Kemper power rack, cabs and celestion golds

  • I'm thinking of purchasing the powered rack profiler.
    I want to use regular guitar cabs, either a mini stack of two one-twelve cabs stacked, or a single two twelve cab.


    I want to put celestion golds in the cabs. I realize that by forgoing the full range type cab that I am also forfeiting some versatility with cabinet emulation, but I don't care. That can always be changed later.


    Celestion Golds: supposed to be the top of the food chain for guitar speakers. Supposed to have incredible warmth and chime.My theory is that this will help contribute to warm tube tone.
    My dilema: The powered Kemper is 600 watts and the Golds are 50 watt speakers.


    I wonder what the chances are of damaging the Golds with this much power. Right now, I play at home, so I'm not worried. But in a live setting, I wonder if good clean power at higher volumes would still be too much for the Celestions.


    Truth is, with a kemper, I feel that in a live setting, I might be going straight to the mixer and only using the guitar cabs as monitors. Maybe this would help?


    I know there are other higher power rated alnicos out there such as WGS and Weber, but the Golds enjoy almost universal acclaim as being about the best.


    Finally, has anyone else used the Golds with their Kemper? Has anyone else ever tired a Gold in a theil ported cab?


    When you think about it, not many speakers or cabinets would be rated to handle all the power in that Kemper rack unit. Maybe a 4-12 cab with EVM 's? I'm trying to go light and easy!


    Thanks for any comments/criticism. 8)

  • Welcome! There are many true experts here on the forum with much greater knowledge and experience than me, but my take on this is that you will know when you're pushing these speakers too hard. Just because you have all those watts doesn't mean you have to use them ...

    Go for it now. The future is promised to no one. - Wayne Dyer


  • ...has anyone else used the Golds with their Kemper? Has anyone else ever tired a Gold in a theil ported cab?


    Welcome!


    I have used the KPA in the FX return of a Marshall 6101 Combo which is equipped with a Celestion Gold.
    This is a decent setup for sure, and like Zap said, if you take care of the wattage a bit you should be ok.
    OTOH if you only choose a speaker in advance only because it is said to be good I'd recommend to look around and shop around before you make a decision.
    There are awesome cabs from KPA-Solutions and Matrix as well, and they are FRFR.

  • The 600 watts is there to provide dynamic range and transient response similar to a lower wattage tube amp. If you were using a 50 watt Marshall tube amp with those speakers, how high would the Marshall be turned up?


    If two open back single twelves are loud enough for your current use, I don't think you would have any issues powering them with that amp. But, if you play loud and heavy, you may not like two small open back cabs- no matter what they are plugged into.


    One other thing you may be able to do, to hedge your bet - are they 16ohm or 8 ohm speakers? The two speakers in series would have an impedance load four times the parallel load impedance. Look at the Kemper amp's output rating at difference impedance loads. Tiw eight ohm speakers are a 4 or 16 ohm load. How many watts at 4 ohms? Is it still 600 watts at 16ohms? If they are 16ohm speakers, you have 600 watts at 8ohms. Can it drive a 32ohm load? How many watts?

  • The 600 watts is there to provide dynamic range and transient response similar to a lower wattage tube amp. If you were using a 50 watt Marshall tube amp with those speakers, how high would the Marshall be turned up?


    If two open back single twelves are loud enough for your current use, I don't think you would have any issues powering them with that amp. But, if you play loud and heavy, you may not like two small open back cabs- no matter what they are plugged into.


    One other thing you may be able to do, to hedge your bet - are they 16ohm or 8 ohm speakers? The two speakers in series would have an impedance load four times the parallel load impedance. Look at the Kemper amp's output rating at difference impedance loads. Tiw eight ohm speakers are a 4 or 16 ohm load. How many watts at 4 ohms? Is it still 600 watts at 16ohms? If they are 16ohm speakers, you have 600 watts at 8ohms. Can it drive a 32ohm load? How many watts?



    +1


    Using a solid state amp is different that a tube amp. With a tube guitar amp you want the power rating of the cabinet to be around twice the power rating of the amp so you can get poweramp saturation but with a solid state amp you want the contrary. So a solid state amp should be rated twice the wattage of the cabinet. These are the basics i follow but by now way they are any magical numbers.


    According to the KPA manual the poweramp is rated 600 watts at 8 ohm and 300 watts at 16 ohm.
    If you run 2 golds rated 8 ohm in series then they will total 100 watts at 16 ohm and in my opinion its quite safe if you dont crank the KPA volume.


    I also prefer using guitar speakers but with the noise of a live environment, it doesn't make a big difference if any.
    Give FRFR a try, you may like it and anyway FRFR speakers are rated with higher wattage than guitar speakers.

  • "I want to use regular guitar cabs, either a mini stack of two one-twelve cabs stacked, or a single two twelve cab"



    Also remember the Power rack is mono with one output.



    What do you play thru now?


    How will you use it?


    Playing thru a cab is not allways the very best use of the kemper.

  • If all the sounds you want will sound good with these speakers, then you'll be fine.


    I just watched come shoot out videos - they sound really good, compared a couple dozen other popular speakers. Speakers this nice deserve cabinets that were built for them.


    One devils advocate thought - what about a used pair of Mesa or other quality single 12 cabs, with "lesser" celestions, and use the extra money to get a "free" FRFR cab, for comparison?


    But, if you want the Golds, get them. So, you won't have to wonder how they would have sounded ;)