Poweramp for Kemper - different requirements?

  • If anyone is interested - it worked as expected to use the 8 ohm speaker out of a powered mixer to amplify the Kemper (into a trad. guitar cab). I tried with a Montarbo from my father and my cheap Fame mixer. But I need the mixer for other things and don't want to plug cables all the time.


    So I tried several other solutions. Power amps of different amps (Kemper into return of the amp) did all colour the result too much. A few were very dark sounding (matched for the amps preamp I guess). The Quilter Interblock 45 was o.k. as an power amp, but I didn't like the features, preamp sound and build quality. The Harley Benton GPA-400 was good (didn't like how the resonance and presence work), but it is a rack unit. As said before the EHX 44 Magnum has noise problems (and does distort / saturate in higher settings).


    In the end I kept the "Hotone Loudster": Loud enough for me, neutral, small and portable, looks and feels solid, simple with only one knob, excellent power supply without any noise. I get excellent results using the Kemper into 1x12 cabs with optionally a Celestion V-Type, Celestion Lynchback and a Celestion Rockdriver speaker.


    Of course the speaker / cab has much influence to the sound, but still you can hear characteristics of the profiled amp. And it "feels" real enough for me. As soon as I reduce volume to (slightly over) bedroom level this combination wins over tube amps in my opinion. For example to make a Fender Blues jr sound really good you have to crank the master- and that is brutal loud. When dialed in to acceptable volume, a nice Kemper profile sounds better in comparison.