(For TGP member, I've posted this over there in the Digital forum as well)
After spending a bunch of time experimenting with the stock profiles and some free ones on the exchange, I just felt like I wasn't getting the full potential out of the unit especially after listening to some of the clips from Armin (soundside.de) and and44 (theampfactory.com). To date, Soundside has seemed to focus moreso on the vintage side of things and the Amp Factory on the Boutique so last night I purchased bundle II from soundside (mostly Fender Tweed stuff) and the Trainwreck Express profile from The Amp Factory (note there are some very good free profiles available from The Amp factory as well).
So far I'm very impressed. I've only gotten to try them out via headphones, but to me across the board they give a better impression of how we are used to hearing amps (ie not with one's ear pressed against the speaker). The companies take different approaches in what they deliver so one might be more suited to your tastes than the other.
Soundside profiles come with a few ready made presets with effects per amp but go to great lengths to provide "raw profiles" of the amps at many different control settings to try and give the user as full a picture of the amp's tonal range as possible. So for example for the Fender Pro Amp you would get multiple profiles named ProAmp V02 T01, ProAmp V02 T03, ProAmp V02 T04, etc where V = volume setting and T= tone setting. Now likely no one would keep all these profile loaded as honestly there are a maybe 2 sweet spots for each amp, but as every user's sweet spots differ, the variety is nice though the auditioning process can be slightly tedious. The pack also includes some stomp box into clean Fender profiles but honestly the strength of the pack are the pure amp profiles. Overall, I'm very pleased with this pack and would definitely recommend it to Kemper users looking for old school tweed tones.
The Amp Factory takes a different approach entirely looking for the sweet spots of the amp and shooting a few different profiles with various dirtboxes (Keely TS, Klon, HoneyBee, and Ziggy) and some effects heavy configurations. Essentially, the focus is on pure playability out of box. The profiles are named according to gain (ex clean, push, cranked, etc) making it extremely easy to find a style of tone. and the patches are typically tweaked with EQ and reverb (though I generally prefer much less reverb than the profiles employ). A few specific words on the Trainwreck profile, this is the most dynamic experience I've ever had in regards to volume knob interactivity. Of course, that's one aspect the actual amp is famous for but the range of gain control possible with my PRS SE Singlecut (with treble bleed) was surreal, greater than any real amps I've personally played. With some small tweaks to the Cranked profile I could literally go from pristine to very chunky with the volume knob. I already have my eyes on 2 other profiles I'd like to pickup.
So, are they worth the money? While the Amp Factory is a much better deal ($20 USD at soundside vs ~$8.30 USD at The Amp Factory ala carte or bundles averaging ~$7 USD per amp at Soundside vs ~$6 USD at The Amp Factory) each offers unique content which in my humble opinion is an upgrade over much of what's provided with the box as well as many freely submitted by users. That said, the frugal side of me does take pause that such an expensive device currently requires additional purchases in order to realize its full potential. That's in no way a criticism of these venders, but I think in future firmwares or subsequent products it might be a good idea for Kemper to be slightly more selective in what ships with the unit.
It's all good. My complaint is that there are just too many damn great profiles!
