Yes. Have your friends blindfold you and hand you several guitars of the same model but made of different wood plugged into whatever amp you desire and try to identify the wood by sound alone. Once you horribly fail, plug back into the Kemper and enjoy life. 
Whereas, it sounds to me as if at some point most distortion profiles, especially at higher gain levels sound the same. Also, it seems to be more consistently homogeneous on the highs for some reason.
It's just the way it is and not only with a Kemper. The higher the gain, the more overwound the pickups are, the less the wood matters. That's why Ibanez used poplar wood for their shredding guitars and got away with it because you just can't tell poplar from alder when you play high-gain Satriani stuff with active pickups.
When you really want to tell differences in wood use passive low-output pickups and play vintage-style, single channel amps with moderate gain. Then the characteristics the wood adds to the overall sound becomes much more appearent.
Having said that, it also can be very difficult to tell woods apart if the PUs are not exactely the same, the guitars are setup differently and many other parameters. One luthier in London did examine some 50s Les Pauls and found them to be made of Khaya and not Mahogany (although the majority of LPs are indeed made of mahogany). And nobody noticed in 50 years that those instruments were not made from the wood they were thinking it was 
But as I said, this is not exclusive to the KPA, it's the same with tube amps. When I drive my Marshall with the right pedal and everything on 11, I can't even tell the guitar, let alone the wood
I get what you are saying but that's not exactly my point. Am I good enough to tell which one is koa and which is mahogany? Probably note but I will tell there is a difference.
The main point is that this masking effect you're describing is inherent in any device set to high enough distortion, whether it's a tube amp or a SS pedal or the KPA. A square wave is a square wave no matter if it's being driven by a guitar or a French horn (I know from 1st-hand experience forgetting to switch back to guitar sounds with my Roland-Ready Strat). The only way around it I can think of is to add a parallel path with a clean(er) signal, which you can kinda do with the deep-dive parameters in the KPA.
Display MoreI get what you are saying but that's not exactly my point. Am I good enough to tell which one is koa and which is mahogany? Probably note but I will tell there is a difference.
Whereas, it sounds to me as if at some point most distortion profiles, especially at higher gain levels sound the same. Also, it seems to be more consistently homogeneous on the highs for some reason.
Not complaining but I am curious if others are experiencing the same and if there is perhaps something I should try doing differently.
I seem to favor the following profiles thus far: TAF slo 100, TAF Mesa mk2 Via mod.
Maybe it's just the nature of going through studio monitors...
-T
The higher the gain, the more compression. This is not unique to the Kemper. Try the blindfold trick if you can. Seriously, it will free you from a great many preconceptions (or misconceptions) about tone. Folks often attribute tonal differences to wood without taking into consideration the system as a whole nor the fact that wood is organic and as such of extremely inconsistent in it's density even when cut from the same tree.
Wood does matter IMO to guitar tone; it is a subtle ingredient in amongst a whole bunch of other subtle ingredients that , together, make a guitar worth playing.
This does not mean I can listen to a particular guitar and say 'oooooh, that's ash from a tree called Cletus in a swamp'. I can't, maybe someone can but that someone isn't me :). What I CAN hear is body resonance unplugged and this can have some really wonderful overtones or can be pretty flat. It's why any new guitar I play gets played unplugged first - I want to hear all the interesting harmonics that are there. If they're not there, you can swap pickups and amps till the cows come home - you won't get them.
If they're there, the guitar then needs pickups capable of passing these along. Lower output tend to be better at this. And wax potting reduces the amount of 'wood' that goes into the signal chain but of course has it's own advantages so most guitars have potted pickups.
Once it gets to the amp, then the vital job of passing these harmonics along is given to the electronics. Some amps concentrate less on the 'harmonically interesting' bits that help you to hear wood. And then, as others have said, gain / distortion starts to mask them.
Putting on loads of gain at this stage is akin to putting vindaloo sauce on a lobster. Eventually, you're having vindaloo sauce with something you can no longer tell what it it.
