Nux Optima Air NAI 5

For a while I was looking for a good preamp for the three main acoustic guitars I use on stage, being a 1973 Martin D-35 and an Eastman 422AC, both equipped with a LRBaggs VTC pickup and a custom built Farmer 00 rosewood, with a Fishman Ellips Blend (piezo/microphone combi).
I considered the LR Baggs Voiceprint ( wich is way more expensive) but while looking for reviews I ran into this NUX pedal and I was impressed by a few very good reviews.
The price is amazing and I decided to order it.
I've been playing with it for a week now and it gets better and better.
I think a few of the IR's are very good for what I want (the Martin D-45 piezo is my favorite so far) and there are certainly some more that will work with other guitar with magnetic pick ups. So realize that not every preset will work on your guitar. Then there's the possibility of capturing your won guitar. I did that, with some high quality stuff (I own a recording studio), but so far the results are not as good as some of the prestes. Well, work in progress!
The eq section is really very good and works like a charm. It's works at the right frequencies, is subtle and very important for the tweaking of the sound. It is based on the Neve 1073 eq and that is of course a classic!
The reverb is imho a bit of a bummer. Not impressive at all.
I use a dedicated reverb in the loop of the pedal, together with a compressor limiter and that works great. XLR output is nice, no DI needed. The software that you can download is simple but does the job, so editing through the USB-port is easy.
All in all a very nice pedal that quit intuitive, but really deserves some time getting to know it really well. It's, like always, in the details to make it sound the best! Great value for the money, so that's why I give it 5 stars!

Edit: after the "honeymoon" was over it turns out this pedal has a bug and after some searching on the internet I found out that more people ran into this. After a while it sometimes gives a kind of distorted sound. At first I thought it was the battery of my guitar going dead, but after switching off the power on the pedal and switching it on again the problem was gone. It can be a bit annoying when you are on stage performing, but now I just switch it of after each set I play. So far so good. But soundwise I'm still very happy with this pedal!!!

After reading and watching mixed reviews, I was a bit hesitant on whether to buy it or not, but now that I bought it, I'm really glad I did. This pedal is great and has fantastic features. It exponentially improved the sound of the Fishman Sonitone on my Martin. In the reviews I read and watched, in my opinion there were a few misconceptions about this pedal, so here's a bit of what I've learned so far:

Start with the IR side of the pedal:

1. Listen carefully to each of the IRs included in the pedal, and make a list of your favorites.
2. Replace and/or load third-party IRs into the pedal, if needed. Listen carefully to those as well and and make a list of your favorites.
3. Once you've chosen your favorite IRs, you might have noticed that their volume isn't the same. The easiest way to have them all at the same volume is to record a track on your DAW and play a simple riff with each IR consecutively for a few seconds, split each of them, and then lower or increase the gain on each IR accordingly, so they all have the same volume (visually you'll be able to see if the waveforms are at the same volume and then you can check the volume meters). Now connect the pedal to your computer, and on the pedal software, increase or decrease the gain/volume of the IR (not the master volume) by the same amount you did on your DAW. Disconnect it from the computer and you can go back to your usual playing setup.
6. Here's the step where there were a few misconceptions about this pedal in the reviews. Don’t expect the IRs to turn your Martin into a Taylor, your Taylor into a Martin, etc. That’s an illusion and it won’t happen, and at a given point on your endless search for this, a source of frustration. Focus on finding the IR that gets closer to your unplugged guitar. The perfect IR for the Fishman Sonitone on my Martin comes included in the pedal, it’s number 9. M D45 PIEZO. It sounds perfect, and was a game changer. Believe me, I spent a lot of money on third-party IRs for nothing, before realizing I had the perfect IR right there in the pedal. After finding the ideal IR for your guitar, save a preset with only that IR, and then start creating other presets with the same IR but fine tuning it with the Amp side turned on, which is there to help you get the best of the IR side.
7. The Amp side of the pedal is based on a Neve console, and you can clearly hear it. The knobs are extremely sensitive and a slight turn of a few milimiters (literally) will cause dramatic changes. Which is great, because most pedals need huge knob turns before we can hear any change at all.
8. Unlike the IRs, the Amp side can be used on its own, and sounds great. So, if you you’re looking for a similar tone to something like Nutshell by Alice In Chains in the MTV Unplugged, that’s the side for you. The curves on those knobs were really well thought, and since they're based on a Neve console, they hit the all the right spots. It will make your pickup sound fantastic.

About the pedal itself, it’s robust and the texture looks very nice. The D.I. is more than welcome and so is the FX Loop. Think of this pedal as a mini amp. I also created a preset to play electric guitar on my iPad. It’s very versatile.

A few things not mentioned in the manual:

- After you create/save a preset, when you load it again, if for some reason you need to make further changes or just experiment, when you turn a knob, an asterisk (*) will appear right next to the number, to let you know that you've made changes to the preset, the * will disappear if you place the knob in the exact same position it was before, when you created the preset. This is great and very helpful.
- You can change the names of the presets only on the software of the pedal. It's really easy. It's the icon below the floppy disk icon at the top of the software screen (the part that deals with presets).

Now, regarding the feature of creating your own IRs, I'm still struggling a bit with it, and so far I couldn’t get a good IR out of this feature. Probably because of the gear I’m using (interface, mics, I really don’t know). If this an important feature for you, it might be something to consider. With so many quality IRs already out there, and even those included in the pedal, it’s not really a feature I care about.

Overall, this pedal needs a little patience and a bit of time (like a week) to setup and for you to find the perfect IR for your pickup/guitar, but since it's all in good fun, and the results are amazing, it’s worth it, and I highly recommend it. I just have one final recommendation for the manufacturer: please improve your user manual.