I have a Kemper Stage and love it. It provides all the tones I've wanted.
However, for a lightweight rig, I chose a competitors product. To be fair, I had that before I had my Kemper. Competitors name starts with an "L" and ends with a "6".... .
That product that I use for my lightweight rig is the size of a double stompbox. I can fit that product in a protective case, my Headrush 108 FRFR, a surge suppressor, my music book and guitar strap all in a backpack, and carry my guitar in one hand and still have a free hand. I LOVE that setup....just wish it had the Kemper tones. Kemper, if you create a product like that you can just take my money now!
One thing that I thought about, and this isn't based on any real data, just my own feelings, is that a lot more people PLAY Kemper profiles than CREATE them. I have heard someone mention that dropping the ability to create profiles would not lower the price of the unit, which if true leads me to believe it must be all the same hardware, but additional software for the profiling piece.
I think as the Kemper becomes even more popular, you'll start seeing a wider range of players using them. I think one of the founding ideas of the Kemper was, for professional musicians who either don't want to take their cherished tube amps out on the road or can't for logistical reasons, they could make profiles of those amps to play on their Kemper. This could drastically reduce what is required to bring on the road. I've heard of some musicians going overseas and renting a Kemper and bring everything they need on a USB drive...how cool is that....?
With that being said, I think there are more and more people like myself, who doesn't have any amps to profile (so that feature is useless to me), but relies on free profiles to use (Kemper comes out of the box with some awesome ones!), as well as purchase from 3rd party profilers. I think more and more, most people probably won't need the profiling feature, but rather a Kemper profile "Player".
Am I the odd one out in thinking this way? I see more and more players like myself (not really in a band and DEFINITELY not a professional musician) spending money to get the great sounds they want by purchasing a Kemper.
Thoughts?
Cheers...
Todd in Chicago