Kemper Amps Forum

I have owned the Ultra for years and the Axe II since Jan. 2012.
When my KPA arrived last week, I had the expectation that it might be in a similar league with the Axe II, only using a different, interesting new approach.

In my "real amp life" I'm mainly an AC 30 player. Also with modelers. I like to have options, of course, but tend to use one model 90% of the time.
Also with the Axe, i've used nearly exclusively the AC 30 TB model.

In the KPA I found a beautiful AC 30 profile recorded in a Nashville studio, captured with a nice blend of 2 microphones (forgot which ones cause I'm not at my machine now).
This profile has a nice grit to it and I can give the tone a character from super clean to fairly crunchy simply by changing my picking attack and with a little use of the volume pot.
I instantly fell in love with this profile, and I mean, REALLY fell in love.
Could play for hours and never stop.

What happened then I had not imagined. Turned on the Axe and loaded my best effort AC 30 patch (after years of tweaking experience), which I had always been quite content with.
Couldn't stand it now after playing the KPA. The highs sounded so unnatural to me and the mids had a honky character I couldn't dial out. No chance.

I was shocked. Stopped playing and started over after a few hours. This time I started with the Axe. Sounded good. Changed to the KPA. Sounded excellent, much better! Switched back to the Axe. Could not stand it AGAIN!
I really had not expected this.
Next I set up a blind listening test for my wife. She's very lovely but the first to admit to be not being very musical.
I randomly plugged in to the Axe or the KPA and played, being amplified by an Atomic FRFR.
Result: She picked the KPA from the Axe EVERY time, every time qualifying the KPA as clearly better sounding.
She is right. I really feel that profiling means a paradigm shift. Modeling as known to us maybe is past and history.

After the difference in sound quality was so evident with the Axe being so inferior i couldn't even imagine to use it again for amp tones. The effects? Sure they are somewhat limited in quantity in the KPA but the quality is very good and I found that I can get very musical results in very short time, actually it's quite more practical than using effects in the Axe.

My summary: I really didn't expect this to be such a clear outcome. I'm quite excited over the KPA (and I'm not getting excited so easily). I could have imagined to keep both the Axe and the KPA initially, but my Axe is already sold by now.
Behause the KPA is in a superior league. Amazing!

Quoted from "guitarnet70"

Wow doc , coming from you it has a certain weight..:

Thanks!

Quoted from "schneidas"

Also: good choice in wifes!

Irritated by your use of the plural ...