Posts by guenterhaas

You cannot compare KPA vs. tube-amp, that doesn't make any sense:

The KPA is mainly built for playing it straight into the desk, if you have a good monitor situation, the KPA will sound awesome, if your monitor-situation is bad, the KPA will sound bad.

Much easier with a tube-amp, plug in your guitar and there's the sound, but whereas the KPA already has a perfect signal for the mixing-desk and P.A., you have to mike the amp up and try to get a good signal for the P.A..

In my normal stage-situation (big venues, in ear) the KPA normally will sound much better than any tube-amp, miked up and standing somewhere...And the FOH-guy will love it, because there's no loud guitar-signal on stage crawling into all mikes.

If you play in a club or on smaller stages (probably like fretboardminer) and maybe the amp is not even miked up, you will get a good guitar-sound with a simple tube-amp very fast. If you want to have the same quality with the KPA you need very good FRFR-cabs.

Quote from Joptunes

Anyone not happy with their CLR after this informative overview, and wants to get rid of it, please let me know!!

Sean

Again just a cynical and useless post, nobody said, that the CLR isn't good or anyone should sell it.... Ingolf for sure will keep his 2 CLRs and like we said it's a great FRFR-cab for the KPA, but it's NOT THE ONLY ONE.

For some like pacocito it might be also an alternative to get a CX or Q12a within a few days instead of waiting for 6 months or more.

Hey guys calm down..... in my opinion all 3 cabs are worth the money and all 3 cabs are good products. Even if the CX is "quieter", it's a great cab and if you use the monitor-out of the KPA it will be loud enough, too. Actually Q12a and CX use the same speaker, maybe our expression "not loud enough for a drummer" was wrong.

I don't get into any "religious" CLR-discussions here, I just know by experience that American products very often are "the best in the world", at least that's what the American companies are thinking. When it comes to music-gear that's simply not the truth, for sure many great products are made in the USA (or like Apple-products designed in the States and produced in China), but there's a lot more in this world.

For example: a lot of great studio-gear is made in Germany (Neumann, SPL, Klein+Hummel, ADAM, RME ect.) and also a lot of music-software like Steinberg Cubase, Emagic Logic (Apple bought the company 2002), Native Instruments, Ableton Live, Celemony Melodyne, Samplitude/Sequoia ect. ect. and finally -not to forget- the KPA.

So please no "Weisenheimer"-discussions (is that the right word?), there is place for all of us and for me CLR, Q12a and CX are on the same (high) level.

Quote from Guitartone

You defended yourself with respect and dignity, like a gentleman.
When people see that, they know who to 'follow', they 'followed' you.

For sure Ingolf is a gentleman and I'm really angry about the unbelievable unfriendly and negative response of his -meanwhile closed- thread at TGP. We did that little shootout for simply 2 reasons:

1) We were just happy to have the chance to get the CLR, Q12a und CX in one room to compare the cabs.
2) We wanted to help all the KPA-users, who normally would have to order all three cabs. I didn't see one of the cabs in the biggest music stores in Germany (I'm living in Germanys 2nd biggest city...) and I had to order the Q12a directly at Matrix in Great Britain.

I'm really sick of all the fanboy-posts ("my gear is always the best because I use it...) and I'm also sick of the lack of friendliness and politeness in a lot of discussions.

I don't mind being criticized just because I'm a professional guitar-player for 25 years. If some may get cynical about that, it's their problem, I'm very glad to be able to live convienantly from playing guitar (+ producing, writing and more). It's like very often in life: if people offer something you can use or ignore it....

Quote from ckemper

Something to add:

The Profilers power amp needs the Power Amp Boost turned up in the output section. This is described and reasoned in the printed manual.

The main output should not be to hot for a professional mixing desk. Setting it to -15 dB results in consumer level only.

Even if this is a problem, the output volumes can be individually controlled in the output section, while they stay linked to the master volume knob in a relative manner.

Display More

We used two passive KPAs without built-in poweramps, only the poweramps of the 3 FRFR-cabs were used.

Quote from fretboardminer

But I have to add that my music is very special, quite far away from the mainstream. Improvised Music, Freejazz and Echtzeitmusik. With minority music you encounter minority problems. I guess for most other commercial music styles the KPA is totally ok.

