Sound quality isn't particularly applicable to this product, but I must say that the Variax 700 comes awful darned close to recreating some of the truly great classic guitar sounds, and having 50 of them at your fingertips at all times is nothing short of addicting! Having the ability to tweak them through Workbench is an incremental benefit that allows you to replace the few sounds that you don't really care for with ones that you do.

Pretty much off-the-shelf parts make up the hardware. The software UI within Workbench is adequate if not elegant. It gets the job done for me.

Not the most intuitive, but the Help screens give you the basics to do what you need to do. Once you're up and running it is very easy to modify, save and upload new sounds to the Variax.

One word of caution -- the first time I plugged the RJ45 cable into the Variax it wouldn't come out again. Fortunately someone else out there had had the same problem and posted a solution -- open the Neutrix housing in which the RJ45 plug lives and snap off the plastic tab that is designed to hold the plug in place. It's not needed, since the Neutrix housing has a separate tab/release mechanism that secures it to the jack. And the little plastic tab apparently gets stuck inside and won't release its hold on the jack when you try to pull it out. Really annoying! (Not to mention an obvious Quality Control failure on Line 6's part.) Perform this little operation BEFORE PLUGGING IT IN THE FIRST TIME to avoid an hour or two of frustration.

Seems overpriced for what you get -- my guess is that you could put the hardware pieces together yourself at a fraction of the price. But since Line 6 has a monopoly on this technology you don't have much choice. Still, it's worth it if you need to tweak the sounds.

Line 6 support has proven to be very spotty -- I know because I own a lot of their products. Fortunately there is a fairly substantial user group out there who post solutions pretty actively, so you can usually find out what you need to know.

Not sexy, but if you want to tweak the onboard sounds in your Variax, it is essential.

Active Musician/Composer

Rock/Bluegrass/Songwriter

This product is amazing. My favorite guitar that I've made so far is a Jazzbox type body, with a Jazz P-90 humbucker in the bridge and then putting a single coil pickup in the middle between the two pickups. The result was an incredibly clear tone that the regular Jazz style guitars weren't putting out for me. The point is that you can do anything. what ever sound you really want, you can have. You just have to be willing to take the time and mess around with things.

Imagine it...you can take any of the guitars, and you can you can make them into what you want them to be. Try taking the Firebird and putting telecaster pickups on it... why? because you may get a tone that you really like. Honestly...I've created several guitars that I'm never going to use...they were just good ideas. But, on the other hand...I've made one guitar that I use consistantly because it sounds great.

It's easy. You pick the body, then pick the pickups, and that's it. It'll even let you listen to it as you change things. It's easy.

if you're computer can handle it...it works. The cable that comes with the little box isn't stage ready, but it works great for the purpose it was made for.

of course we'd like things to be cheaper, but it will be worth as much as you put in.

Active Musician

Worship, Rock, Alternative

This is the best thing available. With my Variax 500 and XTL, the software was free for the download. I jumped at the chance to grab it the first night it was available.

One word...COOL!

Very nice

For free? Can't go wrong with that...

Havn't had to call.

Got it! Don't know I would live without it now...

Active Musician

Rock

If you own a XTL you can download it for free to use with your variax. This is the coolest....tone you can dial up to your taste.

I'm loving the alternate tunings....I play mostly acoustic stuff. Was playing with tuning the E and A strings an octave down and it's slick.

Software...hmmm...well I guess the fit and finish are fine. You have to pay attention that you download all the drivers, latests software as they describe. Get a pad of paper and write it down. It all works, but setup is critical.

Well it cost me a Variax 500 and a Pod XT Live to get the workbench free. I figured having 28 guitars, all the effects, and the ability to do alternate tunings with a flip of a switch was worth $1000 or so. This is a great gigging rig. Tones of tone options.

I called them and they got me on track.

You have to look at this as a "rig" and it's very slick.