Are the cabs more important than the amp itself??!?!??!

  • The question above came to me as whenever I exchange the cab for another cab the profile seems to sound far too similar. To put it another way (as this can get confusing to explain! :) ) I have a bogner profile. I dont like the cab. I exchange it for a Mesa Boogie profile cab. And now it sounds the same as the Mesa profile I borrowed the cab from. Has anyone else found this to be a problem? Do your profiles sound the same??


    On a good note I saw The band Eutopia live in London recently and they are now using Kempers for live!! They sounded so much better than the bogner they used to use.


    Heres an example of 'all kemper recorded' guitar lines - great cleans and overdrives!! :love:



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l2fnll_EQA</a>

  • As discussed frequently here in the forum, in reality an amp plus its cab are one entity and inseparable.
    When removing the cab from an amp and introducing another one originally belonging to another amp you actually create a hybrid between these two amps, adding sound elements of the amp the cab originally belongs to to the amp you pair it with.


    But this is only the theory of accuracy which I can't be bothered to deal with too much.
    Because in reality it sounds great.

  • yeah, in addition to the cab/power amp interaction, cabs also have resonances at certain frequencies that really drive their sound.


    but if you focus on those few little things about the amp that really defines the amp, they should still be there when you switch cabs. It's not totally about the final or general sound but the feel of the amp. in general I find these things are preserved.

  • Good point.


    Amps can sound more equal than you think. In the real world you rarely notice it. But with profiled amps it can be revealed.


    In an early profiling session we did we happend to have a a Bogner and a Mesa (I think) to have the exact same sound by coincidence. They have been played through the same speaker. The sounds where nearly indistinguishable.


    Take into consideration that most tube amp are based on the same basic circuit architectures, thus those equalities are not a miracle.

  • Considering things from another POW: what makes you feel that it was the cab the part you did not like in that rig? Remember, there're almost always a mic (at least) and a specific EQ in the rig... hard to say what is due to what, if not with a very specific and deep experience on the amp, the mic(s) and the cab having been profiled.

  • A simple test you can perform to test this, in case you have a few amps/cabs in your house/studio:


    Grab a good longish speaker cable (careful 'cause they are not the same as normal guitar cables). You might need a second one with speaker plugs in one end depending on your speaker connections on your cabs.


    Round up a few amps with different cabs (try to use very different cabs i.e 1x10, 2x12, 4x10 and very different amps). They can be combos or head/cab combinations.


    Now the fun starts:


    Test 1 - Select 1 of of the cabs. Connect each of the amps in turn and play something short. Repeat for each amp.
    Test 2 - Select 1 of the amps. Connect each of the cabs in turn and play something short. Repeat for each cab.


    You will be surprised with the results.


    This works better with a mate to help you out with the cable switching.


    Do not use a mic for this experience. That is another one test you can make at a different time when you are feeling bored... ;)

  • Amp -> feel
    Cab -> tone


    Most of the tone comes from cab/guitar pickups and first and foremost your fingers/technique. Lots of differences between valve amps come from tone stacks they use. I can get a twin to sound heavy like hell with proper cab and guitar, but it won't react like dual rectifier, hence it will sound different.
    In Kemper world there is also mic placement, mic type and preamp type in the equation, which affects the tone much more than the amp itself.

  • A good source to test your theory is using some of the "old and forgotten" profiles, in the free rig section.
    He profiled quite a few rare almost unheard of amps and used the same 2 x 12" WEM cab. Loaded w a pair of Celestion Gold spurs.
    There is a very distinct difference from one amp to another, but also the WEM cab. W Celestion Golds brings out the best in his amps, so yes, the speakers are super important in the tone an amp puts out. Same goes for home audio or studio monitors....
    So the only way to be able to use a particular cab. W another amp is for the profiler to take a bunch of profiles using the same amp w different cabs, like Andy is doing now.
    The tils cabs are cool but they will have a lot of the tone of the amp he used to profile them.
    Too bad there isn,t a way, yet to profile a cab.

  • I've played with cabs on amps and unless you record them side by side, from the same reamped guitar, it's hard for some amp/cab pairings to tell the difference when distorted to a certain degree, and flipping back and forth between profiles since the Kemper doesn't have an A/B ability to compare profiles (would be a great addition). But side by side you can hear the subtle differences in a DAW.


    The amp is heavily enlarged by the cab part, which might make one tend to think it's the more significant factor. But don't forget the guitar pickups. I have 10 guitars that sound nothing like each other, and unless I'm on a metal profile, there are many flavors they provide on the same profile. Like a real amp should.


    As an amateur at this I'd rank the significance of the sound in this order:


    00) Finger Style
    01) Type of Speaker/s
    02) Pickups
    03) Microphone placement & preamp circuitry
    04) Amp circuitry
    05) Cabinet resonance
    06) Type of pick (finger attack, plastic, metal, etc)
    07) Guitar Wood
    08 ) Room
    09) Type of Strings (differing sizes, differing metal's magnetic strength)
    10) Guitar Circuitry


    There is also: "Your ears and the level of damage that weeds out certain frequencies" the severity of which would put it up or down the list, not to mention plain "ear fatigue" from high volume.


    This is off the top of my head, love to read others opinion on the ordering of such a list. Or major components to the sound I've not thought of here.

  • This is way o.t. But in response I,ll mention the type of metal used in bridge, posts,thumb wheels, studs and tailpiece.
    However I think what the topic is about is only the profile and how much of the tone of a given profile comes from the speaker.

  • Definitely is true...


    Watch anyone reamp with 5 different heads through the same cab and mic(s) in the same place unchanged, with generally the same amount of distortion.( Ex: super high gain, low gain etc). The amps will all sound remarkably the same, guarenteed. I genuinely do not care about amps being " profiled", but more in how they were captured, through what mic, cab etc. I think of each profile I have as a snapshot of the studio setup, not that it is a profile of "XYZ" amp... For instance, I'd take a well micd fender frontman combo amp profile through a boogie 4x12 done by a world class engineer over a diezel Herbert micd through a crate 1x12 cabinet profile done by some guy in his bedroom... Make sense?

  • Back in the dark days before I discovered the Kemper, I had a Soldano SLO and called them regarding tubes. I was told by Mike Soldano to change cabs or speakers, you'll get a lot more variance in tones than you will with tubes. he's absolutely right. It's one reason why I have so many speaker cabs. Some amps just work incredibly well with certain cabs too, and some just never sound right. My 1972 Marshall cabs make any amp sound great, but amps that are more modern voiced sound a little better (and bigger!) through my '92 Mesa armor cab.

  • These are two comparisons among several models of the famous Dragoon cabs, probably the best guitar speakers made in Italy.


    2x12


    1x12


    Here you can clearly note differences only due to the cones.
    In both videos the guys points out that the amp settings remain the same and are not optimized for each cab.


    Subtitles available in the 1x12 review, you can skip the initial blabla :)

  • Yes the cab is the most important part.
    And yes, I have owned a lot of amps and cabinet - and found that some of my beloved cab's sound great with most of the heads I use.


    As for combos - I like vintage combos with great sounding speakers - and I love to profile them the way they are - not with other 'better sounding' cab's - maybe that is the reason why I almost never use the KPA feature to swap the cabinet.

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