The question in my mind is- Are Line 6 chasing the leaders in this digital field with a quality product at a well pitched price point, or have they gift wrapped another turkey in a sexy little black number ready for the mighty Line 6 marketing machine to steam through the masses at a price they think they can get away with?
Cynical i know but, if it were the former, wouldn't Yamaha want their name on the product?
It depends on how Yamaha wants to leverage the Line 6 brand. They may intend to use the L6 badge for all of their guitar processors going forward. (In contrast with the Roland/Boss tendency to badge high-end products as Roland - and even that trend seems to be breaking down.)
I don't think there's anyway the Helix is going to sound as good as a Kemper with the right hand-picked profile loaded. The architectures just lend different strengths: profiling will absolutely nail that one sound; modeling will approximate the behavior of an entire system, even as amp settings etc. are modified. But despite the compromise in tone, I often find the latter more intuitive to work with. I'm not holding my breath for Kemper tones out of a Helix, then, but if it sounds as good as, e.g. Bias Amps, I'll be thrilled.
Current info from Line 6 indicate it will be available thru Sweetwater on August 12. YMMV
Wow I would love it if that were accurate. Everything I've seen indicates late August, or even early September. It's going to be very difficult to think about anything else between now and then...