As others have mentioned, it might be easier to align the decision with what the OP is going for-
They can all deliver the goods but the way of getting there is really different. I’m not a fan of the profile searching. I tried it with ToneX and the whole time I was thinking “I can just dial in a preset in my AxeFX and be there in 3 minutes”, while it took me about 20 minutes to find one profile that sounded at least what I’d consider decent. There ARE great profiles out there, the search is just a drag.
The reason I went with Fractal was because I wanted all the options. I heavily underutilize the unit as the majority of my presets that actually get regular use are amp/cab/delay/reverb and at most I’m assigning different stuff to expression pedals. But I never know what I’ll need in the future and having the options already there, allowing me to grow into the unit, is what appealed to me.
Because I got an AxeFX, I ended up adding other guitars to the collection I normally wouldn’t because I fell in love with certain tones I never cared about previously, after playing them in Fractal land. I’ve been a metal dude almost my whole playing-life, so the edge of breakup/EJ tones I dial in now for living room jamming is a whole other world to me.
Anything that allows the user to make a Marshall Boogie JCM800 Dual Plexi-fier is cool as fuck, in my book.
My III stays in my studio with my FM9 being the focal point of my live rig; it’s set up to run 2 cabs in stereo onstage while FOH gets a mono signal with an IR.
