UA OX Box or Boss WAZA TAE or Grossman ISO Box? Help decide!

I dig my Suhr Reactive Load IR. Might be worth considering.

I soldered a 100 Watt load resistor into a case and used IRs for years - works fine without spending big bucks for the same thing.

Thanks for that, I've now dismissed the idea of an ISO cab - they don't sound right to me - an SUV sized cab vault is a different story!

I can't get demos of units - only buy then send back if I don't like.

I just watched a demo of Pete Thorn playing through the OX direct to DAW and to be honest in his hands it sounded fantastic.

Perhaps as I'm already invested in the UA universe the OX makes the most sense to get the best of my Princeton 68 CPR as I'm happy to mess with mic etc as I was doing that
in the real world anyway until I realised it's just too loud for family life (driving my wife and kids crazy :-)

Pete Thorn makes everything sound great! 
The Ox is a great choice and very versatile. If you're a tweaker you'll love it.

I found it simpler to do IRs of my own miced setup in the studio and just import them into the Suhr.

I'd have to learn how to make IR's !!

Actually, in truth I know from experience of plugin reverb's I've always favoured modelled algo based reverbs over IR convolution based reverbs, so I'm thinking I might feel the same about
cab emulations?

I'm with you on Pete Thorn - I love his playing - nice guy too.

And here’s a thread that has the option I like best for silent electric guitar recording, the Suhr Reactive Load. The last comparison here is between the Suhr and the actual mic’d amps.

realgearonline.com/thread/11452/electric-guitar-comparison

I understand the DAW IR loader part but what part of this equation does the choosing different mics and on and off axis etc .... is that baked into the IR you use?

Also does the DAW IR loader/player introduce latency at the size of your DAW's current buffer setting?

Agree with Ragan, IMO you'd be better off with a Suhr reactive load and Ownhammer IR's. Or if you don't want to suffer RTT latency you can always purchase something from two notes then load your own IR's or use their's.

Right .... I'm getting a clearer picture  - thank you.

I'm starting to see where the BOSS TAE would fit my rig so well.

It's a hardware IR loader with close to zero latency and it's variable reactive load
which can be tailored to suit each amp looks to be quite unique.

I just listened to a SOS mag demo of the BOSS WAZA TAE and I thought it sounded stunning.

Perhaps IR's are the way forward - there is so much more choice.

Thanks for all your fantastic input and experience guys, I much appreciate it.

I'm very into the UA Ocean Ways plugin - I think that might use IR's and it does sound great.

I had a pretty bad experience with the Two Notes Torpedo Captor. I thought the DI itself was kind of disgusting sounding, not exaggerating, there were massive spikes that sounded like digital clipping, and the tone itself was flat and a bit dead. To go a step further, the Wall Of Sound software is kind of a huge bundle of complexity, very unreliable on my computer, not fun to use, but some of the sounds were decent.

What I ended up with is a Countryman 85 DI doing the DI part, out of the back of the amp head. And a cheap Bugera SP1 doing the load. I'd like to replace the Bugera with an SPL Reducer or something high end like that, but it's not a current priority. The bugera is in fact "good behringer." There are a few of those in their line. This rig is about 2000% better sounding than the Two Notes Torpedo Captor, for a similar cost (two separate boxes, though.) And I do still have to have a speaker connected, although it runs at near silence when the knob is fully turned.

If I were buying a fancy amp top box, my first purchase would be the BOSS. I have full confidence in the brand, for many reasons, including their excellent Katana amplifier line. I spent weeks researching this for some reason and the UA OX didn't catch my ear. I also don't like any of the UA amp sims, the plugins they sell, other than the ones coded by outside developers, which are mostly available from Plugin Alliance now as native plugins.

If I were buying a mid priced load box / IR all in one, I would probably go for the Suhr Reactive Load, the new one with internal IR's. That would be enough for me, at least that's the expectation.

IR selection is critical. This might take some time, to come up with a small library of your favorites, that you trust. They vary wildly and require careful selection in my experience, even with the top brands. Like you, I'd like to make my own, eventually, of all my favorite personal cabinets and mic placements.

My favorite IR loader is free, it's NadIR from Ignite. Although there are many that will suffice. Only cost me about $300 total or so to be happy in the amp DI / load box / IR game. If you collect IR's this could add up rapidly. I wish there were some easy way to demo them without buying, but I realize there are technical reasons this is not possible.

Hope that helps, this has been sort of a journey, some good, some bad, so I appreciate the uncertainty that someone may have just getting into this area. In the end, it will be very subjective and most people will find their own paths, just like anything else tone related. It's nice to hear where people have landed.

I have to be a little bit fair about the Two Notes to balance my review. It's totally fine with clean amps. Good even. But when the amp gets crunchy, listen very carefully. Maybe it just doesn't get along with my Marshall, don't know. But I've heard what I heard in other people's recordings also. Once you hear it, you can't unhear it, sort of thing. You can take my review with a grain of salt but that's my experience.