Kemper-ah Player-ah vs. Nano-ah Cortex-ah (no disrespect) I Love this Guy

Noted this somewhere else, but comparing loudness on null tests to state "device X 18% more accurate than device Y" is not super detailed... nor scientific :facepalm

Leo Gibson is a strange character. The guy is a great player who spends a lot of time shooting out gear and doing detailed tests, yet pretty much always comes to the wrong conclusions.
 


Noted this somewhere else, but comparing loudness on null tests to state "device X 18% more accurate than device Y" is not super detailed... nor scientific :facepalm

Leo Gibson is a strange character. The guy is a great player who spends a lot of time shooting out gear and doing detailed tests, yet pretty much always comes to the wrong conclusions.

Look ... I *really* like Leo ... I think his Latency tests are great ... especially as he measures the additional AD/DA of Send / Returns too ....

As to the Null test results ... I wont rehash what I have written several times about his methodology and the limits of what null tests can test for.

What I will say is if you try a Kemper or QC or N.C and don't like the "captured sounds" .... that's %100 fine ..... move on and try something else .... your ears are your most important judge and the only thing that matters.

The actual big takeout from this test though is how effective and much more accurate a Liquid Profile is compared to a "traditional static" profile in the KPA as compared to a current Q.C or N.C. Capture <= for the record, and not to sound "bragadocious" ;) ...... I was pointing this out with audio examples here and TOP over 12 months ago :)

Just my 7c
 
~3ms.

That's good enough.
30 Rock Eye Roll GIF
 
What I will say is if you try a Kemper or QC or N.C and don't like the "captured sounds" .... that's %100 fine ..... move on and try something else .... your ears are your most important judge and the only thing that matters.

Ultimately, yes. I think both the NC and the KP are fine products. The problem is that the way Leo is trying to measure "accuracy" here is very flawed: you can have a capture device with very low null mix loudness that still sounds like shit, because that value tells you little about what the null delta looks like.

For example, and it's certainly not the case here, you could have one unit with very low null delta LUFS, but that delta being entirely below 300Hz: the resulting figure would be very good, but the low end would be crap and sound worse than another unit measuring higher.

Measuring in LUFS (i.e. compensated for tonal balance) is a good start, but not good enough. And, distilling this measurement down to "unit X is 8.3% more accurate than unit Y" is flat out wrong.

The rest of the shootout is actually quite good thou, and IMHO showcases the differences between these devices very well.
 
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Biggest new takeaway from the video is the measured latency of ~3ms.

That's good enough. Not as good as some and better than many.
I'd say that's pretty normal for a box like this and total non-issue in a "do-it-all" unit. You can feel it a little bit but not enough to ruin anybody's day.

IMO it's more of a problem in e.g UA pedals (2.4ms) where just two of them puts you at 4.8 ms - which is as much as turning on five non-analog dry through Strymons (~1ms afaik) at once.
 
I'd say that's pretty normal for a box like this and total non-issue in a "do-it-all" unit. You can feel it a little bit but not enough to ruin anybody's day.

IMO it's more of a problem in e.g UA pedals (2.4ms) where just two of them puts you at 4.8 ms - which is as much as turning on five non-analog dry through Strymons (~1ms afaik) at once.

From my experience, anything from 5ms and below is fine, even under headphones and even for some pretty discriminating timing monsters. The latter will notice but compensate just fine (with a bit of ambience added, most players should be able to deal with anything up to 10ms just fine - after all, it is in fact the equivalent of 3 meters in the physical world, which usually isn't an issue).

However, in a modeler, there's things adding latencies to the device latency itself. Leo Gibson often (but not always) is covering those as well, such as cab/IR blocks. But there's FX adding latency as well, most notably pitch processors - which don't get measured properly too often.
And of course once you start stacking digital devices, it's yet another pandora's box.
And it's these very things why one should ideally start with the lowest possible latency.
 
The following is not a praise or criticism of Kemper or QC or Tonex or NAM or any other "copy'ing" method ... as always .... only ever be guided by what sounds and feels best to you regardless of the "math's" and "graphs"

This is just to add to the above null test comments from Lysander....

Null tests tell you nothing about critically important musical things about a Capture or Profile .....

-> how does it respond to pick attack
-> how does it respond overall dynamically
-> how does it respond with real or virtual pedals in-front of it
-> how does the gain and tone-stack respond when you apply and change these settings to the static capture or profile [noting that so far, only Liquid Profiles seek to try and address this]
-> how does it respond to guitar volume and tone pot changes
-> how does the Capture or Profile respond and feel once it is amplified to gig / live levels
-> how does the "sound" of the profile or capture - given neither are perfect - sit in a live or recording mix
-> how a micro difference in a very small frequency range which is inaudible ie: say <40hz or >18k will significantly alter the results
-> how even a micro 0.05db difference in volume in just a minor part of a small frequency range will spit out a "bad" result ... Jason S. recently demonstrated this very clearly in one of his videos

Not bagging Leo ..... I really like the guy ..... but his reliance on, and conclusions drawn from null testing, are ...well .... just .... essentially pointless

I.m.h.o of course.
 
I posted this in another thread I don’t know about science but the captures sound damn close to me

 
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