Brand New Kemper Stage Faulty

  • Hoping for some feedback on my issue. I’m a new Kemper user, never actually played one even though I have a new kemper stage in my studio as we speak. I ordered a brand new unit online, when it arrived the shipping box looked great. Plug it in, plug in my favorite Tele and nothing. No input signal to the unit, not even the tuner gets signal. I tried other guitars and cables as well.


    I reached out to Kemper by email and they were quick to respond. After a couple emails they have decided it’s faulty and they are willing to ship be a new one, which will take a week btw.


    Here’s what I’m looking for in terms of feedback. As a pro player, playing live gigs regularly with some moderate touring in the future, should I be alarmed that a brand new unit didn’t survive shipping or was just faulty right out of the box? I don’t want to spend hours dialing in my favorite profiles and performances to find the unit just can’t handle life out of the studio.

  • My thoughts on this are two-fold. On one hand, I've said right from the beginning that the Kemper Stage seemed to be rushed in it's launch and (especially during the first few months) I've seen what seems to be far more issues with the Stage as compared to the Toaster or Rack version. I've got both a rack and toaster and wanted the stage, but I still see too many people having issues with theirs for me to feel comfortable buying one to use as my main working setup (I use my Kemper's for live/working band purposes).


    So while I personally wouldn't trust the stage at all, I have had nothing but flawless experiences with both the toaster and rack. They have both served me well, with no issues for years. My point in saying that is that I think Kemper are still working through a fair amount of issues with the stage and my guess (and it's ONLY a guess) is that it's due to the rush of pushing the Stage out before it was truly ready. I do think once they get everything ironed out, the Stage will become as reliable as the other two versions.


    If you do spend hours dialing in profiles, just back them up to a USB stick. Then if you decide to switch to a rack or toaster down the road (or get a new stage), your work won't have been for nothing. You can just drop the USB stick in and copy everything over to your new unit very easily.

  • My rack is more than a decade old, and even after all that, I only needed support changing a damaged screen, the support was as fast as distance gets, and cheap as chips to replace the part. No issues whatsoever, if anything, their equipments really are made under german standards as far as I can see, made to last with safety factors over 2.5. I say after you have your new unit, the stage will be a worthy companion, there have been several small revisions after all.

    The answer is 42

  • Most things that will fail, will fail right away or at the end of life, that’s why most manufacturers use what’s known as a bathtub curve for MTBF calculations. If something has a MTBF of 10000 hours for example it doesn’t mean that it should die then. It’s all averages.


    yes I worked for a German company once upon a time lol.

    http://www.applied-statistics.org/Glossary/BathTubCurve.html

  • Most things that will fail, will fail right away or at the end of life, that’s why most manufacturers use what’s known as a bathtub curve for MTBF calculations. If something has a MTBF of 10000 hours for example it doesn’t mean that it should die then. It’s all averages.


    yes I worked for a German company once upon a time lol.

    http://www.applied-statistics.org/Glossary/BathTubCurve.html

    MTBF = Mean time before failure


    Thats for the people wondering. And yes, Germans are quite serious about these measurements while designing.

    The answer is 42

  • Hoping for some feedback on my issue. I’m a new Kemper user, never actually played one even though I have a new kemper stage in my studio as we speak. I ordered a brand new unit online, when it arrived the shipping box looked great. Plug it in, plug in my favorite Tele and nothing. No input signal to the unit, not even the tuner gets signal. I tried other guitars and cables as well.


    I reached out to Kemper by email and they were quick to respond. After a couple emails they have decided it’s faulty and they are willing to ship be a new one, which will take a week btw.


    Here’s what I’m looking for in terms of feedback. As a pro player, playing live gigs regularly with some moderate touring in the future, should I be alarmed that a brand new unit didn’t survive shipping or was just faulty right out of the box? I don’t want to spend hours dialing in my favorite profiles and performances to find the unit just can’t handle life out of the studio.

    I hate to say this, but I've owned the original Toaster, and now a Rack unit, both seem solid! However my experience with the Stage was much different, had bad luck with 2 of them, so I gave up on the Stage for now, and might go with another brand when touring starts after Covid, I'm hoping by the time I need one maybe they'll be a Stage MK 2 ?? I think it's very important that gear in this price range be completely bullet proof!!! But it's not just Kemper, I've had issues with other brands in this price range too, of course for any serious touring a backup is a Must, and I have to say my backup unit is really solid ( Boss GT 1000 ) too bad it doesn't sound as good..

  • I hate to say this, but I've owned the original Toaster, and now a Rack unit, both seem solid! However my experience with the Stage was much different, had bad luck with 2 of them, so I gave up on the Stage for now, and might go with another brand when touring starts after Covid, I'm hoping by the time I need one maybe they'll be a Stage MK 2 ?? I think it's very important that gear in this price range be completely bullet proof!!! But it's not just Kemper, I've had issues with other brands in this price range too, of course for any serious touring a backup is a Must, and I have to say my backup unit is really solid ( Boss GT 1000 ) too bad it doesn't sound as good..

    Bear in mind that in quite a few instances a bad batch of components or an assembly failure can cause problems in a certain time frame that can be rectified in short order.

    Happens all the time with cars for example.

    No need to wait for a Stage 2.

  • I have two Kemper Stages and they have both worked flawlessly, I keep one Kemper Stage in my home studio and I gigged the other Stage prior to the pandemic.


    My Kemper Stage in the studio and my Kemper Stage gigged live have both been totally solid.