New Neo Kone Arrival, trying a Kone again.

Quote from skoczy

Thank you for sharing your experience HowardBrown

I had very expensive studio monitors Neumann KH120, I had praised Yamaha DXR10, I had BAM200 with unpowered Kabinet. Before that, I had multiple setups that also didn't work for me.

I'm not trying to say, that Kemper is bad. It's great for what it is and the company and support is second to none.

But I think that amp in the room, can be only achieved by amp in the room. I was recently in a music store and the guy played some rock chops on Epiphone Les Paul on some Marshall halfstack. There is this 1% of nuances, that makes you miss it, when you're trying to emulate it.

I'm not an electrician, but I use me ears here. I think there is something in the interaction between real tubes in poweramp and speaker, that cannot be replicated.

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I agree with these statements. I believe the profiler was designed for studio and live sound for which it excels. The issue for me has been perspective, I have had tunnel vision based on my past experiences with gear. I've owned tube and solid state amps, stomp boxes, several multi-effects pedal boards and a digital amp, but I still used all of this coupled with a guitar speaker in a conventional manner, why I have struggled with the concept of monitoring in a manner with the Kemper that gives a good representation of what others will hear I just can't explain, my age and past experience are definitely factors.

I generally thrive in problem solving situations, whether it's computer or software based, audio/video/lighting, construction etc, I like the challenge of figuring stuff out and finding a solution to fix it. But in the last two years as I've experimented with a solution for monitoring my profiler a mental block has been present that has really impeded my normal thought process, again past experiences and age are the main contributors, but I believe I'll pass the blame over to covid. There are definitely differences between the Kemper and a conventional amp, the reaction between the player and a regular guitar cabinet is probably the biggest hurdle for me.

Me coming to terms and accepting those differences can open up a new realm of possibilities, as I found out yesterday with the pa speaker, and a low quality one at that. The profiles sounded closer to the originals, the differences between amp types was more distinct than I achieve with my em12 as it's character causes all of the profiles to have a more common tone overall, it is smoother sounding but at the cost of losing some of the quality's of what makes the actual amp sounds like it does. What also stood out was the difference in the sound of the effects, they were clearer and more defined which was to my liking. So I'm moving forward with the change to a pa speaker, I think the pros out-way the cons and I'll have to adapt.

Quote from V8guitar

Couple of points from me:

1) You are not an irritation, we have all been through periods of finding the right set up so we all understand your pain

2) There is NO perfect monitor solution, only what is best for you. And I mean this for all solutions, not just the KPA. Guitar cabs have massive impact on the sound, so every monitor solution you try, you almost have to start again

3) Not everyone loves the Kabinet. I do like mine BUT I also don't think about it too much as its mainly just for me to hear, I care more about the FOH sound. Also, increasingly I'm using it less and less because I'm tending to use the in house monitors, making it redundant

4) I think there is an element of this being in your head. I've often seen people get an amazing sound out of gear and then I play it and...oh, where did it go. The old addage of sound being in your fingers is true but I also think we hear other people different to ourselves. I'm convinced my sound isn't that great but so many people have told me it is. I even check with sound engineers at gigs and they say its great, so there is an element I suspect where you sound better than you think you do. I go round this cycle of " this sounds different to how I remember when I played it last week"...of course it doesn't but my head tells me something isn't quite right...

Feel for you dude!

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1) Thank you, I appreciate that

2) Starting over has become old and takes the fun of just sitting down to play away, I'm more than ready to find a few good profiles and call it a day. I do have mild ocd, when I'm working on a project it actually helps me as I'll get intently focused and work out the details in my head before my feet hit the ground hundreds of miles away, which has been helpful. It has not however been helpful in this particular situation, I have been to zoned in on one aspect of the signal chain and lost all ability of rational thought in making a decision.

3) My wife and I have been to four smaller concerts since 2018 where Kempers were in use, all but one had in ear monitors only. Michael Britt was the only person using a cabinet onstage (his signature Valvetrain) but his main monitoring source looked to be in ears.

