Hi guys!
Being a KPA owner for a few months now, I can honestly say that this was my best gear purchase EVER.
I used to own quite a few tube amps, ranging from standard Marshalls like the JVM410H or the 6100LM, an EVH 5150 III, a Peavey JSX, and even high end amps like the Diezel VH4. I owned different cabs, like an older English Marshall 1960AC Greenback cab, a handmade Hayden 4*12 with V30 speakers or a Hiwatt Custom 4*12 with Fane speakers. I pretty much tried everything that a "mortal" can try, all this in a very fair time period of ~ 7 years.
I was never ever really happy with my tone. For some reason, with every combination I felt like something was missing. I guess I've always wanted something that could really do anything and everything I wanted.
I'm interested in and play in lots of styles of music, ranging from country to power metal. My biggest concern since I've started playing was the desire to play every style with an authentic tone. Make my Pink Floyd sound like it does on the record, make my Sonata Arctica sound like it does on the record, make my Brad Paisley sound like he does on the record, and my biggest quest, make my Joe Satriani sound like he does on his records. Of course, my playing is definitely the weakest point in this, but I can play these things fair enough to hear if the tone from the equipment is there or not.
As I already mentioned, I'm a "mortal" in the sense of guitar equipment - I was never able to afford too much high end equipment at the same time. This always brought me to facing hard decisions about selling and buying, and I sold and bought quite some things that I regretted later.
I was about to go for a Mesa Road King II head, hoping for it's amazing versatility, when I first accidentally bumped into the KPA and the first videos of it. I needed some time to realize that what the KPA was about, and I needed even more time torn between the Mesa and the KPA to make a decision. Money was not an issue this time, so I could have just gone for the Mesa if I wanted to.
My "home studio" is very humble, consisting of only a pair of old Sanyo hi-fi speakers powered by an old JVC hi-fi poweramp, and a Line6 Pod X3 Live as an audio interface. I've grown fond of the tone I'm getting from these speaker cabs but then I had an amazing Peavey JSX head and Triple XXX cab what I would replace with the Mesa.
I don't know why, or how, I think it was over one night that my mind has changed, and I really thought about the fact that the KPA is half of the price of the RKII, and while I wasn't totally convinced, I just decided to take the blind shot and pull the trigger on the Kemper.
The day it arrived, and I set it up for the first time, my quest was over.
The KPA is The Game Changer of guitar playing. Anyone who fails to see this is absolutely blind.
I've never been happier with my tones. I can go in literally two seconds from Brad Paisley to Steve Vai, with all the needed effects thanks to the amazing built-in ones. I 99% authenticly recreated the original Run Like Hell tone by David Gilmour with one of the amazing Hiwatt profiles in the Rig Exchange... this was one of the moments I was always waiting for since I've been playing. Currently I have no idea how many profiles I have, but all of them are keepers. I could never delete a profile, if it sounds bad at first, I just tweak it for a few seconds and it's usable.
And I didn't even mention the fact that with the KPA, you're also getting the tool for profiling... I mean, how cool is that? It's mind blowing.
Anyways... I think I've said more than enough, and this post is getting too long.
I'd like to thank Christoph Kemper and the KPA team for making this amazing product available. It has really changed the way I think about guitar playing... I'm playing more than I'm tweaking, and this is just plain amazing.
Please guys, share your own stories / opinions here about the Kemper, and show your appreciation.
Kind regards,
Richard