First of possibly many stupid questions

[Richard Sales <richard@glasswing.com>]

I've never done looping but have done a large ton of music for a very long time.  It's how I make my living.

I've been considering getting into looping live guitar (Michael HEdges style) since the Jam Man first came out and have procrastinated .  But the time is upon me!  So... I want to get a good one with very high quality audio... and have considered the Gibson Echoplex or, if they ever get it back out, the Electrix Repeater.  There are a bunch of earlier Gibson Eplexes on ebay, but they are the earlier versions.  So, question is, are the new ones any better than the old?  Sonically?  Reliability wise?  Memory?

ALso I've heard the footswitches for the Gibson are light duty.  Is true?

I'm going to use it for very high end acoustic guitars with K&K Powermix Trinity pickups (deadly beautiful) and a resonator with a Schatten in it (also killer).  So the sound quality is critical.  I've heard the Repeater's sound is not as good as the Gibson.  I'll probably also use it in my studio.

I'm not real interested in MIDI implementation or tweaking sounds (I don't think).  I have stuff that will do that in my studio already.  

Am I looking in the right place?  Are these answers more easily found elsewhere?  I've scoured the loopers delight web site and while the answers are almost there, I still need more data. 

thanks for your patience

richard sales
glassWing farm and studio
vancouver island, b.c.
800.545.6846
250.752.4816
www.glassWing.com
www.richardsales.com
www.hayleysales.com
www.blueberryfieldsfarm.com