for those of us, myself included, who are quick to yell "pictures or it didn't happen"
Now for the continuation of the tone journey. i spent the late 70's, 80's, and 90's behind Ludwigs, Tamas, and Pearls so my foray into tone has come slowly, mostly through osmosis from me hanging out with musicians.
i find all the HX settings pleasing to my ear and my style of playing, but i find that i prefer HX/DA/DA. Flipping the other two switches just allows me to go "once step further", but i'm learning to dial it back and edit, edit, edit so that the compression is less.
With the HX gain, anything with humbuckers is an absolute joy through this amp ; it really is. Obviously some of my guitars are more pleasing than others but i can make all of them sound workable and that says a lot.
Bass gain? What the heck is that? Oh, mama, hear what that just did to my sound. How neat.
I find that the EQ subtracts in such a way that it doesn't suck all the life out of a sound. fascinating.
There is a "presence" knob? Oh, how wonderful because i've always loved having them on amps, but i find that i don't use much of it on this amp because there are so many other wonderful ways to construct a sound.
The DA gain was a challenge at first because i didn't know what to do with it but now i'm getting the hang of it. i can't approach it thinking "where is that distortion i'm used to hearing?", rather, i just have the let the DA be what it is and adapt to it. i've found that if i keep twisting knobs i will find something interesting and adapt my playing accordingly. what works for some guitars and pickup selections doesn't work for all, but mostly by rolling off the bass and bass gain i get into territory that i can handle.
All in all this is such a great amp with so many possibilities. if you don't like what you hear then just twist a knob and you will find something else.
\m/ \m/