Kemper Profiling Amp Successor

  • It's commercial suicide for a company to rest on its laurels. You can bet your bottom dollar that Kemper are up to something. What do you think their employees are doing every day? Popping down to the warehouse to ship out some Stages? Nah mate. There is blatantly some heavy research and design going on; that is what makes the most sense.

    I'm not sure what are your sources, so that you suggest that heavy R&D is going on, but sounds serious.

    Let's take MESA - I think they haven't committed suicide selling for years the same 4x12 cabs with the same V30.


    There are companies like Fractal, Line6, which work in the way that you suggest it allows them to stay alive. And there is Kemper with the same device for 10 years already. Nobody knows what's in their heads.


    There are users, that want newest, shiniest, fully packaged. There are users, who are satisfied with what they have. There is room for everybody and everybody's opinions, which are only opinions, so no need to excite too much.

  • It is not reasonable to believe that Kemper is not working on a KPA2. As I have stated many many times now, there are parts they are not going to be able to purchase any longer that are in the current product. Any company that believes they can force a major chip manufacturer to keep producing chips for them is seriously mistaken.


    I used to work at Ford. Intel decided one day that they were not going to stay in the embedded market in Automotive and after a single year of development with their 9169 variant, Ford was told that the chip would be end-of-life in 2 years (hadn't built a single car with it yet as it was still in pre-production for that vehicle line (Mazda 323 btw).


    If Ford can't do it, neither can Kemper.


    What the new unit will have in it and how it will work ..... well, that is just fun to talk about and to make suggestions. To believe that an electronics equipment involving CPU's and DSP chips is similar to a product like the MESA 4x4 cab is just wrong. As long as Celestion keeps making the V30 and forest keep producing wood, that product can be made. Kemper can not be made without the chips inside it relies on. Lets keep this just a little bit real here.


    It doesn't really matter if every single current KPA user and every potential KPA user would be satisfied with the current KPA for all eternity (Another pretty far fetched assumption IMO), just the parts obsolescence would require the creation of a KPA2.

  • It is not reasonable to believe that Kemper is not working on a KPA2. As I have stated many many times now, there are parts they are not going to be able to purchase any longer that are in the current product.

    Freescale still manufactures the chip used that is necessary for the Profiler to function. Eventide uses a chip from the same family in the H9.


    If it came down to it, they could do (or have done) what Analogman did with the obsolete chip for the King of Tone…..they bought as many as they could find and stockpiled it.


    With the Stage as young as it is, I don’t see them moving on for a while. Heck, the Helix is the same piece of gear it was in 2015.

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

  • I am pretty sure I saw a comment from CK at least a year ago where he said they had bought sufficient stock of the chips to ensure prodution for many years to come.

  • I guess I'll just keep playing my stage live. But I'm gonna watch neural and fractal duke it out in the meantime. And honestly I would use all 3 (Stereo powered toaster, cortex, fm9) if it wasn't such a pain in the ass to bring that much gear let alone the wiring and programing.

  • I am pretty sure I saw a comment from CK at least a year ago where he said they had bought sufficient stock of the chips to ensure prodution for many years to come.

    Does anyone have a guess on the numbers of Kempers sold yearly?


    I know I am frugal when it comes to spending on a hobby, so I was not quick to run out and drop $2k on a modeller. So it took me many years to come around to Kemper. I just wonder if sales have slowly grown from people just now finding out about them, etc? I admit I was hesitant to buy since the design was so old and a new model could be right around the corner. So I settled on the newest unit, the stage.


    I hear a lot of people saying I have ALL of the modellers :D So I am most likely a statistical anomaly.


    How many people ever buy just one amplifier? I am cheap and dont spend money on stuff and I have at least 5. So there is no reason to really debate which is best Kemper, Axe, Helix, etc . Since most people will probably collect them all!


    Actually a new Kemper would make me sad since the stage does everything I need and dont want to spend more cash for a marginal upgrade :(

  • I think the synthesizer idea is a good point, if Kemper implements an innovative and unique approach to most things then a fully comprehensive and in depth synthesizer addition would be a great way to lead in. Especially if there's someway to get super solid pitch tracking without using a midi pickup.

  • Freescale still manufactures the chip used that is necessary for the Profiler to function. Eventide uses a chip from the same family in the H9.


    If it came down to it, they could do (or have done) what Analogman did with the obsolete chip for the King of Tone…..they bought as many as they could find and stockpiled it.


    With the Stage as young as it is, I don’t see them moving on for a while. Heck, the Helix is the same piece of gear it was in 2015.

    From here: https://www.nxp.com/products/p…?tab=Buy_Parametric_Tab#/


    Click on the "i" beside the "Not recommended for new designs" and you will see the following text:


    "Not Recommended for New Designs, End of Life and No Longer Manufactured parts"


    Kemper has very likely done what is called a "last time buy" and is holding chips in stock. They can continue to build product as long as they have parts to build them with, but you are incorrect. These parts are not being manufactured any longer as far as I can tell.


    At this point in time it would be foolish in the extreme for Kemper not to be working on (really should be nearly finished with IMO) a KPA2.

  • I am pretty sure I saw a comment from CK at least a year ago where he said they had bought sufficient stock of the chips to ensure prodution for many years to come.

    That is likely when they got their EOL notice on the parts. This is indeed the one piece of information we don't know. How much stock did CK buy? He's a pretty smart guy, so I am guessing that he has accounted for some growth and annual sales. What is possibly sad is that this likely means non of us will be seeing a Kemper Mini for a long time. A lower cost market product (Sub 1K) would sell in higher quantities and would deplete his stock of chips...... but ..... he is a pretty smart guy so maybe he accounted for this as well :). The DSP chip is around $12. I expect the KPA has sold somewhere around 100K to 200K of product (around 20 to 40M revenue per year for the last 10 years). If they wanted stock for another 5 years, they would need a one-time-buy of 600K to 1.2M just for the DSP chip. That's quite a chunk for a small company, but it could be done.


    Even if CK isn't as forward thinking as I think he is, he would have started a new design when the EOL notice arrived (not doing so is business suicide i the long run). If he made a last time buy last year, it would still be likely he is planning a product release for a new KPA2 within 3 years of that buy in order keep the cost of the one-time-buy down. 3 years is not a bad turn around for a new embedded product for a small company.


    I would be shocked if there isn't a KPA2 within the next 2 years. Lets revisit this then :)

  • I got a sneak peek at what Kemper is working on next. It will transport your tone right into the audience (or studio). Check out those Gain knobs and far-out touchscreen! Absolutely levitating!



    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

  • LOL.


    Has anyone else watched an old Star Trek movie or series and laughed at what they thought the future would be like? I recall watching Kirk speak to an admiral over a small round crt video image. I guess it would have been hard in the 70's and 80's to imagine a large flat screen or a heads up display. They also had lots of incandescent bulbs (tale tale because they ease into being on and off) around the set.