clean sounds are gorgeous (this is an area which I can claim some experience) Right out of the box, I got a number of useable variations that sounded great on my Flamenco Guitar. The interesting point is that I got much less feedback with the models than with other AmpSims.

I paid $99 for the Stealthplug, and $219 for the upgrade. I consider it a great investment (I basically switched from Line 6 because of their outrageous $200 charge for the VST upgrade for Toneport owners); Line 5's dongle and the fact that you can only use the packs with one of their hardware devices at a time is also an issue for me.

It has run flawlessly on my machine so far...both as standalone and VST.

I also have been very impressed with customer service from my own experience). It compares very favorably with GR2 (which I also think is a fantastic value) It isn't bad for cpu, but does use a lot of memory... comparable to GR2, but more than Toneport... I think the philosophy with these high-end ampsims is that they are not toys - one should have a good computer to begin with, which is why I upgraded (from a Pentium P4 2.53 Ghz 1Gb..

The only thing missing is MIDI comtrol at present, but with StompIO I'll have another GAS attack, I'm sure... It also includes a time-stretching .mpw/.wav player (I would like it to set tempo to bpm rather than percentage).

I think GR2 is a bit more flexible, but the difference will be moot for most users. (Line 6 is very inflexible by comparison)

So for me, the choice is now between GR2 and Amplitube 2.1; you can't go wrong with either.