your POD experience...

[Mutant]

Why does such a high percentage of the worlds guitarists desperately seeking a guitar tone, that everybody else have? All great sounds comes originally from people who went their own way, saying "fuck that, I'll do it my way".

Easy:
Everyone has his dream tone in his head and to reproduce this tone in reality he needs to know how, so one day he listens to his favorite music and suddenly hears a sound that is 95% like the dream tone so he goes on the internet and asks "what equipment will give me artist x , song y tone ?".
After all we all have human ears and tend to like similar sounds and if you like one sound there is a very high chance that you are not the first one and that someone found a way to achieve this sound long long ago.

IMHO it would be nearly impossible to ask for a tone/gear advice without giving an example - just try to describe your favorite guitar sound with such meaningless words as "warm", "glassy", "brutal", "liquid" etc.

 

[Gnash]

If guitar amps were chicks, a 5150 would be a dirty little slut Jenna Jameson. All dirty, no good clean tone. The one we ALL want. A JCM 800 would be Farah Fawcett. She was hot back in the day, but noobs can't respect her and she's been replaced. Playing through the pod is like jacking off to a 5150. Hey, the best tone I've ever had is Line 6 pod xt live808+5150 into real 5150+Marshal4x12!

 

[Exocaster]

I love my XT. It's an excellent tool, especially for situations where I don't really have the opportunity to mic up a cab, turn up and blast. Anyone who's recorded a demo at 3:00 AM knows exactly of what I speak.

My biggest problem with the Pod isn't the fizzy highs, though. Those can be tamed fairly simply with some judicious EQ. Plus, they have a tendancy to get covered up in the mix. All Pod, no fizzy highs (and speaking of 3 AM demos...):

http://www.mp3lizard.com/download.cfm?id=21574

The most serious issue I've had is with the lows. They're really, really unnatural. I've found running a "real" boost out front tends to help. It does take pedals well. Pod XT on the stock Dual Rec setting, Marshall JMP 2204, Boss SD-1; again crap demo, but it's all I've got here ATM:

http://www.mp3lizard.com/download.cfm?id=21577