Not happy with the outputs of my FP10, even with the DI -.5dbfs and the X-Amp nearly dime'd I still needed to increase the volume on the Overdrive more than normal, noisy to say the least.
Cool post man. I just learned of this product and wondered how improved it would sound compared to stock interface preamps. I have to say I like it with the tone button engaged best, its a bit more crunchy which could be favorable in some styles.
I dont think the presonus preamp was particularly bad sounding either in this test. The firepod was my first proper computer interface and I hated the way it made everything sound so this surprises me. Mine did not have the xmax pres though.
The actual guitar performance falls out of time here and there but im assuming you werent aiming for perfect to do a tone comparison.
I don't even think you can really call this a comparison if you are running the WA12 into your Presonus because the pres can't actually be bypassed. So you are still getting that Presonus layer of crap on top of the WA12. If you ran it into a dedicated converter, the difference would be quite large.
I tracked the DI by playing the progression twice. They weren't played against each other initially but with the magic of cut and paste a double track performance was created. The timing is iffy at best and I'm not too happy with the reamp gain scheduling. The pick attack seems a bit weirder than normal.