4) That's usually where the greatest battles occur, in our own minds, and I'm absolutely guilty of that in this instance. I've watched a few videos in the past week where musicians, their techs and foh operators expressed the same shared conclusion about moving to units such as Kemper or Axe-Fx, the signal is consistent which helps eliminate many of the variables that are present with conventional cabs and mics as they go from venue to venue. If they can make that transition with all they have laying on the line and say it has made their jobs easier, someone such as myself really shouldn't be having problems.

Quote from Steve5478

I don't know if Howard has done so but it could be interesting to compare a combo side by side with the same Kemper's profile.... Just to see...

I know sometimes i dislike my sound even in the same room, same guitar, same profile, same pickups position, tone, volume....The day after i love it

The biggest percentage of perceived sound from one moment to the next probably only exists in the mental realm. I've learned that when ringing out a room, hit it and forget it, you can question your settings until you make yourself physically ill but that doesn't accomplish anything. Ringing out an empty room is usually a worst case scenario, if it sounds good then bodies wont make it worse. There are to many variables that contribute to the sound at any given time, number of people present, the temperature, ear fatigue etc... and that is just indoor venues. And as you stated, what sounded good one day to you might not the next, but step away a few days and it's a whole new world when you return. I just didn't apply that knowledge in this case, I was looking at it as two entirely different animals when really they share a lot of common elements, again, brain fog, it is my failure, I just got stuck in a very narrow mindset.

So here's what comparisons I have done. I've had the profiler for six years and for the last two it's been a struggle, switching from one speaker to another and I think a big part of it was the sound I had grown accustomed to from the first four years of ownership. I had used a combo as a monitor for the Kemper by plugging into the effects return, the tone was pretty dark. I never plugged my guitar into another amp during that time and didn't realize just how dampened the sound was. When moving on to different monitors from there everything has sounded harsh, but I now believe most of that was my perception of the sound. I went to my buddies music store about a week ago to catch up and played through a few of the amps he had while there, they all had some fizz to them as you added a little gain. I broke out what few band recordings I have that are in digital format from thirty plus years ago and gave them a quick listen, my guitar tone had a lot of fizz to it that I don't remember, I didn't notice back then but I do now. Same results from a twenty year old recording also.

The only thing I have at home is the old combo amp that I have had for 11 years, same one I used with the Kemper, but not a matching profile to compare to the same model amp. You made me curious so I pulled it out, a Fender Mustang III, not the greatest amp around but I played it for five years without issue and enjoyed myself. I remember the 3 or 4 patches that I had generally gravitated to so I fired it up and cycled through them, and guess what, they were fizzy and on the bright side. But to make completely sure I got my old guitar out that I played through that amp with, same result. I think V8guitar got it right, self inflicted in the grey matter area.

Quote from V8guitar

Dude, I think you nailed it...I played Engl's for so long that anything that didn't sound like an Engl I instantly tried to make sound like an Engl. We get used to certain sounds even if they are sub par.

Everything you have said, I've been through and I think its fairly normal when you have so many options and many people saying they love their KPA.

I actually played my KPA through a 4x12 for the first 2 years and miked it...it sounded ok...everyone was saying " go direct", so I tried it...sounded really bad...turned out my profiles were pretty crap BUT the guitar cab smoothed it all out to the point it covered up inherent problems. In fact, I threw in so much presence and treble to cut through, it was a fizzy mess direct.

So what is the answer? This might sound crazy but its how I do it.....care a little less and trust other people more than yourself. This way you get back to enjoying just playing rather than tone chasing which is such a rabbit hole.

I remember someone of the forum sometime ago saying " I'm not happy with my sound, here's a sound clip"....I listened to it and thought, sounds fine to me. Then he said " its got this annoying fizz", so I went back and listened again and could just about make it out...I played it again and then I could hear it....then I couldn't unhear it....and could see why it bothered him...not because it was bad but we do focus on the little shit. Any sound engineers on here will be laughing at me because that level of analysis is what they do but for me when its my sound, I try so hard to avoid it.

So I grab what I know are good profiles and just play them, as if I've bought the amp and I have limited tweak options.

Crazy? Yes, but works for me.

