I was looking for an amp modeler for my recording and live setup and I've put this Iridium in my cart as soon as Thomann had it available because I trust so much on Strymon products.
I've had Kemper head, Hx stomp and Fractal AX8 (my favorite of them all), so I have quite an experience with modelers.
I've purchased the Iridium mainly for its pedal format and the ease of use. I didn't want to navigate through dozens of menus just to make a decent sound, neither I wanted a big all-in-one pedalboard because I go to gigs and rehearsals by bike or public transportation. Plus I already have some effect pedals.
The amps and cabinets sound great. Responsive to the touch and faithful to the sound they're emulating. Distorted sounds clean up really well with guitar volume knob and are easy to manage with the effective eq controls. The Marshall amp is very noisy with the gain past 2 'o clock, but I guess a real Marshall is not that quiet...
Anyway, I mostly play jazz through and AER compact amp and the Iridium sounds great before it. It gives the amp that valve feeling I've been missing for years. Sounds fantastic via studio monitors as well. I'm not quite satisfied about the room sounds, I would have preferred an actual reverb algorithm, but I can easily solve the problem by putting my ambient fx after the Iridium. Overdrive pedals sound very good before the Iridium, which behaves like a real amp.
Possible uses:
- Live without amps or as a backup in case your valve amp fails
- Live plugged in the return jack of your valve amp (without cab simulation), as it was a preamp
- In studio to record with a realistic sound without micing any amp or opening CPU-killersplugins.