Is there a chance to hear your music? It's always difficult to talk about music in very subjective categories like "commerial" or "non-commercial", "mainstream" or "underground". One example: I regularly do 100% improvised recordings-sessions with -if possible- exotic singers and instrumentalists (Rohan Dasgupta (awesome sitar-player from India), Xiao Lu (opera-singer from China), the great Freejazz-clarinetist Theo Jörgensmann ect.).

After the music is edited and mixed what's the category? For some people it's "lounge", for others "world-music", "nu-jazz", "ambient" ect. ect. Some may say it's commercial, for other listeners it's the most uncommercial music they've heard. To talk about music is hard, It's better to listen to it.

To listen to our songs just search for "Cinemascope - Oriental Traces" on iTunes.

Quote from HappyKemper

Yes I understand, but just a simple quick check of the listed speaker sensitivity dB spec on each cab speaker could rule out one reason to the low volume you experienced in the comparison. A speaker with say 120 dB sensitivity will sound a lot louder than a speaker with only 95db sensitivity, played through the same amp.

I will check it, but I think there is no speaker sensitivity listed on the cabs, I'll found something for the Q12a (in the manual):

Input Level Sensitivity : 0.775v / 0 dBu

Quote from nico45

I know this is a different beast to the CX

Yes, that's right, we compared similar FRFR-cabs, yours is totally different from the CX (double-power, 70-10.000 Hz, 2x12", 25 kg ect.) and the other cabs.

HappyKemper: this was just a little "plug in and play"-shootout, not a scientific investigation.

@Whippingpost: even if it's hard for you to believe: there is no better or worse between Q12a and CLR, Ingolf is using 2 CLRs and he liked the Q12a very much. The CLR is just a bit louder than the Matrix (the Q12a is surely loud enough....), but also bigger and heavier, they sound extremely similar, so we can keep ours.

I like the Egnater-profiles very much and we used one for our little Q12a vs. CLR vs. Camper CX-shooutout.

Quote from Gitarrenschlumpf

Please do a measurement and tell the world the truth. This "tech info" is copied from the speaker specs: http://celestion.com/product/120/tf1225cx/ . And as you can see in the plot, 40 Hz are -15 or -16 dB.

All technical informations about the Q12a were taken from the manual available on the Matrix-webside. If you don't believe that these infos are right, please contact Matrix.

Tilman: we used the right input, I'll send the cab back at the end of this week. Right now I'm recording guitars for a classical orchestra and I'm not able to leave the studio during the day. When the cab is back, maybe you should check if everything is alright with the slave, the CX had a perfect sound and was just much more quiet than the other ones.

We are not connected to one of the companies and just 2 guitar-players who want the best FRFR for their KPAs.

Just my personal words: CLR and Q12a are very similar, sometimes we couldn't identify which cab was on, the CX is a great cab, too, either the slave of our test-cab is defective (transport?) or the input sensitivity is to low (for Ingolfs and my taste). For all the CLR-"fundamentalists": sorry for the bad news, but there are other great FRFR-cabs on the market, the CLR is not the "holy grail".

When it comes to the sound (and that's more important than tech specs...) all 3 cabs were astonishingly close.

Quote from Gitarrenschlumpf

I tested the CX at some rehearsals with a very loud drummer. Marcus Engel of 9mm is one of the loudest drummers of germany. No problem at all with the CX. Yes, it needs a little more input but it´s definitly not that quiet.

Like we said: we didn't do any technical research, we just took the 3 most popular FRFR-cabs and compared them. We both can hardly imagine that the CX would survive a very loud drummer, but that's not the point anyway: the other two cabs were just MUCH louder at a smaller size, the Q12a had a full and eye-to-eye-CLR-sound, although the cab is very compact and the smallest one.

