OX Amp Top Box
Customer Reviews
OX Amp Top Box
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A. Morgan
Flexible toolbox for studio and live
Increadible tool for practice - can get my real amp sounds through can's or low volume, Gives a really good sound for demo's - so much so that many of them have ended up on the final recording. And perfect for playing live and getting the sound guy a decent workable DI every time while still hanging onto your monitor sound.
J. Caldwell
Almost there but not quite yet!
JCM 800 and 900 OX as a load box no cabinet connected. Sounds killer! Then I realized there were some features not implemented yet. I hate that! It's like getting the latest greatest car then having to wait for the wheels. In regards to the OX, if you have USB connections then make them functional and not part of greater scheme down the road. If you have a foot switch, make it do something now and not in a future update. There are some lacking features like the cab sims and mic placements being pretty much set at the factory. Sure UA can pick the best options, and they are good, but at $1299 I want to be able to move my mic positions and have more cabinets to choose from. There are ton of UA plugins that they could of used and maybe down the road they will, but pretty generic choices for now. This of course is all subjective. I will hold onto the thing and see where it leads because knowing my luck I get rid of it then vers 2.0 comes out the thing is stellar and I miss the boat. But it sounds good, built like a tank, esthetically pleasing, but only 75% there so please UA surprise us new owners and make it as stellar as it was advertised to be.
M. Huber
The best Guitarsound with a Cab-Simulator so far..
I tryed allready several Cab-Simulators and all of them couldn‘t get the feeling you have by playing through a real amp. The OX is the first Cab-Simulator who could do this! Its pretty amaizing! Even with headphones the sound is cool! You can get a fully processed sound very easy. The OX is well worth the money and I really recomed it! WiFi works without issues for me.. I‘m curious what the next updats will bring. A V30 cab would be cool..
W. Ridenhour
THIS is the one to get!
After much delay & countless YouTube demos of reactive load boxes & speaker attenuators ... I came to the conclusion that THIS is the one ... So I got on, y'all get ya one too!
S. Sterling
Love the sounds, exactly what i was hoping for. wifi sucks...
I absolutely love this thing.. my experience with other products - other reactive load devices plus other 'amp room' software wasn't great. I wasn't sure the Ox would be any better. I have an especially hard time getting headphones mixes that feel 'right'. The Ox nails it. My Reverb Deluxe sounds wonderful and i spend my time playing with the character of the cabs and mic's, easily getting great sounds - not spending my time trying to dial in a usable sound. 1 had to knock off 1 star from my rating though - the wifi is terrible. It won't stay connected to my home network, so i have to use the direct connect wifi instead - my ipad connects to the Ox's internal wifi. Event this is problematic - it's always searching for the Ox. I mean - my ipad is right next to the Ox - how hard can it be for them to find each other?
M. Hoogzaad
The OX is great but there is room for improvement!
I really like the look and feel of the OX, its really fun to play with! The cab/speaker/mic positions are a bit lacking imo. As a reactive load box with a 5 position attenuator the OX is nice but nothing new under the horizon. The attenuator seems frequency compensated and doesn't work great on every amp so try with your own amp before you buy! The OX app looks neat and works very intuitive although a Windows and Android version of the app would be nice. The OX has several I/O connections that don't work at this moment and what UAD plans with the OX are is unknown. For this price you may expect some major updates with for example a guitar cab with V30 speakers and some bass cabs, selectable higher sample rates with spdif (as an advantage this will also lower the OX latency), more mic positions or some EQ presets to mimic this, and maybe USB audio so you can record all mic tracks individually within your DAW, etc.
The OX is an very useful and great sounding box but there is room for improvement! If this means UAD plans to bring out a MKII version of the OX instead of giving its current OX owners some great updates i would be really disappointing. UAD is not very active on forums so what their plans are is unknown. I give it 3 stars at this moment...
D. Moore
Sounds GREAT, connection is terrible
The device sounds absolutely fantastic, but I spend a LOT more time trying to get the darn thing to connect than I do using it. The wifi just simply does not work as advertised.
Good sound. Terrible user experience.
J. Traynor
Ox earns a space on top of my amp.
I’ve gone from only using a real amp 6 years ago, to being impressed and loving IR tech, to being ecstatic about what UAD is doing with the Ox.
