So over the past few years I've been trying to find a useable solution for USB recording and late night silent practice with headphones. So far I've tried the following products with varying degrees of success:
Zoom G2.1 - really nice effects but fizzy distortions but not too bad
PODxt - a good jack of all trades without being outstanding at any one thing
Vox Tonelab ST - left me cold after a short honeymoon period - sold it after a month - very little control over the tone and limited effects
Fender Mustang 1 - works great as an amp but the sound through headphones is not so good - high gain is meh and usb only works for audio in not out - can't monitor & over dub - WTF?

I've also tried a Boss ME25 in store for a while through headphones and it didn't wow me either. The POD HD300 is another option but I already have a M13 and I feel like I'd be paying for the same FX twice. Maybe Line6 should bring out just a USB amp modeller for those of us with M series effects already. The M13 into the PODxt doesn't sound great either.

Anyway I've recently turned my attention to the Zoom G3 - similar stompbox layout to the Line6 M series but with amp modelling and USB ASIO support. It also features a drum machine which syncs to the 40 second looper. Great features but how does it sound? Well this brings me to the second point of my post - how the hell can companies allow their products to be demo'd with the worst possible settings using out of tune guitars? I'm not talking teenage bedroom high gain guitar hero's here (although they are equally annoying) but big companies like Sweetwater. Take a look at Sweetwaters G3 demo below and compare that to the same product being demo'd by a home player who knows how to dial in a decent tone. I know Sweetwater are probably just using the pre-sets and not tweaking but of the 100 pre-sets they can't all be this bad.

Overall I think this unit could work for me and I think I might order one based on the 'good' demo's I've heard.

Bad Demo:


Good Demo: