Hi all, have recently become the happy user of a Variax JTV69S, very versatile and sounds great. I also still have a Line 6 HD500 that has sat dormant for a year since I got the Kemper. But lately I wondered; since the HD500 is such a good midi controller, and has a great Variax interface, would it be worth replacing my FCB1010/Uno4Kemper with the HD500 and gain some features to work with the Variax?
First of all, the HD500 can provide power and signal interfaces to the Variax through its VDI interface.
Also the HD500 is a fairly good midi controller, versatile and programmable, and should work well with the Kemper.
Whenever a button is selected on the HD500, it can automatically select the Variax model and tuning as well as sending patch change information to the Kemper. So this gives the immediate coordination inherent in the Line 6 "dream rig" between the amp sims and Variax.
Here's the final icing on the cake: if you connect the SPDIF out from the HD500 into the digital coax in to the Kemper, and set up the Kemper input for digital reamping, the signal from the Variax stays in the digital domain all the way to the Kemper profiles. In initial experiments I did, this significantly improves the tone of the Variax into the Kemper, giving the Variax more life and detail to its tones, as well as lower noise. This is the best the Variax has ever sounded IMHO, better than into the Kemper front panel input with a 1/4" cable.
The reamp digital input loses a few Kemper features such as Clean Sens, but if you don't use those, it might be an approach to experiment with.
Finally, using the HD500 in this way allows a user to add many effects in the HD500 before the profiles; you can add 8 pre-profile effecs to the 4 in the Kemper. The HD500 should have plenty of DSP for such things since no amp sims would be used. And you would have another looper available in the HD500 if you are into multiple loopers.
Since a used HD500 goes for around $200 or so, that is a LOT of added functionality to the Kemper and Variax, basically integrating the Kemper into the dream rig concept.