Is a Kemper Kabinet thaaaat much better than just using good guitar cab?

  • Does anyone here have experience going from using a power amp and good guitar cab to a Kemper Kabinet setup?


    For live use, I currently run my Stage into a Duncan PowerStage 170 and an Avatar Orange-style 2x12 cab with v30s. It's a great cab, and typically the kind of cab / speakers I tend to stick with when choosing profiles for recording. So "only" having the one sound of this cab is fine with me.


    I get that the Kemper Kab will allow me to use the cabinet part of a profile and also let me use imprints, so I can have more options. But if I don't really care about options and just want a good beefy v30 tone, is the Kabinet any better?

  • I would say if a V30 is what you're going to use....and you have no intentions of doing anything else, no. The Kabinet offers little. Regardless of how good the Kabinet is.....it's not a real V30.


    I'd kind of look at this as "If it's not broken....don't fix it."

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

  • it's much wider sweet spot is certainly something I never got from any traditional cab

    To be more precise, with the Kabinet you can dial in the Sweetspot in an unprecedented way.

    Like how more or less beamy you want it to be depending on your position on stage.

    That alone plus all the imprints options makes the Kab one of the accessories in the Kemper universe that sets the Profiler miles apart from other digital solutions, IMO

  • I have not used it with in a loud band environment yet. Anyone experience playing with another guitarist using a 50 watt Marshall? How does it stack up?

    Let's just say it's louder than the 50 watt Marshall by several decibels if you want. Plus you have uber cleaner headroom than the Marshall 50 watter if you choose a clean profile.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

  • I would say if a V30 is what you're going to use....and you have no intentions of doing anything else, no. The Kabinet offers little. Regardless of how good the Kabinet is.....it's not a real V30.


    I'd kind of look at this as "If it's not broken....don't fix it."

    I got the Kone fever and after a year bought one. I was super stoked to say the least, my hopes were very high. Put it in an open back cab this morning and spent several hours tweaking settings and.....nope, just to fizzy no matter what i tried. Just swapped it out for an old celestion out of a fender mustang for now, not ideal but I can tolerate it. The quote above is worth its weight in gold.

  • I do the same. I play live with a powerhead and use a real 2x12 cabinet with G12T-75 and one with V30s. I find that Merged and DI profiles sound best with real cabinets but do use some Studio ones also, Cab Off option enabled. I also have a 1x12 cab with a F12-X200 FRFR speaker, when I use that one I turn on the Cabs obviously. Its just VERY different, you certainly have more tonal options with the FRFR (in your case it would be the Kabinet) because you can literally change the characteristics of any profile being used by changing Cabs/IRs. I like both options honestly as its nice to have options. But I do prefer the real cabinet for rehearsal and live use.


    BTW...If you do go with a Kabinet or any FRFR speaker, you will be shockingly surprised on how different the same profile you have been using with a real cabinet sound in an FRFR. I tend to create two profiles settings with the same profile, one for a real cabinet and one for an FRFR. I also have a Headrush powered FRFR, yet again...a totally different tone from the same exact profile.

  • I do the same. I play live with a powerhead and use a real 2x12 cabinet with G12T-75 and one with V30s. I find that Merged and DI profiles sound best with real cabinets but do use some Studio ones also, Cab Off option enabled. I also have a 1x12 cab with a F12-X200 FRFR speaker, when I use that one I turn on the Cabs obviously. Its just VERY different, you certainly have more tonal options with the FRFR (in your case it would be the Kabinet) because you can literally change the characteristics of any profile being used by changing Cabs/IRs. I like both options honestly as its nice to have options. But I do prefer the real cabinet for rehearsal and live use.


    BTW...If you do go with a Kabinet or any FRFR speaker, you will be shockingly surprised on how different the same profile you have been using with a real cabinet sound in an FRFR. I tend to create two profiles settings with the same profile, one for a real cabinet and one for an FRFR. I also have a Headrush powered FRFR, yet again...a totally different tone from the same exact profile.

    Thanks! Yeah, I leaned from the last couple albums I mixed how much of the tone is decided by speakers, and how completely different amps through the same cab can sound nearly identical. That's my thing is that when playing live, I don't need a plethora of different tones - just a few good ones I like. Recording, of course, is a whole different beast.


    So it sounds like the tl:Dr is that Kone / Kab is good for getting variety and more accurately representing the original profile's sound. Real cab is better for that real cab feel if you don't care about the above.

  • I got the Kone fever and after a year bought one. I was super stoked to say the least, my hopes were very high. Put it in an open back cab this morning and spent several hours tweaking settings and.....nope, just to fizzy no matter what i tried. Just swapped it out for an old celestion out of a fender mustang for now, not ideal but I can tolerate it. The quote above is worth its weight in gold.

    Sounds odd. Were you getting a significant change in tone when you were selecting different imprints or was it just the same level of fizz?

  • Sounds odd. Were you getting a significant change in tone when you were selecting different imprints or was it just the same level of fizz?

