Kone & Kabinet Q&A

  • The biggest advantage of the Kabinet over the Thiele EVM is weight and size. It sounds great and is such an easy one hand carry. The Thiele isn't big but as you know the magnet in the EVM still weighs a bit and the cabinet is quite deep.


    The other big advantage for me is that I use piezo equipped guitars so the ability to have EV like impressions PLUS switching to FRFR for the piezo is a big advantage for me.

    I'll do a little comparison with a ncondenser at head height and a reamped track to let you hear them side by side when I get a chance.

  • Playing around with my kabinet...2 questions:


    1) Anyone feel like it feels better with bass boost on, even when sitting on a floor? I know it was designed for if you lift your kabinet off the floor, but I feel it really gives the cab some girth and heaviness. Could just be my pickups lacking bass or maybe the profiles...but just feels more like a cab with that extra bass.


    2) My KPA by default has POWER AMP BOOST at +6dB. What is everyone setting this at for using the Kabinet?

  • I ordered it today :)

  • Regarding the Kone, is the cabinet design important? Been trying to find info but no joy.

    Not completely sure, but I've heard CK say that they tried an open back cab and it was good. And based on the fact they are selling purposely for us to put in our cabs I'd say it should work well with your choice. My XiTone is convertible, so I'll find out in a few days.

  • Anyone have any idea if the speaker is anything special with regards to the imprints? I know it will work well in an “FRFR” application as it has a whizzer cone but I’m finding that the imprints work excellent with the V30 speaker in my Mesa 112. Just throwing this out there as I’ve owned a lot of these speakers and the imprints take on their characteristics exceptionally well even with the V30. It’s actually pretty damn cool.

  • IME it is almost impossible to get away from the harshness of a tweeter, even the Celestion F12-X200 can get harsh

    Tweeters are not harsh per se. Actually, you can't have any realistic representation of a complex sound with a single speaker ATM, and all the hi-fi systems I am aware of are gifted with tweeters (and sometimes supertweeters). The point is that it's a guitar amp's signal that's harsh, so it needs heavy filtering, usually performed by a guitar speaker.
    In the case of a mic'ed cab /such as Kemper cabinets (not Imprints), there's also the proximity mic'ing that adds a lot of nasty frequencies. A rig feeding a linear cab should be band-filtered exactly the way the soundman does with any mic'ed cab


    1/4" insturment cable

    If you use such cable out of a power amp you risk to burn something! Be careful!


    i wouldn’t expect the 8 ohm output to do any damage to a 4ohm cab. The danger is more likely to be that the Kemper only supplies a 4ohm load so the Red Sound amp may get damaged.

    Mhhh... you're getting this the other way round.

    When you read - say - "8 ohm" on an amp's socket, it means "designed to be used with a cab that exhibits a nominal impedance of 8 ohm".
    The load is, by definition, the electric impedance of a speaker. An amp doesn't supply a load.

    The issue would not be the amp damaging the speaker (unless it starts working is such a nad way that it outputs dangerous signals), but the speaker offering so little resistance to the current from the amp that this current grows too much and can damage an amp designed for lower currents.
    Think of a pipe supplying water and a tap: the tap is the impedance (it impedes water's flow). The more you open it, the more you are reducing impedance, and the more water comes out.

    HTH


    The EVM12L imprint doesn't sound the same as my actual EVM12L which is loaded in a Mesa Thiele cab.


    Yep, this is expected: the cabinet is a definite element of a cab's overall tone. Pretty sure, if you put the Kone in the Thiele it will sound like the Mesa sounds now, or in a much more similar way
    :)



    it looks to me as it's not possible to save the Imprint per Rig?

    Not ATM, yep.



    Ckemper said that you have to add a cab to the DI profile (and so make it merged


    Not necessarily. A merged profile is not any DI with any cab, and you can add any cab from a studio rig as well (it will be switched off anyway). This is just a way to let the detecting part of the algorithm that it's not a DI rig, so the Kone functions have to be made available to the user.



