The Line 6 Spider 3 fifteen guitar combo amp is a fifteen watt solid state guitar amp with in-built amp and effects modeling. It is a good small amplifier for a starting guitar player, and makes a great home practice amp for more experienced players.
This is a solid state-modeling amp, 4 channels clean, crunch, metal and mad, all of which is programmable. Effects, chorus flange, phaser, tremolo, sweep echo, tape echo ( sweep and tape echo have tap delay time ) and reverb are also features. Cd / mp3 is a cool feature and a record out and head phone input. And yet there are far more features, this has a useful hidden noise gate and a concealed distortion boost! These are decent features for the price and compared to other amps.
This is my primary amp that I use for home practice and band practice. I'm using it with an Ibanez RGR321EX. The sound has a verity, clean is clean crunch is a Vintage sound but this is extremely muddy. Metal is my fave and crazy is very twisted but it's good for solos.
Getting in to more detail the effects are very good but the tremolo is a bit of waste and isn't actually useful. Now, the negative sides of this is that the amp is to digital I have attempted the Marshall MG15CDR and compared to this amp the distortion on the spider just hasn't got that wide analog feel and also the sound sense of this amp seems to change every now and again when I sit down for some practice but lets end on a positive ; this amp is loud, awfully loud!
As for reliability & sturdiness this is built really solid. It once slipped down the steps and worked fine, it's actually had a bit of water spilt on it and still worked. I do not actually need a back up, but a back up might be an idea but I haven't got much cash so I rather just stick with this for no matter what the reason.
Over all this amp is good, but a foot Switch would be good and a design that would work with pedals a lot better would be brilliant. But it definitely has it's good sides, it has good distortion and it's loud, louder then something twice as gigantic and might be heard with the drummer with the volume at 3. The Line 6 Spider III Amp is totally worth the low cost investment this amp is set at.
To learn more about the Line 6 Spider III amp check out http://howdoiplayguitar.com/line-6-spider-iii-amp/