For the scientists some technical information (I'm sure Ingolf knows everything about his CLR's):

Matrix Q12a:
- frequency bandwith nominal: 40-20.000 Hz
- size (in cm): 37,5h x 45,5w x 28,5d
- weight: 15.9 kg
- slave (RMS/peak): 260/520 W
- sound dispersion nominal: 80h x 80v degrees
- 1x12" coax-speaker
- very solid surface (strong, P.A.-like vanish, speaker protected by iron grid)

Camper 112 CX:
- frequency (-3 dB): 60-20.000 Hz
- size (in cm): 43h x 56w x 30d
- weight: 17 kg
- slave (RMS/peak): 200/400 W
- 1x12" coax-speaker
- nice-looking, but not very solid surface (standard speaker textile, pleather in nice "Kemper-green")

I'm using the official Kemper-bag for more than 1 year, no damages, seems to be very solid. If you'll buy very cheap bags probably they will fall apart soon....

Where are you coming from? Here in Germany you should be able to order the Kemper-Bag without paying shipping-costs.

Quote from Sportsfreund

What do you, Ingolf and Guenther (and everyone else with hands-on experience) think about the idea of using two CLRs as studio monitors? Do they hold up to (or indeed surpass) dedicated studio monitors in their price range?

This could be an idea for a 2nd pair of monitors if you want to hear your recordings very loud, in a normal studio-situation I prefer two very good nearfield monitors like the Klein & Hummel O110 I use. They are very linear and ears don't get tired, even if you listen to them for a long time, nevertheless they're very "honest" and they'll point out every weakness in the mix. For lower frequencies than 58 Hz (O110 = 58 Hz to 20 KHz) I can add my ADAM Sub 8-sub-woofer .

Tilman: I'm far away from being a loud guitar-player or a hard-rocker. In fact I don't like to play very loud, I don't want to damage my ears (they're still very well), because my main work is -besides being a session-player- producing, mixing and writing. For example: the next days I'll be working on a recording with a classical orchestra (Babelsberger Filmorchester). I'm used to work at low audio-levels and live I'm either playing with the KPA or small combos/amps (Fender Blues Junior 15W, THD Univalve 15W, Dr. Z Maz. sen. 38W). On big tours I'm using the KPA with in ears (UE-11 Pro) and without any amps. Live I'm also playing all acoustic guitars (nylon, steel string & baritone steel string) through the Kemper. For me a FRFR-cab should do the same job on rehearsals and smaller stages when I'm playing without in ears.

For me the CX is just a bit too quiet for its size and weight, and if you use a FRFR-cab, it's comfortable to have some reserves left if you need them. Because the CX was the biggest cab of all and quite heavy, too, it wouldn't be bad to have a more powerful slave. I recently bought the KPA Powerhead and the built in 600W-slave is very light, I hardly can feel a difference to the normal KPA. So, why not giving more power to a relatively heavy cab or changing the input sensivity?

By the way: Ingolf and myself had the same opinion about the sound of the CX, it was excellent.

Like Ingo said, we didn't want to do any scientific tests in a laboratory... what we had was a typical rehearsal room or live-situation, all cabs on the floor under the same conditions. That's were FRFR-cabs normally will do their job, in my studio I'm using my Kemper with 2 Klein & Hummel studio-monitors, on bigger tours the KPA is going straight into the desk and I'm using UE-11 pro-in ears, that's a different story.

By the way: in my studio the experience between CX and Q12a was exactly the same (both cabs isolated from the floor, nearly linear and dry room), the Q12a was amazingly louder, the CX had a nice tone with a big bass-boost. No wonder, because the CX is a lot bigger than the other cabs

We used the same profiles (Morgan AC 20, Armin's '57 Fender Deluxe and Egnater Tweaker) and exactly the same settings, I tried to play similar stuff. For the CX we had to turn down the volume of the Q12a a lot.

Maybe the video is not able to transfer 100% of our test (the horrible YT-phasing included....), but what Ingo wrote is our common impression and we spent the whole afternoon comparing the cabs. I had several days more to compare CX and Q12a.

I finally would buy the Q12a again, I liked the CLR, too, but it's a bit bigger and more heavy, the CX is much too quiet and too big for my purpose. I'm also missing a volume-control on the cab whereas Q12a and CLR have one.

Triple A: excellent band, singer and profiles

Quote from db9091

BTW, want to clear up one thing: Just because I find I cannot re-create Armin's sound clips don't mean I don't like his profiles. I like many of his profiles and have bought a bunch of his amps. Just have not been able to figure out why I can reproduce Andy's but not Armin's sound clips.

