Radial X-Amp 500: Studio-Grade Reamping in a Single 500-Series Slot

The Radial X-Amp 500 is a 500-series active, class-A reamping module that takes a recorded line-level track and drives it back out to real guitar amps and pedals, letting you re-tone a clean DI performance long after the take is finished. It accepts a balanced line input on a rear XLR and feeds two front-panel, transformer-isolated 1/4-inch instrument outputs, so a single dry track can push two amplifiers at once without a trace of hum. For the engineer who wants to commit to a great performance now and shape its tone later, the X-Amp turns reamping from a wiring headache into a creative instrument.

What Reamping Actually Is

Reamping is the studio technique of recording a guitar dry, straight into an interface through a DI with no amplifier, and then sending that clean recorded track back out through a real amp to capture its tone on a later pass. The advantage is total flexibility: you keep the perfect take, then audition amps, cabinets, pedals, and mic placements against it for as long as inspiration lasts, without ever asking the player to nail the part again. The catch is that a recorded track leaves your interface at line level and low impedance, which is nothing like the signal an amplifier expects from a guitar.

Line to Instrument: The Level and Impedance Problem the X-Amp Solves

A guitar amp is built to see a high-impedance signal at instrument level, while a mix bus or interface output sends a low-impedance signal at line level, which is far hotter and electrically wrong for an amp's input. Plug one straight into the other and you get a harsh, ice-picky tone that sounds nothing like the amp in the room. The X-Amp exists to bridge that gap: it accepts the balanced 600-ohm line feed, drops it back to the level and high impedance a guitar input wants, and presents the amp with exactly the signal it was designed to amplify. The result is a reamped tone indistinguishable from playing live into the amp.

Two Transformer-Isolated Outputs, Zero Hum

The X-Amp's defining feature is its pair of independent 1/4-inch outputs, each fed through its own isolation transformer. That isolation is what lets you drive two amplifiers from one track without the ground-loop hum that normally erupts the moment two powered amps share a signal source. Each output also has its own ground-lift switch, so if a stubborn buzz appears you can float that amp's ground independently and silence it. Feed a clean amp from Output 1 and a cranked amp from Output 2, blend them at the console, and build a layered guitar sound a single amplifier can never produce.

Class-A Signal Path and the Numbers That Matter

Under the hood the X-Amp runs a class-A circuit chosen for its linearity and low distortion, and the measured performance backs it up. It offers a frequency response of 20 Hz to 15 kHz within 1 dB, a wide 119 dB of dynamic range, total harmonic distortion of just 0.02%, and the ability to accept a hot line signal up to +22 dBu before clipping. It will drive up to 50 feet of high-impedance instrument cable to a distant amp without the treble loss that long unbuffered runs suffer. These are studio-reference figures, which is why the reamped signal stays clean, quiet, and faithful to the source.

The Control Set: Level, Ground Lift, Polarity, and Omniport

Every control on the X-Amp is there to make two-amp reamping practical. An independent level knob on each output lets you match the drive going to two different amps that may want very different input levels. A ground-lift switch per output kills hum on a per-amp basis. A 180-degree polarity switch on Output 2 flips phase so two amps reinforce each other's low end instead of cancelling it when their signals are summed. And the rack's Omniport connection adds a guitar-level input, so you can also feed a signal into the module directly on the bench.

Powered by the Rack: The 500-Series Advantage

The X-Amp is a 500-series module, which means it has no power supply, no wall wart, and no batteries of its own; it draws clean, regulated power from the 500-series or Workhorse rack it slots into. That format keeps your reamping tool permanently patched into the studio alongside your preamps, EQs, and compressors, ready the instant you want it, and it shares the rack's rugged power rails for consistent, low-noise operation. The module ships on its own, and you supply the 500-series or Workhorse rack, sold separately, that hosts it.

Who the Radial X-Amp 500 Is For

The X-Amp is for the mixing engineer who reamps guitars daily and wants a transformer-isolated, two-output reamper living in the rack; for the producer building stereo and two-amp guitar tones from a single dry track; and for the sound designer reamping synths, drum machines, and vocals through amps and pedals for character. If you record dry to keep your options open and want to drive two real amps from that track without hum, the X-Amp 500 is the reamping module to standardize on.