These are just my thoughts on the matter, I appreciate that other people have different requirements so I hope this doesn’t come across as me trying to shut down anyone from voicing their own opinion.
The reason I bought a KPA is still relevant….. A few years ago I had been won over by the convenience of a Line 6 POD HD500 and DT25 amp pairing. It sounded good and made using effects in a live situation much simpler; with the benefit of sounding great at home too. Before, I’d gone through a never ending cycle of upgrading pedalboards, PSUs and cables to accommodate the latest effect pedal addition; only to find it complicated to use live and ditching the lot for a while. The HD500 & DT25 fixed that entirely and I loved how I could use minimal cabling to connect everything on the stage floor. The editor was good too.
However, the HD500 was seriously flawed for my needs. It was terrible to use without the editor. The patch switching suffered a long gap of silence and reverb and delay tails would always cut off. I found a way to use the dual amp feature to allow immediate switching/allow tails but it used huge amounts of CPU so I couldn’t use any fancy delays or reverbs. Secondly, whilst it sounded good it didn’t sound how I wanted. The amps lacked a bite that I desired, I could get close by using two EQ blocks but that wasn’t possible without overloading the CPU and it became a big compromise.
Line 6 eventually announced an update with a global EQ and some new amp models and I hoped this would be the fix I’d been looking for….Except after the long, long wait for the update to be released it turned out you had to pay for the amp models and the global EQ was only available for theHD500X model, not the near identical HD500.
Enter the KPA Powerhead, fast switching, delay/reverb tails as standard, all of the convenience of the POD but with the ability to add as many profiles as I wanted and to have the exact sounds I had been chasing for a few years. The Helix was on the horizon but delay/reverb tails were still an issue. I’d proven that seamless patch switching was more important to me than dual amps but even with a fix due I no longer had faith in Line 6’s promises. I didn’t miss the editor and don’t really like the whole thing on the floor as I prefer to keep cables away from my feet (I also connect to a sampler/audio player totrigger sounds by MIDI from the pedals, FOH, cab and IEM rack so have quite alot of cables!).
The KPA still hits the bullseye on everything for me. Yeah, spring reverb would be fun and I’d appreciate better preset management. I can totally see why some people really would like a USB editor too, even if I’d probably never use it. The ability to profile drive pedals separately from the amp would definitely be good to have! Being audio/USB interface capable wouldbe handy but I’ve already got a capable device for that and there are reasons to not include that technology which can be argued. Dual amp ability is of no interest to me.
The KPA’s direct competitors are the Helix, AxeFX and GT1000 and I’ve heard people voice concerns that the KPA is no longer seen as the best sounding but I don’t think that has ever been the point. Yes, it sounds brilliant but it’s the one that you can add endless amps to once you get bored of what the designer came up with; listening to Helix and Fractal users gush about the importance of cab IRs still makes me smile a little…. I can see the appeal of a‘Kemper Player’ as I’ve never profiled an amp either but the relevant hardware in the box isn’t much; the financial saving would be small – maybe as little as £100?
Kemper don’t appear to show an ambition to become a large company like Line 6. They’re not coming up with multiple product lines, reaching for year on year growth. They may not care if they’re being outsold by them. I don’t know their long term plan but maybe they see the market as a continually changing field; unpredictable and dangerous to invest in too heavily. To maintain growth you have to invest more and more into all the business support functions that have nothing to do with the product and you can easily become an inefficient, fragile monster. Gone are the days of jobs for life. Maybe they’re earning a nice wage, working for a small, flexible and enjoyable company, are happy with what they have and will make something entirely different when the KPA 1 sales diminish.
Please, wish away for a KPA 2, I’m not suggesting otherwise but CK has come up with a product that suits me more than anything else outthere. A few additions to the current model are unlikely to make me get a KPA2, it would likely take another game changing device to do so!