New Power Kabinet 200 fuzzy

    Week 2 in the Kemper world and a new challenge:-

    My PowerCab arrived, very excited, plugged it in, sounds like crap! Arghh horrible! Like a fuzz-box

    Spent a while with settings, Kemper Kone on, Monitor Cab on/off and Imprints, Main out instead of Monitor.

    Then tried by-passing the Kemper Stage by plugging in a guitar straight into the cab - still horrible! Tried different leads and guitars.

    Just arranged to send it back as faulty unit. Has anyone else experienced this?

    Makes me a bit nervous re reliability if I buy another one!

    Yes likely the cone - Not sure of the elecronics inside so no idea if there could be a component failure instead.

    I wonder if this is a rare failure from the factory? or abuse in transit? Maybe the shop rocked out before packing it off to me 🤷‍♂️

    FInally got refund for damaged speaker from the store.

    So, how did this all happen? I’ve tried to figure it all out…


    Where did it get damaged?

    Speaker damaged leaving factory in Germany (unlikely)

    Physically damaged during shipping to store and shipping to me (unlikely, original box and speaker looked fine)

    Speaker damaged by customer - me - (impossible, this I know)

    Speaker used and damaged during time it spent in store (possible) Date stamps on box show it was in the store nearly 3 months, small tell-tale signs the box had been opened and repackaged eg loose mains lead stuffed down side)


    How did it get damaged?

    In 50 years of gigging I’ve only ever blown a guitar speaker once - an outdoors gig with a heavy rock band. Is the Kabinet more susceptible to damage being a powered FR design? Maybe.


    Here is one scenario it could happen;-

    Shop has Kabinet in quiet room on display for months alongside many other amps and speakers.

    Shop customer plugs into it from a powered amp in the room.

    Power amp output to Kemper power Kab input - Kaboom!

    No-one in shop is aware of issue, boxed up & shipped to buyer (me)


    After all, the input to the speaker cab looks like an input to any other speaker cab. A jack input. If it was already powered up someone could easily plug a Marshall 200W amp into it, not realising they were plugging into a power amp input stage.


    Makes me wonder why all manufacturers don’t have different colour standards for jack sockets - say black for passive speaker and bright yellow for power amp input.


    Anyways, all my speculation. All a pain.

    The irony of all this is I won’t buy another item from a music store now unless they unbox it and I can test it!


    My next purchase of a new Power Kabinet will be from Kemper direct, which I probably should have done in the first place.