Re: Joe's Rotosphere
just incase anyone is interested...
I chose Rotosphere. Both pedals sound so very good. In the end, I totally ignored footprint and power issues, as well as the whole analog/digital thing, and went purely with tone and MY usage...
For me, it boiled down to this:
1) I'm more of a slow speed leslie guy than a high speed leslie guy, and the high speeds on both were totally comparable to my ears, so that factor was basically taken out of the equation.
2) Slow speed: the Lex sounded heavier in the mix than the Rotosphere (even with the Lex's mic placement dialed full up)... totally a taste thing. Sometimes I wished the RS could be a tad wetter, and the Lex a tad drier. I could hear the individual rotating "components" (speaker and horn) better on the RS than the Lex.
3) BRAKE: I like the brake on the H&K because I can actually use it to inject a little hollowbody/thinline even electric-resonator flavor into my base tone (think Jonny Lang or Bonamassa's Chandler Lectraslide on the Rockpalast DVD); kinda' cool. I find I couldn't do that at all with the LEX, because it's just too mid-heavy, too nasal. Even set to full-range mode. With the brake on, it sounded like I was playing thru a stock Champion 600, inside an opened cardboard box. Just very middy and nasal, not an appealing tone at all.
4) overall tone change: I can't compare these to a real leslie, as I've never had a real leslie. But the Lex totally overtakes your base tone, where the H&K sounds more like your base tone with a leslie added, if that makes any sense. Sort of like SRV's Vibratone (which uses the spinning speaker in tandem with a guitar amp), or Gilmour's use of bi-amping so he could mix wet leslie tones with dry tones. I prefer this approach and sound. And, using only one amp, the H&K does this better than the Lex.
So there you have it- Lex is awesome, but despite it's smaller footprint, easier power requirements, I still prefer the good ol' Rotosphere. It's really just a taste thing- both are incredible.
Hey Bluesbreaker... $240 shipped if you're interested... let me know, I'll wait to post it for sale anywhere else...