Kemper Amps Forum

Hi guys!
My KPA finally arrived today. This was the day I was totally waiting for ever since I saw the first video of the KPA on YouTube, and got into this whole weird looking, profiling spaceship console (I honestly think it looks amazing live, a lot better than on pictures! I also thought it would be smaller, but its just nice, the knobs and everything is laid out so well that it's a pleasure to tweak them!)
I decided to get the KPA instead of a Mesa Road King II head, and have dropped my Peavey JSX head / cab and all my tube equipment, cabs, pedals, etc. I thought this was a really risky choice to make, ordering the KPA "blind" and just getting rid of everything else, but the sound clips and videos were kinda convincing and I'm not afraid of technical advantages and the future, nor I am a tube snob.
My first to thing to do was updating the software to the newest one. After completed, as I don't have an real FRFR solution yet or any PA + Cab solution neither, I had to restort to plugging the KPA into my '80s Hi-Fi system with a JVC power amp and two Sanyo ~35w speaker cabs. More precisely, one speaker cab, because the PA has a jack connection only, so I have to use it monitor out mono (I had to initialize my KPA to make it work!), and only one of the cabs makes sound this way. No big deal, the guitar is still usually a mono instrument, and I'll be also getting my RCF NX-12SMA soon, hopefully .
I have to mention, though, that my Axe-Fx Ultra (what I sold after a month last year) sounded totally bad with this configuration, was totally lifeless and muddy, had no tube feel at all. So, I was prepared for the worst, and my expectations were kind of low with this setup.
I plugged in my trusty old Squier Affinity Telecaster (my fav guitar by far, and I've owned several Gibson and Fender guitars, Ibanez guitars, I even have an UV777 now) and randomed a preset I don't remember now, but I think it was a Marshall. And...
BAAAAAAAAAM. It was there. All the tube feel, tone, and everything that I used to love about my tube setups was there with this crappy old Hi-Fi speaker cab and PA... and my jaw almost literally dropped. I browsed through the factory presets, stayed a lot on the Xtacy 5 one because I'm really into Satriani and Vai and instrumental rock stuff, I have to say, wow. I've never ever sounded this good in my life, being said that I've owned several high-end tube amps including a Diezel VH4 and a Mesa Stiletto Deuce.
I was preparing for the KPA's arrival, though, and downloaded pretty much every profiled rig I could find here, also the fantastic Tills cabs. My next step was loading up a few user made profiles, the first being the Carvin Legacy ones. BAAAAAAAAAM, again. It was there, and I switched to my Ibanez UV777 for some Vai-ish madness. BAAAAAAAAM. All there. Switched cabs... HOLY S### it sounds just like I wanted it to. I mean... honestly, I thought the KPA would be worse, I almost hoped that I could knock it a little... I can't. I can't knock the KPA in the sense of tube feel and tone... it's all there.
There are obviously weak points for the Kemper. One is the amp EQ. Of course you can't EQ a snapshot of an amp like you would EQ the amp itself, because the tone stack is not modeled. I understand this, and of course with the built-in equalizer stomps and everything it's easy to take care of. Same goes for the Pick parameter... it just doesn't work real, but how could you expect it to. Of course, small adjustments within a range will still sound ok - just like the Gain knob on the amps. I'd rather use one of the modeled (or profiled?) stomp box ODs instead of adding tons of gain with the Gain knob. So these points are totally understandable.
The software didn't freeze or do anything stupid to me, and I really dug in deep with the settings. Guess I'm lucky, and I hope I'll never have any reliability problems, because it can really ruin the experience with a great unit (experienced this once with the piezo system on my Music Man JP6 - sold the guitar after it got repaired, somehow, I just didn't feel like keeping it).
Phew, this got pretty long, and I have to finish now. To summarize it, I'm really blown away by the KPA, this was my BEST gear purchase EVER, it's absolutely worth the ~1500 euros it sells for, and I'd easily pay double price for it. The Axe-Fx or any other digital solution is nowhere near to what the KPA can do... I'm in love with it totally... so guys, I'm in!