Hello everyone,
I've been browsing here for a while and am hoping to get a KPA very soon. So I thought I'd introduce myself, say why the KPA is looking good and ask a couple of questions.
I've 44 and have been playing since I was 26 (late starter by many people's standards). I enjoy all kinds of music - favourites include Radiohead, Elbow, PJ Harvey, Muse, Placebo, Wolf People and Elliott Smith. But I'll enjoy pretty much anything that involves a well-written song.
When I first started, I was badly advised on which amp to get and ended up with an early Marshall Valvestate. It was really bad and so was I so the noise made wasn't great! I moved onto digital stuff (Boss GT series, Pods, Digitech, Guitar Rig etc). Then about 3 years ago I bought a small valve amp - a Matamp C7. This thing made me realise finally what I'd been missing in my sound for all of those years - it 'does what it does', but in the range it has it's wonderful. I've since built my own kit-build 12w amp which has power scaling. It's voiced pretty clean and, again, it it's zone it's great. I also build my own effects pedals, though they're all just clones. And I've got 3 of the Strymon pedals (Flint, Timeline and Mobius).
Guitar-wise, most of my collection is low-end stuff. But I do have a G&L Legacy, a Fender Deluxe Tele and a Godin LGX-SA. Two of these have been fitted with scatterwound pickups from this guy http://www.ekmpowershop6.com/e…/bulldogpickups/index.asp and the Tele set are on order. They really bring the best out of a plank of wood IMO.
I am now looking at modelling again - I love playing at home. I occasionally record. I play live about 3 times a year in an 8 piece covers band (I'm the only guitarist apart from a couple where we get joined by a 9th member 
). We do anything 'dancable' and mainstream so set includes 'Shake a Tailfeather', 'Lady Marmalade', 'Love Shack', 'Hanging on the Telephone' etc.
I'd like something that gives me a lot of different voices BUT still makes my nice guitars with decent pickups sound their best. Might use it live, might not..... I just mic up the 12w home-brew amp and use my pedalboard ATM and it works well.
I recently bought and returned a Blackstar ID amp. The good thing was the versatility, the volume and the price. The high gain stuff was good but, as you can see from my favourite artists above and from our live set, I need great cleans and here was the problem. I'm unclear if it was faulty one or if they are all like it, but the digital hissssssssssss that came through was appalling! If you played a note and let it die away naturally, the hiss would be louder than the note by the time the note amplitude had died by half. This was on top of regular hum from pickups (which is minimal, I screen everything!). I a/b'd it with my home-made valve amp and not only was the valve amp 50 times quieter but it accurately let all of the lovely ringing harmonics come through. You know the interesting stuff that is there in the background? Warbly, chiming loveliness? Well, on the ID that was nearly all gone. It let some through but the benefit of a G&L Legacy with scatter wounds was suddenly lost as a lot of the character went. And what was there was hidden by the hiss!!
So it's looking like the higher end is the way to go for me - either the Kemper or the obvious competitor. Research seems to indicate that the Axe is better if you love tweaking and love effects. The Kemper is better at the actual guitar tones and is easier to get great sounds out of. This, coupled with the fact that it's a European company with EU support and it is considerably cheaper over here mean that the Kemper will be the system of choice if I can swing it with my wife 
Soooo. If I buy a Kemper, it'll be from a place that is 3 hours drive each way. I will go and try one but can you good folks here please answer the following:-
1. When on a clean rig, does the clean sense / noise gate(s) work to preserve as much of the subtle detail of your guitar as the original valve amp? In other words, if you just gently play a C Major chord / Am chord and let it die away, do you hear all of the lovely upper harmonics same as with a decent valve amp? And does the noise gate work well (so it gets rid of the hiss / hum without getting in the way)? It sounds dead quiet on all the clips out there but everyone is too busy playing impressive stuff that I can't tell if the 'interesting stuff' from the guitar comes through. I don't want to go down the modelling route if it is still the case that some of the information is thrown away and my good guitars sound the same as my cheap ones!
2. I'm a little confused by the recent rig packs at 2.0. The shop in question has a deal whereby you can get Amp Factory packs at a discount at the point of purchase. But am I right in thinking that the Amp Factory packs 1 and 2 are now included anyway?
Many thanks for reading if you made it this far
Gary
