Kemper Kone only works with Kemper?

  • Hi all,


    I was wondering if I would be able to use a kone with any of my other gear.


    The website says

    "Due to the digital features, the KEMPER Kone and KEMPER Kabinet work exclusively with a PROFILER."


    But this doesn't make sense to me, it's a FRFR speaker. Of course you don't get all of the other features if you plug in another amp, but do you really think that this will only work with a kemper and nothing else?

  • its not an FRFR speaker something like FRGR, more optimized for Guitarsound.

    It will work with any Speaker, but these Speaker which are not tuned like the Kone

    will change the Sound of the original Imprints

    Theres a Video in the Namm 2020 Thread from Andertons were CK talks about this

  • I own a KPA toaster format, with a Camplifier retrofitted power amp.
    Would the Kone work with that? Or only with native powered KPA?
    I'm thinking about switching the speaker only in the cabinet I currently use...

  • I own a KPA toaster format, with a Camplifier retrofitted power amp.
    Would the Kone work with that? Or only with native powered KPA?
    I'm thinking about switching the speaker only in the cabinet I currently use...

    It will definitely work with Profilers that use external poweramps.

  • Sorry guys, I don't think I made my original question clear enough.


    Say for example I have a Line 6 pod and I plug that into an external power amp (for example a magnum 44 pedal) and then plug that amp into the kone, will sound come out of the speaker?


    Specifically I am not asking if the quality of the sound will be good or not. And I am not asking if the speaker emulation will work (obviously not).

  • The Kemper Kone driver appears from a distance to be a fairly standard Celestion with a whizzer cone. The dust cap is a larger one glued into the whizzer rather than right at the end of the coil like other makers do it (i.e. Eminence with the 12LTA). The industry's whizzer "full range" 12" speakers are somewhat similar in response, with a high end dropoff from 9-12kHz and some interesting resonances in the upper midrange\low treble. And the dispersion characteristics of whizzer speakers IME can be extremely beamy in the trebles.


    It looks like Kemper might have combined some aspects of the driver design with DSP, which could be special IRs tweaked to make the result as flat as possible without using a tweeter.


    The driver in one NAMM video appears to have an interesting surround, more like a woofer. If memory serves, the surround is much like the one on the F12-X200; I wonder if the Kemper Kone is basically a F12-X200, but with a whizzer cone instead of a tweeter? But one thing is for certain; the Kemper Kone is NOT a stock green F12-X200 as some have speculated (as the Kone does not have an integrated tweeter and crossover).


    I would guess also that the Kemper Kone driver would be quite usable as a limited treble semi-FRFR without the Kemper DSP, if Celestion did not engineer in some strange driver EQ stuff to help Kemper with dispersion or DSP tricks. The driver would probably have the dispersion issues you get with whizzer cone speakers however, which apparently the Kemper DSP helps to tame.


    Now I'm really interested to try out the Kemper Kone EQ with my dust gathering Eminence 12LTAs.

  • I think it’s important to recognize that it’s not accurate to call Kemper’s speaker imprints an IR of any sort.


    IRs by definition involve a microphone. They have to. Which is the one criticism of FRFR speakers. Good as it is, an IR with an FRFR is still a mic’d cabinet sound.


    The Kone and Kemper’s DSP aim to remove the mic from the equation to give a real amp-in-the-room sound.


    *That* is what has me excited.

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

  • I am sure you will hear a sound if you are not using a kemper BUT
    the speaker model comes from the kemper.

    Hear what Chrsistop is saying about the kemper kone starting at 2:00 and special about frequency at 3:40

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  • I think it’s important to recognize that it’s not accurate to call Kemper’s speaker imprints an IR of any sort.


    IRs by definition involve a microphone. They have to. Which is the one criticism of FRFR speakers. Good as it is, an IR with an FRFR is still a mic’d cabinet sound.


    The Kone and Kemper’s DSP aim to remove the mic from the equation to give a real amp-in-the-room sound.


    *That* is what has me excited.

    Caveat: I have not idea what I am talking about.


    Couldn’t they use an IR of a speaker with a certain mic, then subtract the mic response if you get consisent results? Particularly if they know how their new speaker will behave when mic’ed the same.

    Does that even make sense?

  • Yes, it does make sense and I suspect that Kemper is either doing this or using IRs captured with a measurement, i.e flat response, microphone.



    Quote

    Couldn’t they use an IR of a speaker with a certain mic, then subtract the mic response if you get consisent results? Particularly if they know how their new speaker will behave when mic’ed the same.

    Does that even make sense?



  • Honestly, I don't see why anybody would want to use these speakers/cabs with anything other than a Kemper. Sure, they're just standard passive speaker cabs, but what sets them apart is that Kemper has designed software for the the profiler to achieve specific sounds with these units. If you're running something other than a Kemper, there are options out there that will yield much better results.

  • I think it’s important to recognize that it’s not accurate to call Kemper’s speaker imprints an IR of any sort.


    IRs by definition involve a microphone. They have to. Which is the one criticism of FRFR speakers. Good as it is, an IR with an FRFR is still a mic’d cabinet sound.


    The Kone and Kemper’s DSP aim to remove the mic from the equation to give a real amp-in-the-room sound.


    *That* is what has me excited.

    Not meaning to be contentious, but you can take IR's of a system without a microphone. For example, some folks have taken IRs of EQ devices such as the Fishman Aura stomp boxes. But if you are copying the audible response of a driver you are emulating, how can you prevent using a mic in the process? I suspect the Kemper system might be using flat response mics and infinite baffle setups perhaps in an anechoic chamber to get neutral uncolored IRs of the speakers being emulated (this would prevent a cab from coloring the tone, that will happen when the Kone is placed in a cab).


    One way of doing what Kemper is doing with the Kone (basically making one driver sound like a different one) is to use IRs and other DSP to make the Kone as close to a FRFR as possible, and then apply a second one to make the pseudo FRFR have the response of the driver being copied. Or use a IR pulse already EQd to emulate the reverse response of the Kone, and use that to make an IR with the driver being copied.


    All this is speculation however. If Kemper would go into a bit more detail on what they are doing, or if they file IP on the process, we could then know more.

  • I don't think the Kemper approach is to use an IR either.


    From my understanding, the Kone has been designed to have certain characteristics.


    Now if I want to achieve FRFR characteristics, DSP is used to apply certain EQ changes to the signal so that when it is output by the speaker, the response is flat.


    The same thing goes if I want a speaker like a V30 or a Greenback.


    It's important to notice the difference here, because if you capture an IR of a Celestion speaker and just use it on a speaker, it is unlikely to be the same as the Celestion, because the speaker you are using has a different character.


    Instead, based on the characteristics of the Kone, the Kemper uses DSP in order to impart certain characteristics to the signal being fed to the speaker in order to achieve a similar response to the speakers it models.


    That's why you are able to do things like change the beaminess of the imprint, something you could not do if it was reliant on an IR, I'm guessing.