Appreciate the feedback y'all. Some responses to questions below.
First! Am I getting out of tube amps? Hell naw. Zero chance of that happening for now. Fun thought but no.
Do I have a laptop? No, iPads all around. Could I use a laptop? Sure. Do I HAVE to have one? No.
Why no AxeFx/Line 6? I really just dig the layout of the QC, the way the buttons work and the interface. I've sold gear at least a half dozen pieces of gear because too many buttons for this neanderthal. I'm certain those boys can throw down, it's been proven, I'm just a little behind on the desire to hunt through menus. From what I've seen of the Neural plug-in reviews, they seem straightforward and I'm fairly confident I can get a good enough tone quickly and a very good tone shortly thereafter. I keep talking about Neural because they're who I've researched the most, open to options/opinions.
Why no reactive load? Honestly, originally put the Boss Waza TAE in there but pulled it on a basis of portability of the other options. Not against it at all other than you still gotta move the amp to where you can jam and with a little baby in the house, that puts me on the move to not poke the bear. Something like the QC would be the pretty streamlined but a laptop with a DAC wouldn't be far from it.
More to consider... Even though I've been playing for a while I'm just now getting to the point of attempting to use effects. I've generally been a 1 cord dude. Having a gigantic effects library is not as crucial for me as is having very good amp feel. I would like to profile what I've got from an ease of trying different amps out with songs fairly quickly. My space is currently in flux but generally having my "fancy" stuff out with toddlers is a recipe for disaster, my MB mod Mesa MkIII Black Dot's graphic eq knobs come to mind...
Thanks for the feedback y'all!
Alternatively, since effects are not a huge deal, there's also the ISP Theta Pro. It get's some incredible tones I've heard on Youtube from blues to metal. Seriously some of the best modeller clips I've heard out of them all. Oh, wait, that's right, they say it's not a modeller. hehe. Basically you can create almost anything you want because all the pre and post eq bands. Much less complex than other units too. Very similar but not the same to Rocktron Voodu Valve which is also cool. Going super old there's the Taboo Artist. Sky's the limit.
How do you like the feel of the LB-2?I also agree Reactive Load since you already have the amps. It will sound/feel better most likely, and give you a lot of flexibility, as you can run it into a SS poweramp if you use cabs, can run into computer for recording, or headphones, or whatever.
I recently got a Fractal LB-2, and it is sounding great with my amps, and then running that signal into modelers for effects and speaker sims.