Just don't come and see me play and say " your sound is ok but its got this annoying fizz..." Ha!!!!

You will get there bud!

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Your able to express my sentiments with far less words than me, I'll will pm you with my comments and let you edit them before I post from now on, everyone would appreciate it

I try not to tweak as much as possible, it's hard to stop once I get started. I've made a copy of profiles so I can adjust one and keep the original for comparison, if I come back another day to listen to them more than half the time, maybe 75%, I"d run with the original and delete the copy. And I have the mindset of an old school approach when using the profiler and remote, three channels (profiles) - cleanish/crunch/lead with the effects set up as stomp boxes. I plan on playing out some again and k.i.s.s. will definitely apply.

Quote from skoczy

This concludes all the topics, when people get disappointed after buying Kemper.

I also think that studio and live situations are when Kemper excels, but to get amp in the room, you need to have amp in the room. Which is most of the time inconvenient, so Kemper came here as a great "90 something" percent solution.

After spending time this week with the pa speaker I borrowed, my mind is settled on the direction I should go. I was noodling around last night and it hit me after a hour or so that I had been on one profile just playing, and hadn't actually thought about the Kemper, speaker or settings. I decided then this setup will work fine for me, and around lunch time today I got a passive pa speaker headed this way.

Quote from V8guitar

Makes sense bud...

another quick thought bubble....the best amp I ever bought prior to the Kemper was a Laney GH100L.....I went to the shop and they said "would you like to try it", and I said "no....because it won't sound the same in the shop more importantly....I'm not used it it".,..

I just went for it and it took we a few weeks to like it...then I LOVED it. I don't always recommend this approach but my point is, for me, it takes time to like a sound. I get profile "blindness" so much, I just can't seem to be objective.

I would make the worlds worst sound engineer!

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The early years were easier, I knew nothing about gear, and the concept of tone had not manifested itself with me yet. I just played what was in my possession at any given time, I didn't consider options because I had none which took most of the mental stress out of the equation. Good times!

Quote from lbieber

It seems you have found something that you can accept. My experience led me to conclude that a PA monitor(FRFR?!?!) is the best solution. BTW, I don't buy into FRFR dedicated solutions. I see it as a rebranding of a good, neutral speaker that you pay too much for in the end.

When I ordered these speakers I called my sales rep to pick his brain, I gave a brief summary of what I had tried with the Kemper and asked his opinion about the speakers I was considering.

His response basically was all speakers vary in tonal response, and the term frfr was a little misleading. He thought this type of speaker was the best option to use with the profiler as a monitor.

Quote from lbieber

I view the defintion control as a critical knob for all profiles. The PA monitor(and the FOH by extension) has a bit too much high end for me in general. The high cut and presence are the next two main controls to tame any profile. The benefit of the PA monitor is that if it sounds good on stage, it should sound good in FOH. Tweak less, play more... I hope you get it sorted soon. Rooting for you.

I used these some with the Kone as well as the high shift under the cabinet section, but nothing I did with it ever gave a satisfactory result, it just wasn't for me.

With the em12 the sound is smoothed out so much those high end adjustments aren't needed, you can get a good sound with it. But what profiles sounded good adjusted through the em12 could have piercing high end when I ran through my studio monitors.

The short time I spent this week with the PA speaker I borrowed, and being able to hear the different characteristics between amp profiles (Fender, Vox, Marshall) was a new experience. I'm looking forward to next week, I purchased a higher quality speaker than the borrowed one and I'm anticipating an equal to or better result.

Quote from alerich

I'm gonna go with the folks who have said that the Kemper may not be a great choice for the OP. He has already put substantially more legwork into this than I would have early on. I traded my Boogie JP-2C for a Kemper powered toaster, remote and bag about four years ago. Tried it with the factory profiles through a 4x12 guitar cab and said "Well, I can get my money back out of it". Went online and bought a few commercial profile packs (MBritt) and said "This has potential". Bought a Yamaha DXR10 and I was hooked. Bought another DXR10 a week later to provide a wider sound sound stage (I was used to a Soldano Hot Rod 50 and two Soldano 4x12 cabs) and four years later the honeymoon continues.

