OX Amp Top Box

Wonderful Ox

I can final let my amp breathe without going deaf or to jail! Love this thing. Quality is unmatched and the emulated cabinets, mics and effects are astounding.

Sounds Epic-

An amazing unit

I've been using mine for about a year. Love the versatility, and consistency. The sound I'm able to get from the ox with my amp is better that 90% of the mic'ed tones I can get live. The AC30 cabinet is exquisitely modeled. The only things holding the ox back in my eyes are the lack of midi, and a Hiwatt cab with Fane speakers.

Sounds great if you use it right…

Noticed a bad reviews complaining about harsh distortion. It’s true if you put the input on the box up to high it will sound harsh. I rarely put the input above 5 or 6 to prevent it from clipping. It’s a balancing act depending on the output of the pickups and which amp I’m using. Generally I love it and use it for all my recording.
Definitely could use an update with more sounds. Leslie effect and a few more cabs and mics would be on my list. I’d also love a few different room sounds too.

Pretty damn satisfied !

The OX is a joy.
Quiet as a mouse - no white noise at all through headphones.

Incredible!

There are some reviews here that give only 1 star - after reading several of "those", I realized that those users were probably either (A) doing something wrong, or (B) misunderstanding what this really is. No, it's NOT to be used on MODELER guitar signals. I mean, you COULD, but that's not what the intention is - this device is to be used as an attenuator to your existing amp. HOWEVER, if your existing amp SUCKS, then this will likely return a "sucky" tone. Crap in, crap out.

As for me, the tone is INCREDIBLE coming from 2 different 5150 50 watt heads (Stealth AND EL34). I'm not ripping on people who misunderstood this process because it is a bit confusing. The only complaint that I have is that each time I turn it back on, I have to go through the complete "re-connect" song and dance to my LAN. Other than that, AMAZING TONE. If you're a "TONE FIDDLER", this will keep you occupied.

The Box gets 5+ stars but -2 for no release cycle!

I totally understand that the OX was a miss from a recurring revenue perspective (good for us customers though!). But it would be nice to see some semblance of an update cadence - new cabs, effects, USB capability, etc. Sounds amazing, does everything I wanted, but man it would be nice to have a new toy to play with every year. Oh, and Leslie Cab Sim please!!

Unnatural harshness

It's nice for cleans, but as soon as there are crunch or overdriven sounds involved, you will hear a complete unnatural harshness, that you just can't get rid of, no matter what you try to do.
This thing makes even a 90s Matchless DC-30 sound bad.

Two years ago was the last firmware update!

Congrats UAD on abandon the OX box after a two years period of complete silence!

OX software is compatible and supported with:
• (iPad) iOS 12 or iPadOS 13
• (Mac) macOS 10.14 Mojave or 10.15 Catalina
• (Win) Windows 10 64-Bit Edition Computer*
*Tablets and 2-in-1 devices are not supported

So when buying a new iPad or Mac or Windows Computer OX app will NOT be compatible or supported by UAD. Prices for the OX has gone up lately but support or updates are lacking. One star is already one to many for poor support, non working USB ports, failing Wifi connection with the OX app, NO functionality for saving or loading your own presets and the list goes on...

Just a couple more cabs and...

This is a great product. It sounds good, and gives a lot of versatility for someone who just can not make a lot of noise in a home studio. However, the tone i wanted wasn't instantly there. I had to use the provided tools to get it. Like the fantastic eq, or the room mics. Once you start adding some high mids, you get rid of a lot of the harshness, and the low mids gives that thump sometimes you may want
Finally, i think there are some things missing, like a cab with celestions g12t-75, and the ability to route the room mics or the effects, through the spdif alone, so you can record three tracks simultaneously: left output for mic1, right output for mic2 and spdif for room mics or the effects (i know this is more difficult).
Still, great product overall.

Just a couple more cabs and...

This is a great product. It sounds good, and gives a lot of versatility for someone who just can not make a lot of noise in a home studio. However, the tone i wanted wasn't instantly there. I had to use the provided tools to get it. Like the fantastic eq, or the room mics. Once you start adding some high mids, you get rid of a lot of the harshness, and the low mids gives that thump sometimes you may want
Finally, i think there are some things missing, like a cab with celestions g12t-75, and the ability to route the room mics or the effects, through the spdif alone, so you can record three tracks simultaneously: left output for mic1, right output for mic2 and spdif for room mics or the effects (i know this is more difficult).
Still, great product overall.

