Kemper Is Haunting Me! Why?!?

  • I had and really enjoyed a full Kemper rig for almost a year, however, having it right next to my amps and A/B'ing them, along with integrity concerns resulted in moving it along and going back to amps - which I'm really happy with; however, I cannot get the Kemper off my mind recently and even dreamed about it last night (!). WTF?!? :)


    In the time I had mine, I had a screen-glitch at start-up, along with a frozen boot-up and it really got me questioning what does one do with such a device after having it for years and something goes ka-poof? My amps I take to a tech, even those which are decades old and they get fixed right up.


    Since selling mine I've purchased a Boss Katana (read: Kemper Lite) and have been gigging a lot with it this year to great results, as well.


    Nevertheless; I miss my Kemper Morgan AC20, Trainwreck and Bloody Rocka profiles like crazy and it also often gnaws at me that I have so many purchased profiles just sitting. ...not to mention I think the Kemper is just pretty to look at. :P


    Getting back into the game also presents the used market challenge, where used prices are simply too close to new to justify picking one up that way. ...coupled with my hardware integrity concerns which would be non-warrantied in the aftermarket.


    Anyway...there...I've thrown my thoughts into this forum... :S

  • In your dream did Kemper scared you?


    or was it just another good dream?


    anyway i think that maintenance is fine if you are at USA or Europe,


    in other places you need to ship it to a kemper partner near to your country


    you have 3 years of full warranty, i do not know any other like that.


    they are real people as usual and not a large company that you cannot have access to it...

  • You know what you're missing so your anxiety is climbing. They make meds for that, btw... it's called "More Kemper"!!! You certainly can't compare a Katana to the Kemper in my mind, but hey, if it works for you stick with it. The Kemper just gets better and better all the time without a doubt.


    There have been a few posts here recently in the classifieds for KPA's. Very reasonable prices nonetheless. The Kemper warranty is best in class hands down. Hope you find the path back home dude! Follow your intuition, it's seldom wrong! ;)

  • In the time I had mine, I had a screen-glitch at start-up, along with a frozen boot-up and it really got me questioning what does one do with such a device after having it for years and something goes ka-poof? My amps I take to a tech, even those which are decades old and they get fixed right up.


    I see this type of comparison and will add my own thoughts.


    There are plenty of valve amps out there that go wrong and get repaired. These faults are generally valve related.


    There are plenty of valve amps out there that go wrong and are financially not worth being repaired. These faults are generally PCB related and cost loads to fix as you need to replace the whole board and might find that something else has also gone wrong.


    So it's not true to say that modern valve amps are easy to repair; just the valve and directly related components are. But solid state amps have more consistent and reliable alternative components which don't need to be replaced routinely.


    Handwired/point to point amps will likely live forever but at the lower price point there's so much PCB stuff inside that cannot be repaired. One of my favourite Marshalls amps is the all valve 6100 and that is plagued with irreparable PCB reliability issues. If it stops changing channels, it goes in the bin....

  • I cannot get the Kemper off my mind recently and even dreamed about it last night (!). WTF?!?

    I've dreamed about all things Kemper so many times it's ridiculous, so I join you in saying, "WTF?".


    Can't remember ever having dreamed about any other pice of kit I've owned, so I reckon that if you're in the same boat, you're a Kemperite through-and-through and no amount of NLP or self-talk's gonna change that, man. :D

  • It appears Kemper is sticking with the same design for a while so support should available for many years to come. It was a concern when I first considered buying also but now I am so happy with the results that if I had to buy one every 3 to 5 years I would keep coming back for more. I expect my Kemper to last longer than that though as the general concensous is that it is pretty reliable from my readings and research. Most issues I hear are software bugs not hardware failures.


    As for dreaming about it, I haven’t had a Kemper dream yet. It is a dream come true though lol. I often dream about some of the last things I think about before sleep so I expect a Kemper dream any night now

  • It’s not just rich guys: musicians of all stripes experiment with and own all kinds of stuff. True, someone like Marty Stuart sticks exclusively with vintage Deluxe Reverbs—but he owns at least a dozen of them.


    The point is, a Kemper is its own thing. I guess I feel like anyone who digs one should figure out how to own one, since there is literally nothing else like it. It’s a special unit. And it doesn’t mean it has to be the only thing you ever use in order to justify owning it. And btw, it’s not hard to imagine, ten years from now or longer, the original Kemper having a certain cachet. That’s rare among gear of any kind, but maybe even more so in the digital universe.


    On the digital forums, it’s always about which one—this versus that etc. Whereas it never seemed to be a problem when a guitarist owned both a silver face Twin Reverb and an early 70s Marshall head.

  • On the reliability of Kemper, it's not any worse than any similar equipment out there. Will a Kemper still be working in say 20-30 years? Who knows. But I have multiple pieces of Roland gear from the mid 80s, microprocessor based like the Kemper, and it all still works perfectly with the only repair being a memory battery replacement. I suspect that if a Kemper is treated properly, it will last for decades at least. And the actual cost of ownership of a Kemper as compared to a tube amp (tubes, components with shortened life due to heat) will most likely be FAR less.

  • Very sturdy stuff so far for me , except the usual worn out , like my delay button not responding 50% of the time after too much usage and no remote !


    Service is really great , as they handled the dead led problem in less than 15 days including shipping back and from Germany to France.

  • My only fear with a Kemper down the road amp is the ability to back it up or save rigs. Who knows what’s around the corner for computers, things such as USB could be obsolete.


    But I live for today as well, so I enjoy my Kemper and still have a couple of tube amps too.

  • It'll be a long, long time 'til USB's obsolete, so I wouldn't worry about that, mate.


    Too many products throughout the electronic and electrical industries use it. Future versions, as we've seen already with v2 and v3, will be backward-compatible.


    Can you imagine the shitstorm that'd happen if USB support were to be pulled any time in the next 5 years? It'd be like the millennium bug, only worse... and real for most people. Not gonna happen for a very-long time, if "ever".

  • It'll be a long, long time 'til USB's obsolete, so I wouldn't worry about that, mate.


    Too many products throughout the electronic and electrical industries use it. Future versions, as we've seen already with v2 and v3, will be backward-compatible.


    Can you imagine the shitstorm that'd happen if USB support were to be pulled any time in the next 5 years? It'd be like the millennium bug, only worse... and real for most people. Not gonna happen for a very-long time, if "ever".

    Ha, ha, I'm making my Doomsday signs now!