Thank you for your tips so far!
Yesterday I had the opportunity to try some things out. And I've made some progress but I'm still not there.
So maybe I have to take a step back and look at it again as a whole.
Normally with amp modellers what we hear is the sound of the amp, the cab and the microphone. All of it amplified through a PA type of speaker. Right? So you can't really compare that to a tube amp that stands right beside it because these are different points in the signal chain. A fair comparison would be to put the tube amp in another room with a mic and have them both be played through the same PA speaker. That's true for all the modelling gear, if you use it to display the full chain (amp+cab+mic).
And this has been true for the Kemper as well. But as I understand it, please correct me if I'm wrong, the KEMPER Kone is there to bridge that gap. The Kone should in theory reproduce the "amp in the room" sound. So it actually IS fair to compare a Kemper through a Kone to a tube amp standing right beside it, right?
I just want to be sure that I'm not making the mistake of expecting something that the gear isn't actually meant to do.
So if that is a fair assessment then shouldn't it also be fair to expect a "plug and play" situation? Like a good tube amp you just plug in and it sounds good right there right then.
So I'm a bit reluctant in adding a general EQ to this setup. I admit I kinda expect it to sound decent without any major eq tweaking. But that of course means to have the right profiles to begin with.
So maybe I should start there, like V8 said.
What I find very difficult is that I don't have a starting point to compare. Profiles online always sound very different when I try them at home. I haven't had a single one where I did the same tone like in a video for example. Of course the guitar has an impact and everything. But I thought there should be at least some that I could use as a point of reference.
The transpose feature does change the sound a bit. But it doesn't have the major impact that is bothering me.
I've tried out some ADA profiles and I didn't tweak a thing just to be sure. Monitor out EQ is also not tweaked. Cab was on. I think in that regard I didn't make a mistake.
I've had some additional thoughts. With guitar cabs closed or open backs can have a huge impact on the sound. Is that also true for the Kone? Because my cab is open and maybe that is something I should change. The Kemper Cab is closed as far as I know. Also how much of an impact does the cabinet actually have on the Kone? I mean it is pretty much the cheapest cab I could find. So maybe a better one/ the Kemper cab would fix that issue?
In terms of power amp I thought, well my camplifier can still go louder maybe it actually is reaching its limit and starting to get thin? Is that a thing, would a more powerful poweramp handle the situation more easily?
Has anyone compared 1x12 and 2x12 Kemper Kones. How much of an impact does it have on the sound?
Also I've though about adding a Tube head to the mix. Now here's my question. I know that I don't want power amp distortion through the Kone, because its not going to sound pleasant. But could I use 4 cable method with the Kemper, and send the full Kone info to the effects return of the tube amp and use it as a clean power amp. Has anyone tried that, and if so what was the result?
I also came to the conclusion if I can't get the sound out of the Kemper alone I could just use it for effects and quality of life stuff, with the 4CM. Like the detuning etc. But if I could use it standalone that would be great.
In terms of profiles, do you have any suggestions on very fundamental basic sounds that I could try out? No sound like EVH more like just a cranked Marshall with nothing on it as a starting point?
I'm open to any suggestions, free as well as commercial profiles.