    I can't remeber any company, where the boss himself answers questions to the forum members


    Well, Fractal does. And Line6 guys are all over the place, including their Boss, that's easy to read on these pages Not that this opens to whatever conclusion, it's just for the record ;)



    FRFR mode - Basically will play the cab selection that is connected within each rig...yes?

    Correct :)



    For now, I can only select one speaker type. Say I choose V30, then all rigs will be output to the cab as a V30 correct?

    Yep, assignment per-rig is expected in a future KAOS version.



    using this as an FRFR


    Kone is not a very linear, broad-band speaker tho. With no tweeter it will always be milder in the highs. Also, is directivity is narrower.
    Think of it like a GRFR speaker (such as the one in the Red Sound, for example).



    I noticed a section called power amp boost. What should this be set to?

    That's meant for having more output in case you use a big cab with maybe a very high impedance. In this case, with 600 W of power and a 4 ohm speaker... I'd leave it off! :D



    can someone equipped with a stereo Kone system or stereo cab tell me if these can be used as a monitor & mix system ?


    Mhhh... not faithfully. No tweeter makes a difference, and your mixes will have an excess of energy from about 10 kHz on. Unless, of course, you learn and mix with them, but it's not worth it if you care for your mixes/masterings quality IMO.
    (Of course, you'd need a stereo power amp anyway).



    I sort of understand what you mean but I must confess I have never really understood this concept. The very definition of sound is moving air so if an FRFR doesn’t move air it is literally inaudible

    Agreed :)

    This subject gets beaten to death...

    Air moved by a guitar cab is what it is. The feeling of a greater punch is, IMO, to be due to the narrower range of frequencies of a guitar speaker, of its small directivity and its resonance frequency that's placed where guitar players want it (and not, say, @ 40 Hz).
    With a narrower band, you know that most of the energy supplied by the power section focuses on a range of frequencies where we are more sensitive. With a small directivity, you know that most of the available energy is beamed in front of the speaker and not around...
    It's a matter of optimisation of (scarce) resources for the task, if you will :p

    OTOH, an FRFR cab will sound loud on a much broader band of frequencies, and on a larger solid angle; IOW, it uses the supplied energy to make many other things, so to speak. Furthermore, its resonance is placed at a lower frequency, where we are less sensitive.


    Moving air: basically, if you compare on-axis SPL between a guitar speaker and a broadband one with a guitar signal (they should have same diameter, and same impedance all over the frequencies for consistency), chances are the guitar cone will perform higher. But, if you start moving around, you'll see that there's much less energy off-axis for the latter, while the other one is able to make you hear the original signal much better.

    At the same time, if you test SPL with a full-range music program, you'll have (besides a much better sonic result) a winner in the broadband speaker, able to emit energy at higher and lower frequencies as well than the other cone. And things would go worse the more you move off-axis.


    Add back the Camplifier and it shuts down. It can't handle the backing tracks, which I guess is suspected at 25 W.

    Usually power amps don't shut down (unless they are broken) because of their inputs: it's their output, the critical factor. Adding a much broader band of signal to an amp working at its limits in terms of impedance can easily drive it into protection mode.



    Regarding the Kone, is the cabinet design important?

    Yep, as long as it changes the sound. Let's say that you will be able to hear the tones as designed by Kemper the more the cabinet has same shape, same volume, same internal structure and same internal damping. The more you move away, the more difference you'll hear. Not that you can't refer a different voicing of course!
    Granted, the speaker is more meaningful than the cabinet, but they play together, so to speak (lol).

    A ported cabinet, OTOH, would sound even more differently.



    Anyone have any idea if the speaker is anything special with regards to the imprints?


    Yep, imprints have been tuned in order to sound faithfully to the original speakers on a Kone, which is not linear and transparent so it... imprints its own sonic signature to any signal.
    Not that you can't like Kemper Imprints over other speakers of course: it's just that they will sound more differently the more the speaker's specs move away from Kone's.

    Still chasing a worthy one :/

  • My Kabinet arrived today :)

    So far sounds great. There are some subtle changes especially within a speaker manufacturer. For example switching between the G12H Anniversary and the G12H Heritage give you some subtle change. But if you pull up the famous MorganAC20 patch and jump between the Celestion Blue, then to the EV12L, then to a vintage Jensen you can hear the characteristics of each speaker. Well done Kemper !! Now we'll all be looking for more imprints, ability to assign cab imprints per rig, etc. The future sounds great !!