No one piece of gear is right for everyone. It may be time to move on. I am in awe of your tenacity with this. It far exceeds anything I am capable of.

I agree with V8guitar, I got to far into my own head with it, I lost perspective. After six years I still haven't even scratched the surface of the profilers capabilities, there are effects I've never even tried yet. I'm confident this is the right direction for me and things will work themselves out. I went with a pair of the Yamaha CBR10 passive speakers, they should arrive sometime tomorrow.

Quote from tweed

Just wanted to drop in and ask if you've made any progress on your speaker journey, and also say thank you very much for this thread!

I've had my unpowered rack unit since 2019 and have only used it live a handful of times. My son has had the Kemper in his room for the past year or so going down the Van Halen rabbit hole and is getting great results using a QSC K10. This has gotten my interest in the unit going again and I'm currently on the hunt for what speaker solution would work best for me in a live environment. Have two separate ideas for this, 1 - use Powerstage 700 in the rack and a 2x12 guitar cab, or 2 - acquiring one(or possibly two) QSCk10.2 or DXR10 and trying this route again. The QSC my son is currently using is on loan as the band uses it for a vocal monitor.

In the past I've used the Kemper rack with the QSC and have also run it thru a Peavey XXX head with a 2x12 cab, both solutions sound pretty good. The Peavey setup is just to heavy to haul around these days and complete overkill volume wise. The QSC sounds great, but when used on outdoor small gigs sometimes it just isn't enough volume for me, crazy I know as its 1100w. When I've used the QSC its on the ground behind me pointed at my head. Maybe it just needs do be further back from me, maybe I need 2, who knows. It is about 11 years old and maybe its just not working at 100%.

I should also mention that at the moment I'm not playing any large outdoor festivals with the luxury of sound techs. Mostly playing small private gigs/partys and we are running our own sound from the stage. The few times I've used the Kemper in this situation I know it sounds good because I'm getting tons of compliments and people asking about my setup. Mainly getting a comfortable stage volume is my issue.

Anyway, sitting here today I'm really not sure which route to go, but seriously leaning towards a powered FRFR solution(QSC, Yamaha, etc.), possibly a pair of them.

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I kept the Yamaha CBR10 passive speakers for a week and returned them, I would use them with a pa system in a heartbeat (mains or monitor) but didn't like them with the Kemper and SD Powerstage 700 at all. But reading through my posts it obvious this has been a struggle for me, I've only used one pa speaker that I liked but it is no longer available. If the QSC K series works well for you then I would suggest you stick with what you know, exploration doesn't always yield better results and it can be very time consuming as well as a definite loss of funds.

From the standpoint of a FOH engineer I can tell you this much, though all can be used with great results, the Yamaha CBR10 speakers are not the same as the DXR series, and the QSC CP8 does not perform like the QSC K8 and I assume the results would be the same throughout the CP series compared to the K series . I've used K8, K10 and K12 in different venues and found that paired with a sub they are very similar, the only time I've seen an advantage of one over the other has been when used outdoors the K12 projects better at distance, and in small to medium venues I do prefer the K8 or K10 for their wider dispersion of the high frequency driver for better coverage. The QSC KW series is a different beast altogether, I used them in an installation project in 2014 and they out perform the K series, I would hate to lug them around though as they weigh a ton.

Others here can give much better advice than I can when it comes to pa speakers as a monitoring option but if you like the QSC K series I think the K8 would be worth looking into if you could audition them at a local store. They are less money, lighter in weight by 5lbs and a smaller footprint if you are playing in tighter quarters but have the widest dispersion pattern of the k series. I have a friend who's band no longer use a back line and have went direct with their bass and guitar, they and are running their signals through stage monitors with good results. Again, others who use stage monitors can give better advice than me, but I would think it advantageous to place the monitor in front of you.

As for me, the Eminence EM12 is working out very well since I found a different approach in how I set the monitor out eq. I haven't had the opportunity to play my guitar for over three weeks, so before I replied to your post I sat down and played for about fifteen minutes. Having been away from the Kemper for a while my initial reaction this morning was this, my rig sounds great! But not my playing !!