For me, a low to just breaking profile on the Kemper passes along all the information. The body resonances come through and that is 'wood'. A strat at high gain sounds different to a LP but if you've got an ash strat with an ash board vs a basswood strat with identical pickups you'll still hear a difference (maybe???) but be hard pushed to say what it is 
The amps sounding the same with high gain and the highs are a common complaint on here. When you have a mesa stack at home, you have a head and cab that give you the mesa tone. With the kemper you have the recorded sound of that tone with a full range of frquencies.
For the first part, you may want to try out tills or other cabs that will give you more of the cab sound that feels more familliar to the tube amp. There are other tweaks you can do but since you are a new user i would recomend trying cabs so you can see which speaker/mic/position and cab will give the best character.
For the second part, remember the cab speaker being mic'd is going to be limited in range around approx 5-10khz, and the profile goes to like over 20-30 so you will only be limited by speaker specs. I dont have any proof of this next part but it is just what i feel is happening. The nastyness that we hear on some profiles in the highs comes from the highs over which the guitar speaker produces and the kemper kind of adds in with the profile that full range speakers will reproduce. so what i like to do is place a high pass filter and cut off those nasty highs and it seems to reproduce a more familiar tone that you would be used to as well. Not to mention that cutting the highs down will keep you from interfearing with other instruments live and when playing loud, highs do more damage to hearing than other ranges.
Again I have no evidence of extra highs added on by kpa, so save the scientists and mathimatitions, it is just a way for you to see my perspective for cutting the highs off . If you turn down treble and presence to compensate, you will probably just make it sound worse as there are the low range of highs you do need in there.
I just find this prominent with high gain though, with clean and some crunch, the highs do not seem as aggresive.
For the second part, remember the cab speaker being mic'd is going to be limited in range around approx 5-10khz, and the profile goes to like over 20-30 so you will only be limited by speaker specs. I dont have any proof of this next part but it is just what i feel is happening. The nastyness that we hear on some profiles in the highs comes from the highs over which the guitar speaker produces and the kemper kind of adds in with the profile that full range speakers will reproduce.
This is a common fallacy I see when people talk about FRFR. Guitar speakers aren't good at reproducing frequencies above 5kHz or so, but they absolutely do produce frequencies above that:
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which is why feeding a cab emulated signal into a guitar cab tends to sound off, to my ears at least.
I'd have to agree with what you say Ben. Which is why people often recommended using the studio eq and shelving eq to reduce highs as a high pass filter may take too much out or the sound and feel empty. The high pass is great for diagnosing where in the spectrum the unwanted high end "insert problematic description here" is located. I also like to take a bit off the top end anyway as some profiles may be broadcast to bright or harsh on the ears.
For the second part, remember the cab speaker being mic'd is going to be limited in range around approx 5-10khz, and the profile goes to like over 20-30 so you will only be limited by speaker specs. I dont have any proof of this next part but it is just what i feel is happening. The nastyness that we hear on some profiles in the highs comes from the highs over which the guitar speaker produces and the kemper kind of adds in with the profile that full range speakers will reproduce. so what i like to do is place a high pass filter and cut off those nasty highs and it seems to reproduce a more familiar tone that you would be used to as well. Not to mention that cutting the highs down will keep you from interfearing with other instruments live and when playing loud, highs do more damage to hearing than other ranges.
It should be noted that high gains often have that fizzy characteristic. We don't really notice it because they're situated lower on the ground. When we listen to profiles through our monitors, that fizz becomes more noticeable because it's at ear level. If you put your ear up to the amplifier, you'd hear this fizz too.
One way that I think profiles could be made better for users such as me that are absolutely clueless in the studio would be to profile with the use of filter to eliminate these higher frequencies. That way, when we select a profile, it would be truly "recording ready", without the need for further EQ tweaks.
The amp in the box sound, however, has great appeal, as it is more true to the original amp sound and would lend itself to the same tweaking on the user's end.