I’ve owned a Two Notes Torpedo CAB, eventually graduated to the LIVE. They are great loadboxes and using either the Two Notes software or 3rd party IRs from OwnHammer, I really didn’t think I could get a more satisfying studio/headphone experience, but I’ve always loved UAD and the Ox stylings spoke to me and more importantly, the sound lived up to the hype.
My experience with IRs was extremely positive, but the speaker modelling that UAD has put together has definitely won me over. I could always hear a weird sizzle at the end of notes using IRs, only really noticeable when playing clean and solo. Might be user error, but I’d like to think I know how to plug my amp in. I don’t hear that with the Ox, just nice clean trails to the notes played.
The software is on version 1.0 currently, so I think it’s too early to complain about not enough cabs, no bass cabs, lack of footswitching, etc. I have a feeling more features lie in wait. The app is well setup, but like any software, it has bugs. It’s extremely useable right out of the box, so no issues there. It will get more finely tuned with time and there will be more bells and whistles for us to lose our s. over.
My advice to potential buyers:
You will enjoy the Ox if you’re a UAD fan, if you’ve used UAD plug-ins getting one is a no brainer. The price is decent, right between a Two Notes LIVE and Studio, features-wise, I think it’s in the middle of those two machines as well.
You need an Ox or something like it to enjoy playing guitar for years to come, a real cab sounds great, but come on, this stuff is cool and you can crank your tube amp while babies are sleeping.
My requests/accessories recommendations to make it a better experience:
Some kind of rack ears might be nice. They’re going to be used in studios. Maybe someone out there can whip a design together.
A fitted carrying case like what usually comes with a lunchbox style head would be great for using the Ox at gigs. We’re going to start seeing them on stages. Venues should invest in them if they want to keep stage volume down.
Hopefully we get footswitch capabilities for the Master channel inserts/effects. Not sure what the 1/4” jack for the footswitch will bring to the table, but if it’s potential is limited, maybe some kind of Wifi enabled foot controller could be designed? 4 footswitchs and a tap tempo, wireless? Like hot cakes UAudio!
T. de Halleux
Sounds great, easy to use, perfectible
It sounds absolutely superb, the effects and notably the plate reverb are great, the user interface is simple, well designed and easy to use, most factory presets are usable and sounds great.
I've read all the others review and i'm ok with some criticism/request:
1 - WIFI could be more "sensitive", i use the OX at a place in my home where the WIFI is a little weak, and it's not always easy to connect the OX to it.
2 - More sample rates, like 48 and 96 KHz, will be more than welcome
3 - More cabinets and mics will be welcome too, but i'm quite sure that's not a problem and these are coming in future updates of the software.
Here are my three more personal requests to UA for a future OX Mk II
1 - An auxiliary inputs on 3,5mm jack to permit the use of an external source like a iPad or Mac while using the Headphone, the idea being to be able to practice on headphone with a metronome or a backing track.
These "aux" input can be found on most amp modeling platform, like LINE 6 HD500 POD and HELIX, or HEADRUSH and KEMPER, and i think it will be really useful on the OX also.
2 - XLR3 line outputs instead of 6,5mm jacks will be more professional.
3 - The possibility to use the OX as a sound card on a MAC with the USB interface.
As a summary i think this product is perfectible, like most products are, but is nevertheless a great piece of gear as it is now and i don't regret a second buying it, even if a little expensive, well done UA!
J. Davies
I love it so much, I hate it
I've spent 4 years cultivating a very respectable pedal board. I also bought a high quality combo tube amp so there would be no excuses as I chased tone and sound. I buy the OX and it's essentially rendered by pedal board obsolete. With the OX I can achieve sweet overdrive through the tube amp that doesn't blow up my hearing aid. The rig settings have built-in reverb, delay, compression and EQ. So the only pedals I use are my Strymon Mobius (for Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, etc) and a TC looper. But once UA gets around to offering UAD's that cover these effects, I can put my entire board up for sale on eBay/Reverb. The only comfort I take is that I couldn't have seen this coming... the OX is a new ground breaking product that's going to turn the world of effects on it's head. Thanks a lot? BTW - when can we expect the Chorus/Phaser/Looper effects to become available?
A. Kuehne
Marvellous Ox Amp Top Box
Thats what I'm searching for. Great tone with my own amps into the daw and always neighbor friendly. Thx UAD. Complete fantastic.
