Guitar Gear Forum

Line 6, yeah, yeah, but a deal is a deal. Spider Valve 2x12 in non-working condition for $50. Guy says it powers on but no sound. He said he thinks its a fuse, or maybe a tube but he doesn't care to have someone fix it. In my mind I'm thinking yeah possibly a fuse, maybe a burned power tube, or worst case scenario blown output trannny.

Bring it home, and during the initial once-over I see that the speaker cable lead was not attached to the primary speaker.



Powered it up, and aside from a scratchy Master volume pot and broken shaft on the main effects pot, it works. To top it off I bought a FBV shortboard for $15 last weekend (my son has the 1x12 version of the same amp).

I really feel bad for the guy being that it was a zero dollar fix, but I think he was ready to take a loss regardless.



Now I have a matching rig with my son so we can play all the Metallica songs he doesn't want to go see live.

Noice!! I'd take that for $50 for sure.

These amps are not bad at all IMHO. As far as modeling amps go it's one of the better options out there.

GuitarBilly wrote:These amps are not bad at all IMHO. As far as modeling amps go it's one of the better options out there.

Yeah they cover a lot of ground quite moderately and then some. I also have a DT50 combo, and honestly it kinda sucks without the HD300/400/500 floorboard. Anemic tones and no onboard effects aside from a basic reverb. Even with the Editor software to tweak everything, it just doesn't sound like it would cut through at all.

A decent gigging rig for $65 is a decent win.

i always thought these would have been more popular, but then again i guess they did come out a while ago, i bet if they rereleased this and called it a helix head or something they would take off

RaceU4her wrote:i always thought these would have been more popular, but then again i guess they did come out a while ago, i bet if they rereleased this and called it a helix head or something they would take off

Agreed. I think if it was detached from the "Spider" name it could have been more popular, but then again it's literally a Spider III mated with a basic tube circuit (SV MKII is the Spider IV version). I think the DT series that succeeded it was a step in the right direction, but the core amp was maybe too basic to be awesome as you needed to pay a few hundred more for the POD floorboard that gave you the flexibility that the Spider Valve line had already built in.

Then again I don't think the DSP/tube hybrid amps are a big seller overall, but that's my uneducated opinion. Billy might actually have some good insight as far as how well these amps were in the market.

https://reverb.com/item/70180213-line-6 ... t=70180213


Good thing I’m not drinking tonight, I’d probably be hitting buy it now lol

I loved mine back in the day but I also thought the Spider I had before that was good.

I can’t speak for the broader market but if Line 6 did some kind of Helix head version with a nice tube power amp I’d buy one in a heart beat. Especially if they got a name like Bogner to design the tube section again. I just don’t know how much market there is for hybrids out there these days.

That said I remember back when I had my Spider valveI got a lot of positive compliments on the tone but that was probably from other mostly broke punks.
Either way $50 + $15 for the FBV is a steal any way you slice. Congrats on the score!
What speakers did it come with? I ran my head through a 4x12 with V30s and then later V30/T75 in an X and thought both worked with it pretty well.

K-Bizzle wrote:I loved mine back in the day but I also thought the Spider I had before that was good.

I can’t speak for the broader market but if Line 6 did some kind of Helix head version with a nice tube power amp I’d buy one in a heart beat. Especially if they got a name like Bogner to design the tube section again. I just don’t know how much market there is for hybrids out there these days.

That said I remember back when I had my Spider valveI got a lot of positive compliments on the tone but that was probably from other mostly broke punks.
Either way $50 + $15 for the FBV is a steal any way you slice. Congrats on the score!
What speakers did it come with? I ran my head through a 4x12 with V30s and then later V30/T75 in an X and thought both worked with it pretty well.

The SV combos are loaded with V30s from the factory, which is quite welcome.

Fucking A


I actually always dug the sound of these amps, at least for the br00talz. Too scared to own one for fear of it breaking down but for $50 I'd have fuckin sent it too

About a decade back, there was one as the backline amp at a "festival" (read show with 20 bands and not nearly enough planning outside of having a backline for amps and a shared drum set). We were playing in the middle of the grouping. I had listened to some really overly processed and heavily scooped tones from it all day and was a little nervous about sounding horrible or not having time to find an amp tone I liked in the modeling section given the short amount of time to adjust it. I knew I could find one if I had a few minutes to play with it, but that was not an option.

When I went up there I ended up plugging my flyrig (Phase 90, AMT B1, Carbon Copy) through the power amp in port on the back and it sounded excellent. I kept my eyes open on reverb for a while after that to see if any deals came up on the amps just to use in a dual amp setup. If anything you picked up a great tube power amp and cabinet with built-in modeling for nearly nothing.

No brainer for $50! The tubes in there are probably worth more than that

Devin wrote:Fucking A


I actually always dug the sound of these amps, at least for the br00talz. Too scared to own one for fear of it breaking down but for $50 I'd have fuckin sent it too

There were a couple bands around here that used the Spider Valves for some heavy stuff, and it always sounded proper. Nothing thin about it at all.

I do believe they suffered reliability issues, having read up on all the Line 6/Bogner amps over the years. Alchemists I think had issues with the effects board arcing, but with the 3 I owned over the years never experienced it. The original Spider Valves (Like what I just picked up) had issues with the DSP chip overheating, and they fixed that with the MKII series. In my son's Spider Valve 1x12 combo, I just wired in a 12v PC fan off the effects board and not a single issue since. I may end up doing the same to this one just for insurance. I bought my DT50 combo with a blown PT for dirt cheap too, and sourced a replacement for like $30. 2 years later no issues.

All in all, tone-wise not anything to brag about, but man they do sound good enough.

I'm sure there is a cheaper option, but these rubber Fender Strap Blocks I had lying around are doing a pretty good job of keeping the low friction Master Volume pot from jumping around. I might just grab a cheap set of o-rings off Amazon to do the rest of the amp, and look a little cleaner.

Congrats! I bought one of these when they first came out. I gigged it religiously in my band up and down the East Coast for over a year. I would always get compliments on my tone. They are capable of sole awesome tones for sure.

Enjoy!

Hipster Salad wrote:I'm sure there is a cheaper option, but these rubber Fender Strap Blocks I had lying around are doing a pretty good job of keeping the low friction Master Volume pot from jumping around. I might just grab a cheap set of o-rings off Amazon to do the rest of the amp, and look a little cleaner.

Yeah I use o-rings on all my pedals so they don't move when I transport my board. They work really well for that and I can still turn the knobs when I want to.