More than a game changer

My OX came on Friday, Saturday it was on stage and Sunday and Monday I did records through my Apollo twin via spdif. This product is no game changer, It is a new game you play. I play a fender hot rod deluxe III and never go over 5 on the gain in the clean channel. Yesterday I did it and turn it to 8 to 10 and all of a sudden there was a drive that made my eyes become wet :D.

Universal Audio you did an amacing product. I guess everyone who has got a tube amp should have an OX. This product changes my guitar life in so many ways I want to thank you for creating so an amacing product. Once again, Everyone with a tube amp, go out to get an OX, more than a game changer, new bigger game :-) :-) :-).

Packed back up the same night it arrived.

What is up with the microphonics coming from my tube amp? That is not normal. It’s not ok. And even if it was….how am I suppose to use this to record?! What if I wanted to mic my cab and mix that room tone with the modeled guitar tone? UA…you need to go back to the drawing board with this thing. I even considered getting out my scope and meters and opening up the OX to figure out WTF is going on and how to fix it. But you know what? I didn’t spend $1300 for a mod project. If UA wants to pay me $50/hr, I’ll figure out a solution. I’m not doing it for free and I won’t be paying $1300 for a product that is still under development.

Perfect.

I’ve been a big fan of UAD products for a long time now.....I bought the very first UAD PCI cards probably about 20 years ago.....that’s crazy!!!!!
Anyway.....I’ve got terrible tinnitus from a long career in bands and studios, so loud guitar amps are really not what I want to be near anymore.....
This Ox Box is a game changer. Took a while to figure it out......I never read the manual so that’s probably why.
Why has it got USB ports in the back? The seem to do nothing.
Apart from that, it sounds amazing.
Better results than I get with cabs and mics.....plus it’s silent. Awesome.
10/10 UAD. Love it.

Perfect.

I’ve been a big fan of UAD products for a long time now.....I bought the very first UAD PCI cards probably about 20 years ago.....that’s crazy!!!!!
Anyway.....I’ve got terrible tinnitus from a long career in bands and studios, so loud guitar amps are really not what I want to be near anymore.....
This Ox Box is a game changer. Took a while to figure it out......I never read the manual so that’s probably why.
Why has it got USB ports in the back? The seem to do nothing.
Apart from that, it sounds amazing.
Better results than I get with cabs and mics.....plus it’s silent. Awesome.
10/10 UAD. Love it.

Had high hopes for this, especially at the price.

So I bought an OX a couple of months back and thought I'd get used to it before I formed any opinion of it. I have a lot of UAD gear and plug ins and this is not in the same league.
On paper a great piece of kit, BUT it distorts clean sounds on the first 3 attenuation settings, and to my ears has a distinct piezo type quack through headphones. It's more pronounced on IEM cans, less so on decent over ears but still there. Using distortion channels it's not noticeable or lost. I have several decent amps and it does it with all of them, so I'm distinctly underwhelmed for £1050.
It's been suggested I use a compressor before my guitar hits the amp, but that kinda defeats the purpose I just want my clean amp sound attenuated, not clipped.
I'm not the only person to complain about this problem there are literally dozens of posts on forums about this, so hoping UAD can do some sort of Firmware update that addresses this.

firmware? more like nowhere

Hope you saved your flashdrives from 2005 cause this sonnabitch can't be updated unless your flash drive is less than 2GB!
Currently digging up grandmas grave to grab her last flash drive so I can try to make this work in 2021.

firmware? more like nowhere

Hope you saved your flashdrives from 2005 cause this sonnabitch can't be updated unless your flash drive is less than 2GB!
Currently digging up grandmas grave to grab her last flash drive so I can try to make this work in 2021.

ox box sux

more like sux box ammirite

Best tool for Home Studio guitar tone!

I’ve had all the other speaker sim reactive load boxes... and to me the OX sounds and feels at least twice as better when I compared my then current favorite loadbox. I spend much more time grooving good tones than tweaking also, but even when tweaking Ox, it’s a fun tweak.