S. Osman
Its what I've wanted/needed for around 40 years !!
So it took some time, but finally, in 2018 I can now actually get a decent electric guitar sound at a sensible volume. Brilliant!
H. Engelke
Room for improvement
What I like:
The idea is great. It sounds good. It is easy to use and to set up.
What I don't like:
The Ox is missing bottom end.
A simulation of moving the mic further away from the cabinet I would appreciate a lot.
I hope there will be more cabinets and microphones later.
Personally miss my favourite microphone, the Sennheiser 906.
Wifi is weak, should at least have a the reach of an ordinary iMac, which it hasn't.
Digital output limited to 44100 does not impress me much.
Recording a “real” cabinet, in my case through Apollo 8p, analog in 1-2 and digital spdif are not in sync.
Spdif is late.
b. new
Like it, but just a couple of things...
Overall, I like this box. It works well and the cab emulations sound good and offer a reasonably wide range of choice. I do think there could have been more cabs on offer - and especially a couple of bass cabs. I would think that a lot of guitarists (like me) have a bass guitar knocking around and an 8x10 and a 1x15 bass cab would have been a very useful addition. I would have preferred a regular pot for the speaker volume knob. There is a spot where the volume goes from being just a little too quiet to just a little too loud and, because of the stepped output pot, I can’t get the volume just where I want it.
The other thing for me is the digital output sampling frequency being set at 44.1khz.
I can’t remember the last time I used 44.1 on a session and I don’t have a handy realtime sample rate converter. Seems an odd choice of sample rate. Even the cheapest USB interface can manage 48k…
But, despite those gripes, I do like it and am enjoying using it.
M. Wirth
Pros and cons
Ok, it´s a bit strange there´s no bass cab included, why? And the saving procedure is a bit unintuitive (you Think you are saving a new presets and suddenly the one you had is gone). But, and this is a big but, it really sounds fantastic! Nothing really comes Close to the nearness and feel. When I bought it the prize seemed a bit overprized, but now I can´t understand how they can sell it so cheap.
C. Doignie
YES! Looking for it for 30 years
Purchased a OX after trying it at NAMM - Fantastic!!!! Yes, it does it all: can for the first time use my amps at their best at home, during rehearsals and gigs (plugged in the console + cab at lower volume) ... and it does it extremely well + it enables to ensure the sound engineer is getting the sound you want and not a crappy place SM57... and on top switching between mics and cabs extend widely the sonic possibilities of my amps!!!!
REQUEST TO UA:
- It would be great to be able to transfer some plug-ins (delays, reverb, compressor... ) purchased to it? For example it would be great to be able to add tape echo as an additional delay...
- Also using it live ... would be great to be able to control it from the pedalboard, to switch primarily effects or cabs/mics set-up... midi capabilities would be ideal (using a Gigrig G2...)
- iPad not always connecting fast
A. Bazinet
Simple. Easy. Awesome.
For me, modeling has always been a necessary evil. I used it because I had to, not because I liked it. I'd fire up something that purported to be a classic this or a perfect that, and they never were; always disappointing, always sounding wrong, never inspiring. Typically I'd then go to the forums, research things to try, then spend hours playing Dr. Scientist trying to coax a decent tone from it.
This is as far in the opposite direction as it's possible to be. You plug in; it sounds great. You try some different cabs; they sound great. You try the included effects; they sound insanely great. Throughout the whole process, it's absolutely simple and easy to use. Heck, they put a freakin' carpet under the cab when you hit the 'damp' button.
These people get me. I don't want to be Dr. Scientist; I want to play, and and want to be inspired to play. This thing delivers. I absolutely love it.
B. Prosko
Mind Blown
Was sold on it from the Shawn Tubbs video but got it just in time for a weeks with of sessions with Murray Pulver at the guitar helm...it was a game changer.
B. Chapman
Best thing ever. Period.
You need this now. See what your amp sounds like through multiple cabinets, with multiple close microphones, and room mics. All the while, not abusing reasonable decibel levels, or even dead quiet. Onboard EQ, 1176, Delay and Plate Reverb. What are you waiting for?
D. Jackson
Game Changer!!
I am not exaggerating when I say that I see no need to ever mic a guitar cabinet again. This is hands down the most useful and exciting piece of gear I have ever purchased!!!