    It is very odd sounding, nothing like the sound of the Kone in video demonstrations that I've watched. The sound of my kone straight from the kemper sounds the best and that still isn't very good, not really meant to be used that way if I understand correctly. When I go to the output menu and select (check) the kemper kone setting it's sound is very similar to running the kemper into a pa speaker with the cabinet section turned off, maybe slightly better. Imprints, they all sound different but not in a good way. I got slightly better results with the settings I posted in another thread but it still is not close to what it should be. It's very disheartening but I'm at a loss as to what could be wrong. The changes to profile settings I made are rather drastic, I've had no luck figuring it out after 6 to 7 hours of trying.

    Here are the settings:

    Under Cabinet Soft Key

    High Shift: -0.5 down from current setting

    Low Shift: -0.5 down from current setting

    Character: set at +5.0

    Pure Cabinet: set at 7.5


    Under Amplifier Soft Key

    Clarity: +1.0 up from current setting

    Bass: -1.0 down from current setting

    Treble: +1.0 up from current setting

    Presence: -1.5 down from current setting

  • Thanks! Yeah, I leaned from the last couple albums I mixed how much of the tone is decided by speakers, and how completely different amps through the same cab can sound nearly identical. That's my thing is that when playing live, I don't need a plethora of different tones - just a few good ones I like. Recording, of course, is a whole different beast.


    So it sounds like the tl:Dr is that Kone / Kab is good for getting variety and more accurately representing the original profile's sound. Real cab is better for that real cab feel if you don't care about the above.

    "how completely different amps through the same cab can sound nearly identical"...you hit the nail right on the head...this is so true! This even goes for Kemper profiles. I can take a Marshall Jubilee profile using a real cab V30, and a ENGL Fireball with that same V30 cabinet and they will sound nearly identical with a few minor tweaks...sometimes none.

  • I got the Kone fever and after a year bought one. I was super stoked to say the least, my hopes were very high. Put it in an open back cab this morning and spent several hours tweaking settings and.....nope, just to fizzy no matter what i tried. Just swapped it out for an old celestion out of a fender mustang for now, not ideal but I can tolerate it. The quote above is worth its weight in gold.

    Lol, so you changed a kone for a 70/80 and tought it was less "fizzy", something must have gone really wrong, as putting one of the "fizzyest" speakers on replacement doesnt sound like a solution.

    The answer is 42

  • I got the Kone fever and after a year bought one. I was super stoked to say the least, my hopes were very high. Put it in an open back cab this morning and spent several hours tweaking settings and.....nope, just to fizzy no matter what i tried. Just swapped it out for an old celestion out of a fender mustang for now, not ideal but I can tolerate it. The quote above is worth its weight in gold.

    I have that same speaker and have been using it during rehearsals. KPA monitor out into the return of the Mustang III. I've got a Kabinet sitting here, waiting for me to finish my personal 'camplifier' build. That should be done within the next week.....but I've been saying that for a month now.


    With monitor cab set to off, you're right in saying that speaker (Celestion G12T-100) is not horrible. At least for clean to mid-gain stuff. Rather generic sounding....but given the amp it's for that's expected. Higher gain and it starts to get become indistinct. More so than speakers meant for that purpose.

    Something had to be 'off' with your Kabinet. No way a G12T-100 should outperform it. People swapped those speaker out constantly when the Mustang III's were available new.

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

  • Thanks! Yeah, I leaned from the last couple albums I mixed how much of the tone is decided by speakers, and how completely different amps through the same cab can sound nearly identical. That's my thing is that when playing live, I don't need a plethora of different tones - just a few good ones I like. Recording, of course, is a whole different beast.


    So it sounds like the tl:Dr is that Kone / Kab is good for getting variety and more accurately representing the original profile's sound. Real cab is better for that real cab feel if you don't care about the above.

    I went from real 4x12 to FRFR to Kabinet.


    I was shocked how much a guitar cab colours the sound! So much that when I went from mic-ing my 4 x12 ( yeah that's what I did at the start!) that my profiles sounded horrible. The cab masked duff profiles...now I know you don;t have that issue as you record but it was a shock.


    FRFR I quite liked but always sounded disconnected. The Kabinet does fill the gap to me....


    Advantage of the Kabinet to me is:

    1) The sound is closer to FOH (it will never be the same)

    2) So light and small. The power it packs and dispersion is amazing to me for such a small cab.

    3) Sound versatility


    However, not everyone likes them so I'd agree - stick with what you are happy with because every monitoring solution requires some level of tweaking/acclimatisation etc.

  • I have not used it with in a loud band environment yet. Anyone experience playing with another guitarist using a 50 watt Marshall? How does it stack up?

    I rehearsed last week and our other guitarist was using his powered toaster through a Marshall 4x12 ( not quite the same but similar principle).


    No issues and I had plenty of headroom. In fact we all had to turn down as we were out powering the drummer, so it was very loud!