A profile is just one part of a long chain: we are all different and we play different, I made exactly the opposite experience: if I use Armin's profiles I haven't to do anything, I just pick up the ones I like, don't edit them and use them. If I buy TAF-profiles they sound very well on the homepage, but not when I use them. In fact I deleted everything I bought except two profiles (Bassman '59 + Cornford Carrera).

There are so many things influencing the guitar-tone: playing-techniques, plecs, strings, guitars (!), room-acoustic ect.. That's the reason why the same profile can please one guitar-player while somebody else will delete it.

Quote from burningyen

100% agreed with Guenter. It's also important to keep in mind that different playing styles and guitars will react differently to the same profile. This youtube clip of a Golub crunch mod Marshall profile is one of the best tones I've heard out of a KPA. But when I tried it with my Strat, it sounded miserable. You have to match the right dish with the right sauce.

That's what I meant and that's why I don't like posts like "my experience with Soundside profiles is different. I don't like them......and I don't see them as professional grade profiles."

Our taste, playing-styles, guitars, monitor-situations and finally our ears are totally individual, it doesn't make sense to dismiss any profiles here. Even we don't like some profiles we should keep in mind, that other guitar-players may love them. And to rate Armin's profiles as "non-professional" is simply competitive behaviour and we don't need that.

There are a lot of great profiles available (Soundside, TAF, RE, Kemper and many more) and we can profile our own amps, too. We should be very satisfied that the KPA gives us a 1.000 amps in a small box.

There is just one right method: trying out and keeping what you like

Quote from pacocito

1) Not always. In this forum there are people from different countries and different cultures.

2) Your tone in the demos is very good but I'm sure that can be very good with stock profiles and rig exchange profiles too. I never wanted to say that your tone sucks.

5) Not from me! Just listen to TAF demos... With your experience, I'm sure you will appreciate them. Not all amps sound the same! And I'm not pretending I'm professionally profilling amps.

1) Shouldn't people be polite and nice to each other regardless from their country and culture?

2) You're not right, in the beginning I tried an awful lot of profiles from RE and found only a few that I liked, the same with the Kemper presets. Now I'm using a lot from Armin, some free ones, some from TAF and some profiles from my own amps and I'm really happy with it.

3) The TAF-Demos are useless for me: a single guitar in a dropped-down-tuning with a lot of reverb? You have to hear every guitar-sound in a band-context, many profiles may sound excellent alone, but not with drums, bass, keys ect. With a lot of effects and tweaking nearly every profile may sound "well" (and very similar...).

Finally there's no rule like in real life, too. Everybody has to try and find the profiles he likes, no matter if they're free or commercial. I bought and tried a lot from TAF and I just kept the Bassman '59 and the Conford Carrera. Because Armin delivers a huge variety of profiles with every amp, I could find much more profiles that I liked, that's his big advantage. Just one example: The Plexi E alone is coming with 43 (!) different profiles, I bought the TAF-LazyJ-bundle and the whole bundle just offers 29 different profiles.

For sure there are many users who are happy the Kemper profiles and the free ones. If they have fun with it, there's no reason for them to buy commercial ones.

Quote from Hannes_ITS

I can just give advice from a metal perspecitve - If you´re into metal then it´s not really necessary to buy profiles. The commercial ones are good and there are some brilliant packs out there - however the best metal profiles I´ve played so far have all been from the forum or the rig-exchange for free. Just my 2 cents..

You're right, there are millions of metal-profiles out there, if you're lookin for good clean and crunch profiles it's different.

Quote from pacocito

Being professional for 25 years gives you an opinion that is not better or worse than another one. It's just an opinion. I know many professionals whose tone sucks.

1) It's always better to stay polite.....

2) Just listen to the demos I posted and then decide if my tone sucks, the overall reaction in this forum (and in my jobs) is the opposite.

3) If you are a professional guitar-player for a long time (I've done about a 1.000 recording sessions), you spend much more time with your gear and tone. It has nothing to do with "better or worse", it's just a matter of experience.

4) I personally don't know any professional guitar-player whose tone sucks, and by the way: who would give him any money...

5) Critisizing is always easy, so please: let's hear something from you