Line 6 HX Stomp review

Buy an HX Stomp if you want a full amp-and-effects rig in one pedalboard-sized box and you can live inside six simultaneous blocks. Two published numbers decide this before tone does: it needs its own 3 A supply, which no pedalboard brick provides, and six blocks is the hard ceiling on how complex a patch can get. If either is a problem, the answer is a different unit rather than a workaround.

We have not played this unit and this is not a tone review. What follows is what Line 6 publishes, what those figures mean on a real board, and who should buy something else instead — which is the only kind of review this site writes. How we research is the full statement of that method.

01What Line 6 publishes

02 — The shortlist

The unit

#	Product	Best for	Price
01	Line 6 HX Stomp Over 300 Helix models with IR loading, stereo I/O and an effects loop — and a 3 A power requirement no brick meets.	A whole rig in one slot, if six blocks is enough	$599.99 · Check price #ad How we’re funded · price as of September 13, 2026

Rows link to the full write-up further down this page. Prices come from the live price layer only — where there is no live figure the button reads “Check price” rather than showing a remembered number.

03The six-block ceiling, worked through

Six blocks sounds generous until you build a patch. A typical rock preset is amp, cab, overdrive, delay, reverb and a noise gate — that is six exactly, with nothing left for a boost, a compressor or a modulation effect.

Swap the cab block for an IR and you are still at six. Add a second amp for a clean-to-dirty switch and you are over. This is not a criticism so much as the defining constraint of the product: it is a Helix with a block budget, and the budget is the price of the size.

01

Line 6 HX Stomp

A whole rig in one slot, if six blocks is enough

The numberSix simultaneous blocks; 9 V DC center-negative at 3 A; 24-bit/96 kHz USB audio.

Line 6 publishes over 300 amps, cabs and effects drawn from the Helix family, impulse-response loading, stereo input and output, an effects loop and a 2.4-inch color display with three capacitive-touch footswitches. As a specification list at this size, nothing else is close.

The 24-bit/96 kHz multi-channel USB audio interface is the feature that quietly changes what the unit is for. It means the same box that sits on your board is also the thing you record through, with no second purchase and no re-amping.

The two cons are both published numbers, and both are why people return it. It asks for 3 A at 9 V, which no standard isolated pedalboard output supplies — the most generous common brick gives 500 mA per output. And six simultaneous blocks is a real ceiling: an amp, a cab and an IR can consume half of it before you have added a single effect.

Published specifications for the Line 6 HX Stomp

Simultaneous blocks	Up to six simultaneously
Models	Over 300 amps, cabs and effects from the Helix family, with IR loading
Power	9 V DC center-negative, DC-3 supply (3 A) included
Display / switches	2.4" color LCD; three capacitive-touch footswitches with LED rings
Audio interface	24-bit / 96 kHz multi-channel USB audio
Format	Compact pedalboard unit with stereo I/O and an effects loop
What it does not do	It asks for 3 A at 9 V. No standard isolated pedalboard brick output supplies that, so it needs its own supply — this is the mistake people make when they add one to an existing board.

Specs from Line 6 HX Stomp owner's manual. We have not used this unit.

$599.99 · Check price

#ad How we’re funded · price as of September 13, 2026

04The power problem, which is not optional

Line 6 specifies 9 V DC center-negative at 3 A and includes a DC-3 supply that delivers it. Every common isolated pedalboard brick tops out far below that: 500 mA per output on a Strymon Zuma or the high outputs of a Truetone CS7, 250 mA on a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 PLUS. Five hundred milliamps is one sixth of 3 A.

There is no cable that fixes it. A current-doubler cable sums two outputs at the same voltage, so two 500 mA outputs give you 1,000 mA — useful for a pedal that wants 600 mA, and nowhere near 3 A. You would need six outputs combined, which no doubler does and which would leave nothing for the rest of the board.

So the HX Stomp runs from its own supply and the rest of your board runs from your brick, which means two mains sockets and two things to fasten under the board. Plan for that before you buy the board, not after. Powering an HX Stomp has the full arithmetic and the supply-by-supply table.

05Underpowering it looks like a fault

This is worth stating plainly because it wastes a lot of people's time. An underpowered HX Stomp usually still boots and still passes signal. Then it reboots partway through a set, or the display glitches, or it behaves differently once it has warmed up.

Those symptoms read as a defective unit, which is why the actual cause gets missed and why units get returned as faulty when the supply was the problem. If yours is doing any of that, put it on the DC-3 before you contact anybody.

06Who should buy something else

1. You want a wah. There are three footswitches and no treadle. Making the modeled wah usable means buying an expression pedal and a TRS cable, at which point you have spent wah money on something that is not a wah — best wah pedals covers the alternative.
2. Your patches need more than six blocks. Count first. A larger unit is cheaper than buying this twice.
3. You only want effects, not amp modeling. You are paying for the amp and cab models either way, and dedicated pedals will be easier to adjust with your hands.
4. You have no room for a second power supply. A Pedaltrain Nano+ has nowhere to hide two bricks.
5. You want it to be your only amp at home. It makes no sound on its own. Budget for headphones or monitors — practice amp vs audio interface covers that decision.

07Who should buy it

Someone who is carrying a board to gigs and is tired of carrying an amp as well. The stereo outputs go straight to a desk, the model set is the same one in the flagship Helix, and the whole rig sounds identical in every room because the room is no longer part of the signal path.

Also someone who records. The USB interface removes a separate purchase and a whole class of problems, and at 24-bit/96 kHz it is not a token feature. If you are weighing a board of pedals against one unit, pedals vs multi-effects is the honest version of that comparison.