  • Well, modellers serve the purpose of sending to the mixing desk the signal of a mic'ed cab. This feature has solved a lot of issues for many.
    Of course, those who were accustomed to hear their (guitar) cab onstage don't get the same feeling. But the privileged subject here is audience: audience was hearing your mic'ed cab before, and hears it now as yesterday.

    When using an FRFR, the player should treat it as the soundguy does with the mic'ed signal arriving from the stage: you have to filter it. Unless you use far-field IRs, where the mic's proximity effect is absent.

    Sure, if you love how your guitar cabinet sounds i your room you'll unavoidably be missing something (a lot?) from a mic'ed cab. But your audience has never heard it (even when the venue was small enough to rely on stage amplification only: those in front of your mid-woofer were laser-beamed, those on the sides were getting a muddy, booming tone, Only a small fraction of them would hear the cab as the player, if any). Basically, we have not found a practical way to send the "authentic" sound of a guitar cab to FOH, with all those nuances you rightly mentioned: mic'ing it with panoramic, omnidirectional mics etc would be a nightmare on stage, and furthermore the whole tone of a 4x12 would be too invasive in a mix, and would be filtered anyway to fit it: you could properly mic a guitar in studio, but frequencies that collide with bass, piano, bass drum, sax, cymbals etc would need to be adjusted anyway.


    OTOH, a bigger version of the Kone might be equipping PAs for guitar(s) alone, and then... ;)

    Still chasing a worthy one :/

  • Received Kone and installed (late tonight so not possible to try out yet; will try tomorrow) in an old model Tech 21 Power Engine 60. Tech 21 informed me the power amp can not handle 4 ohms without overheating, so I'm only using this worthless piece of gear as a cabinet powered by a DV Mark CMT head. I soldered the speaker cable leads directly to the speaker terminals of the Kone.

    The key to everything is patience.
    You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.
    -- Arnold H. Glasow


    If it doesn't produce results, don't do it.

    -- Me

  • Quote from Pippopluto

    The issue would not be the amp damaging the speaker (unless it starts working is such a nad way that it outputs dangerous signals), but the speaker offering so little resistance to the current from the amp that this current grows too much and can damage an amp designed for lower currents.

    yes, that’s exactly what I was saying ?

  • But your audience has never heard it (even when the venue was small enough to rely on stage amplification only: those in front of your mid-woofer were laser-beamed, those on the sides were getting a muddy, booming tone, Only a small fraction of them would hear the cab as the player, if any).

    Re-read what you said for context! True that.


    I often play guitar for pleasure though, so we shouldn't discount amp in the room as being of no value though!

  • Can someone rename this thread "Kone logistics" and start a new Q&A-thread instead. I don't mind threads discussing just about anything, but please have some respect for the topic! A good Q&A-thread should have an initial post that gets maintained with new Q&A-pairs added as new important/common questions appear.

  • Yes, probably.


    If you guys find some obscure speakers on your attic, that are worth being brought back to live, give us a note!

    Hi Chris, got two marshall 1912... if you plan to add those imprints one day, this cab model has "Celestion G12B 150" inside (very good bass response) , It would be great for me to swap the speakers with 2 kemper kones!


    Bye


    Andrea

  • ckemper

    I have a question concerning the kone/caboff-mode:


    Why do the settings in the cabinet section (in the stack block) affect the sound that is coming out of my kabinet even thouh the "kone mode" is activated and the "cab simulation off" is acivated?


    For example when using a direct amp profile with a cab preset, the sound (from the kabinet) is different when choosing different cab presets. Also the "character" knob in the cab section has a big impact on the sound from the kabinet (even thouh the "kone mode" is activated and the "cab simulation off" is acivated).


    This doesn't make sense to me since the cab simulation shouldn't affect the sound from the "monitor out" when the "cab simulation off" on "monitor out" is activated.


    Thank you!