i perfer, and Only use tube amps, this is for the time fx only, in a parallel loop, convenient for small gigs, digital amp models and cab sim are NOT there yet, if you haven't played a marshall or boogie tube amp, on stage next to real drums, then you don't get a vote

Once in a while you need a bit of a Headrush!! This thing sounds so good!!

I am a 50 yr old guitar dork who has been playing out locally in various bands for the last 20 something yrs. Play a bunch of styles/genres. mostly standard tuning, slide and hybrid picking stuff...
I ordered a few digital pedals ($400 or less range), recently for my birthday, and this was the one I didn't send back. Hard to find much to bitch about. I have had several digital boards over the years, but this is the first that isn't consumer level merch. The other boards I returned all had convincing reviews online that looked comparable but upon trying them out in real life - there was a clear winner.
Cons: I guess the worst thing is just taking the time to figure out how to get the patch levels evened out. There is preamp input & output gain, rig volume in global, and a master volume, and that doesn't even get into amp and cab models which each have their own gain levels as well, so you got at least 4 volumes to deal with. Amps all respond like the original (very differently from each other), which puts another layer of gain response into the formula depending on what flavors of dirt you like. It's a deep board. A lot to learn..... A LOT.
But... it sounds friggin great. The most obvious difference, I can hear and feel, is just the huge improvement of A/D & D/A conversion and overall tracking. The less expensive consumer grade stuff is sooo much less responsive. The dynamics are crazy, and a little hard to tame if you're used to a little digital compression from cheaper converters. Super touch sensitive, super dynamic, super responsive. Noise filter, and gate on input are per-patch programable and work very well to filter out hiss and get a dead quiet amp when not playing and still maintain a natural feel/sound and release. Makes my old Crate Palamino V30 (30 watt el84 driven tube amp) sound freakin' huge and dynamic before I turn anything on - just the converters sound awesome. Once I add one of the many luxurious reverbs the sound sweetens to a sumptuous clean with miles of headroom. My amps cleans have never sounded so good. Amp models are very, very good. Sound great in my amp or my headphones. I haven't gotten into using any of the amp models (through my amp with the band) yet, it's a little jaring for me... I like to stay in my comfort zone I guess. I run mine in the effects send/return, so I can still push my amp's front end with analog goodness and get the response from my amp's preamp that I am used to. Overall, the clean and dirty amp models are all very good, they are detailed and breathe with your playing dynamics. Great sounding everything. Not a ton to choose from in the dirt box category. I like to have my old analog pedals for that part of my chain anyway - so definitely not a deal breaker for me. Regardless, it covers the basic distortion bases and does it pretty convincingly for a digital board. Reverbs, modulations, delays sound really great. especially the reverbs. The tiny expression pedal is very responsive/programmable and the onboard wah sounds are really good as well. Got a few whacky effect patches I have crafted that add a nice ocean of ambience when it's called for. Looking forward to recording with this little beast. I think this pedal hit it's demographic with me... This little guy is the gateway-pedal. I already am eyeing its' big brother...

I am extremely happy with this purchase and was pleasantly surprised at the build and versatility of this little tank.

First and foremost, while I didn't go through all of the literally hundreds of built-in effects and amp modelers that come with the device, I played around with them enough to know that they are decent, but not mind-blowing. The good thing about that though is there are tons of resources on the web where you can download free and premium (paid) IRs (Impulse Responses) and guitar rigs to faithfully recreate the perfect tones you are wanting from top artists and songs, as well as pre-designed IRs, rigs, and tones that were curated by pros with way more time, patience, and skill than me. I ended up deleting pretty much all of the stock IRs and rigs from the device and I'm replacing them with third-party amps and effects that I use for my own style of playing. All of the ones I've put on the device sound incredible so far even through my cheap Danelectro Nifty Fifty practice amp, and I'm beyond pleased and excited to find what else is out there. The touchscreen is bright and responsive, and is pretty intuitive once you know what you're looking at. Adding new tones is a fairly simple process of plugging your MX5 into your computer, go to Global Settings -> USB Transfer and all of the effects, rigs, and IRs will then be displayed in your File Explorer. You can delete, replace, remove and upload to your heart's content using this method.

Now, for the trickier part - operating the pedal has a good bit of a learning curve. I've found it to be pretty essential that, if you don't have a brain that likes playing with tech and figuring things out, a thorough reading of the manual is a must. Since there are only three stomp switches, putting together a "setlist" with multiple guitar rigs and learning how to switch between them took me about an hour or so of playing around to figure out and I still have to pause for a moment to remember how to do certain functions (although the more I use it, I'm getting faster).

That aside, I am still giving this the 5-star rating it deserves due to the fact that I KNEW going into it that having only three switches would make things slightly more complicated. That is no fault of the manufacturer, but rather part of the design and the price I signed up for when buying this. I will say, however, that I plan to get the HeadRush Prime in light of the fact that it gives you much more control by having 12 switches as opposed to three (so that I can trigger and control individual effects without needing to perform complicated switching on the fly to get to a specific component). Overall, I highly recommend the MX5 for those who may not need a ton of instant versatility and dynamics and maybe only want to play with a handful of guitar tones at any given time. The pedal itself is designed well, sounds GREAT, and is more than enough for most types of guitar playing out there.

The idea was I wanted a "good" multi-effect pedal/amp modeler. Fast forward a few months of reading reviews and watching detailed reviews, etc... Settled on this one. Not disappointed at all. So, Pros -
1) Large number of amp options for both guitar and bass. Allows for a pretty significant range. Some other modelers out there have more but at some point it's going to be overwhelming. Reality is I probably won't ever use ALL of the models in this one, but again, not overwhelming.
2) Large but not obscene number of pedal options. As above, I can do a lot with it but I don't have to sort through 8,000 pedals to find the 6 I wanted.
3) The Headrush website has the list of what the models are attempting to clone. Makes 1 + 2 easier to sort.
4) Interface is super easy to use both with the touch screen and the knobs.
5) The expression pedal is an excellent addition. Do I want to wah? Volume? Do I feel like fading reverb in and out with it? Whatever, it's there, smooth action.
6) Sound quality is more than adequate for me. I used it for a couple of months with just studio headphones, eventually bought the Headrush 112 FRFR, it's excellent. A true studio pro might disagree with me but for as well as I can hear, it's outstanding.
7) When I finally do want to get fancy, it's also an interface. (At the time of this writing I have not attempted to record with it)

Cons -
Can't think of anything. All the "flaws" I've encountered are me not really knowing what I'm doing. A little bit of reaeding on how to tweak stuff fixed everything. Even with my questionable eyesight the touch screen is plenty big enough. I think it's great.