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View Full Version : POD X3 Live, if you're on the fence...



rylanmartin
September 22nd, 2009, 09:47 PM
Well.

This is gonna be wordy, but if you want the whole point of what I'm gonna say without reading it, just read the last sentence.

I'd had a POD XT Live and used it for a few years. Then they came out with the X3 Live. I then proceeded to spend over $600 hard earned dollars.

My first opinion was that it was a mind blowing unit. There's sooo much you can do with this thing that it's crazy. This would be the greatest pedal ever if only it wasn't built to fall apart after the warranty is up. My problem is this:

I've used my POD X3 for about a year and it's been flawless. The honeymoon was awesome and the first year of living together was blissful. We had many laughs together. We could often be seen together at all my gigs. She was always right there for me.

I was playing at my church last Sunday when all of a sudden she turned on me! I was completely taken when my beloved "Delay" and "Comp/Boost" buttons stopped working entirely! My warranty is past the 1 year mark, so I thought I'd take things into my own hands and perform surgery myself! What I found brought tears to my eyes...

The whole footswitch circuitry of the POD X3 Live, both lower and upper switches, are mounted in place not by cheap screws, clips, or even thumbtacks, but HOT GLUE!! what happened is that two of the hot glue joints (under the two pedals that weren't working) had broke. There is also a tiny spring and little plastic finger that is held under the footswitch button that makes contact with the button on the circuit board; both had slipped out because of the hot glue breaking, and were rattling around the inside of the pedal. While dismantling, or possibly in travel this weekend, one of the loose springs went missing.

I have the pedal fixed now...after MacGuyvering a new spring out of stiff wire, and re gluing and re-enforcing the circuit board so that it wouldn't break.

I DO NOT recommend anybody buy a POD X3 Live unless your comfortable opening it and re-enforcing everything inside yourself. Use tweezers too! the foot switches are delicate little machines. These have been designed to break apart after several months, maybe a year or two of use. Line 6 used their brilliant engineering and made these unit entirely disposable...Arseholes....

Don't buy a Line 6 POD X3 Live because it is most definitely built to break.

mrmudcat
September 22nd, 2009, 10:05 PM
Yea the one we got ......handle came off screws inside tried to take it apart...........tricky ......turned back .......I know sometime those scews flopping around will take out something:thwap: I might take another shot fixing it someday..........staying home right now.............

Spudman
September 22nd, 2009, 10:23 PM
I think I remember hearing about that issue. Apparently the newer versions have different switches now because of that very problem.

Bummer for you that you had to play surgeon.

mrmudcat
September 22nd, 2009, 10:52 PM
But to put it in perspective one guy can buy something never have a problem,another guy something goes south .........anything especially electronics.......but think about it......anything built by man or machine;)

I have had puters ,cars ,game systems(boys) , guitar related stuff.one guy can buy a cheap guitar have it perfect the next guy piece of crap another a high end guitar perfect next guy junk... so on so on....etc etc:thwap: :whatever: