Why did you get your first Kemper Profiler?

    I bought my first one in 2012, working as a backline tech, so as to not having to find and lug around a bunch of backup amps on tour. The first year and a half people kept asking me what I was doing when I profiled the amps in production rehearsals, then they caught on. And now I have four Kempers in my arsenal. I personally don't like playing through it but it's a good tool and I think it's still ahead of the competition. Yes, there are "better" profilers and better playing feel but the Kemper still wins out on the average score for me, in terms of work flow, switching lag, effects, the different form factors, the ability to work with the hardware only. And the generosity and work ethic of Kemper team!

    I'm still on tube amps though:)

    I'd had a long history of trying to find something that would as good and feel as good as my Marshall JMP 2104 or the Silver Jubilee that replaced it at a reasonable volume. And, something that also could sound and feel like my old Fender Deluxe Reverb. After Gallien Kreuger, many Line 6, Crate, Vox, and Roland/Boss products, I was still looking. When trying to choose what to try next, I saw the Marshall Golub video on YouTube. I got my first KPA from a 2012 Black Friday sale.

    I’ld been using , mostly tube amps since the early 60’s , as I got older I was getting tired of hauling heavy amps around. I tried a Line 6 floor model, it was a no go. Then I got a Elevin Rack, it was better, but still not there. Then I read about Kemper, I bought a Toaster , in 2012, and used it until the Stage came out, it was awesome, and felt very real. I use it usually with a Atomic CLR NEO, but prefer in ears when I can use them.

    The Stage came out & it looked like the right form factor for me, so I decided to try it 08/13/2019. I have been using it off and on over the years. In the past 16 months I have acquired 2 PowerHeads at a ridiculously good price. The sound is glorious and huge.

    A guy in the studio next to mine raved about them when they were brand new and invited me to his studio to profile one of my amps. Proceeded to make a profile of a very distinct amp (a Sound City Concord) in three minutes with no extra hardware that was indistinguishable from the amp sound.

    A couple of years later I had my first kid and wanted to bring my new family to a couple of shows I was doing. Suddenly the space in my car that was usually full of amps and pedalboards was claimed by strollers and baby baths. So I went into my local music store to purchase a new Helix and walked out with a Kemper. Haven’t looked back since.

    Since then I have bought every new version that has come out. The Stage makes sense for my live work, so then the Toaster is always connected in my studio. The Kemper means that I can record guitar in my studio at night if I need to. When the Player came out, that became my preferred solution for fly gigs and gigs that don’t require stereo effects or elaborate signal chains. I can usually take the bus to downtown gigs with just a guitar bag and the small pedalboard. If I need to make noise on stage, I bring my Power Kabinet.

    The toaster I have is infinitely better and more capable than when I bought it almost ten years ago. My Kempers are probably the most useful tools I have purchased in the last ten years.

    Edited once, last by Torbiz (February 20, 2026 at 9:49 AM).

    Bought my Powerhead in January 2015 after months of intensive deliberations over a couple of years of experience with various Line 6 products which were always lacking that certain "something" compared to my tube amps - this one convinced me straightaway & I haven't looked back ever since ... and - most importantly - it has been working without a fail since day one ... and it is the only one which I know of with a silver chickenhead knob ✨🎉 ✨ ♥️

    I came from Rolands GP100 after having a MB Mark III for years. 2013 I read about it and thought that this will never work. Then I read an article about Peter Weihe and his results with the KPA. Then I thought OK now we can talk and had a music store in Munich prepare a rack with a regular 4x12 for my try. Well it was impressing and some weeks after that I bought it, Then I struggled with finding the profiles that would work for me and the setup for rehearsals. It took some time but I ended up with my setup that will propably never be changed, cause it just works for now 13 years.

    I bought my Rack in 2020. I was using a 3 amp rig at the time, with a full pedal board, and while it sounded great it was just too much to lug around. In addition, getting full distortion sounds (when needed) at decent volume usually mean relying on pre-amp distortion or a pedal, rather than the amp fully roaring.

    So after reading a bunch and listening to some samples, I gambled on the Kemper and have been thrilled ever since. Our band covers a very wide range of material, so I need a lot of different tones, and Kemper delivers perfectly with ease, and a very portable configuration.

    When I first read about Kemper in 2013, it sounded dumb to me. My need of a direct solution was increasing to where I needed it more than I needed a real amp set up; and my $500 Pod HD500 was a suitable compromise; (though I did spend a year using a sans amp blonde on a more trad board in between) I figured if I'm going to use a "digital compromise," I'd rather have an all-in-one floor unit that provided a digital compromises of the best amps every created, as opposed to paying 4 times the price for an unpowered head (a form-factor I didn't like as much as a floor solution) that would allow me to create "digital compromises" of a much humbler set of amps that I could personally get my hands on. Actually it was the high price that made me curious enough to read up on it and watch some videos. Then I realized it wasn't a digital compromise and was apples to oranges to modeling units in that era. A few months later and I got the unpowered head and a Rocktron midi controller. (I later replaced the Rocktron with an Uno4Kemper equipped Behringer, and eventually a Remote.)

    I never looked back. The Kemper helped me achieve better tone than any real amp set up I ever owned. I supplemented it with an Eventide H9 until the updated delays and reverbs came out. Admittedly, I knew less of what I was doing tone-wise in the years prior to owning the Kemper, and I never owned any high end amps. To this day, I remain confident that I wouldn't have better tone were I to buy the very amps and cabs of my favorite profiles, and certainly wouldn't be able to use them at the volumes necessary to achieve their best sounds.

    The funny thing is that until I got a Stage in 2019 (or was it 2020?) I loathed the unpowered head form-factor and banged the drum on this forum for years about why they should make a floor unit—especially after they released the remote. A number of my posts in that era said something to the effect: "All they have to do is make a metal box that houses everything in the head and remote; I could do it myself if I knew how to weld and work with metal." I hated the form factor so much that I bought a Helix. But after messing around with it for a month, I returned it because it sounded inferior to my unpowered head, which by that time I literally had placed on the back of my needlessly large pedal board.

    I was using POD HD live on tour, was looking at buying Eleven possibly ,, i didn't like the AXE FX cuz you couldn't try it, but this thing called Kemper just came out with some good feedback, Was intrigued by its look also, and it wasn't as expensive as the AXEFx I went to try it out at the music store, bought it with a trial for a month I could return it if I didn't like it.. Well I never went back...here we are about 15 years later ....

    Soooo glad i never bought the Axe FX , i would of been screwed going down that rabbit hole of changing units every 2 year

    Edited 3 times, last by kriswylde (February 21, 2026 at 2:21 AM).

    I got my first Kemper (Mkii rack and remote) in October last year. Im mainly a studio based songwriter and long time bassist but I'm concentrating on guitar a lot these days. I've never owned a valve amp.

    I bought a Stomp a few years back for my guitar needs, mainly based on budget vs capability and it was fun for a while, but the more I played, the more I felt like I was missing something important in the sounds I was getting.

    After a lot of research I went for a Kemper, initially mainly because I remember seeing strange looking white amps on stages on TV way back when Kemper first came out and was intrigued enough to keep them in mind for when I made a more serious investment in guitar playing. The more I researched the more the sounds convinced me.

    After some initial (network related) technical issues incorporating my Kemper into my studio I am totally blown away by the results. I haven't scratched the surface of what it can do and I'm getting record ready results every time. Playing is always immense fun and very inspiring.

    Cant wait for 2.0!

    My curiosity started because I was sick of putting one hand in my pocket, making sure I was grounded and tapping tubes with chop sticks to see if they were microphonic, all just to play guitar without absorbing 400V of charge.

    The Kemper has exceeded all my expectations in tone, versatility and customer service. I am constantly amazed that I get updates and free customer support on a 2011 unit that I purchased second hand. It is, bar none, the best retail product I have ever owned.

    Recording an amp in a flat was never an option. Unless I wanted to be evicted. :D I was never satisfied with vst ampsims. I could never get a good high gain sound with them. Using IRs that made it a little better but never good enough. It all sounded flat, dull no matter what. I was desperate to get something better and I was thinking about buying a Fractal. Then Kemper came and I was sceptical at first but didn't have anything to loose and could buy one immediately from Thomann and could return it if I wasn't satisfied. Something you can't do with a Fractal. Wait 6 months and get something I'm not satisfied with and have to sell it for less wasn't a pleasant option. So I got my Kemper and....woohooo. It does sound like a real amp. :love:. Deleted all the vst ampsims I had.

    Think for yourself, or others will think for you wihout thinking of you

    Henry David Thoreau

    I was gigging a fair bit and fed up of lugging a heavy valve head and pedal board - my pedal board was growing and it still seemed to a a tap dancing feat.

    I had gone the route of ENGL because they had dual volumes that I could use for solo's and multiple channels for flexibility on the amp side. However, the foot switch was massive, alongside a delay, tuner, wah and whammy...then the faff of tone suck and true bypass, so I just wanted something simpler.

    I read about this thing called a Kemper and its only real competition seemed to be the Axe - which just seemed overly complex for my simple use case.

    When I got it, I still ran it through a 4x12 and micced it up...I was never totally impressed. I tried going direct once and it was awful - I hadn't realised about the -12db and clipped out our desk, and I'd added loads of treble to compensate for my cab.

    Finally I made a push to go direct and bought an FRFR speaker.....the world changed, all of a sudden my sound transformed and I finally "got it". That had probably been 18 months after I'd first bought it.

    So my initial impressions were that it was incredibly convenient but only sounded ok - but this was my fault for not being brave enough to step away from a 4 x 12 on my backline.

    What was interesting was how sceptical sound engineers were all those years ago and slowly seeing the attitude change - the ones that knew....

    This was 11 years ago, and in the meantime I swapped out my Behringer 1010 when the remote came out and then also bought a Kabinet and a player as a backup.

    Its been my only amp since then ( I kept a Laney GH100L for backup) and I've never truly been tempted by anything else because it ticks my boxes...

    I was a Boogie devotee but my new band was amp less on stage. I bought the rack first, that was stolen and replaced with a head and remote and now I have a stage. I got my first one in 2015 and have been the grateful recipient of all the new fx since then. I still use spdif into the computer but am on in ears in almost all gigs now. It’s a total GAS squasher.

    A brace of Suhrs, a Charvel, a toaster, an Apollo twin, a Mac, and a DXR10