I'm a
*big* fan of Leo and his tests .... and have held back on "commenting" on this video .... for fear of being accused of being a "Kemper Fan-Boi" ..... but here goes as "balnced'ly" as I can.
Leo has [doubtlessly]
inadvertently "missed" the biggest issue ..... he only tried the "reduced gain" test ie: what the Tonex and Kemper actually "hear" .....
not much more importantly, what they "don't hear".
Not surprisingly, at the reduced / "known" settings ... where both the Kemper and Tonex both did hear and "understand" the Gain and EQ they were hearing ...... the results stayed-broadly the same as at the original "static" settings.
This "same difference" is exactly as you would expect and is not a new revelation ... why ?
When they Profile or Capture .... Kemper, QC, Tonex NAM etc..... are all verygood / accurate at "reading" the gain levels and EQ's up to the gain and EQ levels set on the real Amp as that is what they are actually "sampling" / "hearing"
Nothing controversial here .... this has been well known since Day 1 of the Kemper and the other devices.
Pre-LP's ...... Kemper, QC, Tonex, NAM etc.... had *no idea* what is going on
beyond the real Amp settings ...... they all just applied a generic db gain boost and generic post-eq.
The QC, Tonex and NAM ...
still all just apply a generic db gain boost and generic post-eq beyond the real amp settings ... its a very rough "guess" ... with rough being the
nicest word I could use
To better demonstrate ..... and I
really don't like self-referring -my-own-posts ... but check:-
=>
here for the Plexi LP vs Plexi Generic test and
=>
here for the Fender Deluxe Normal LP test vs Fender Deluxe Normal Channel Generic test.
You will notice how up until around 12.00 the Generic Profile and the LP
very-loosely stay in the same-ish zone ...... then listen what happens at the 3.00pm setting and the full settings .... its an utter undignified putrid mess.
And I'll save you the ear-ache and time.....for the record .....
before I sold my Tonex ..... I did the exact same A/Bíng with the Tonex Pedal and it was equally horrendous at the 3.00pm and full settings compared to the Kemper LP's
My point ?
"Down-gaining" a Kemper Static or LP or a Tonex is no biggie ...... they both pretty much know what is going on up to the actual real Amp settings ... hence why the static LUFS comparison and the down-gained LUFS comparison "differences" are %99.99 identical .... notwithstanding that the LP did improve a bit
The key and big leap forward with LP is not -"down-gaining a profile" ...... but rather "matching" the Kemper modelled Amp Channel to a Profile of the [same] real Amp during the profiling stage ....
so the Kemper LP now has a pretty excellent idea of what the Gain and EQ should do when set beyond their actual real-amp-profiled-settings . [ this of course only works as long as the Amp you are profiling is on the current list of 44 Kemper Amp Channels
and you do the LP as per the Manual instructions ].
And for the record, Leo did
not set the Amp up in one of the 2 C.K recommended ways to do a proper LP .... ie: Gain on full and EQ all at 12.00 -or- Gain on the "max-non-flub-out-setting" and the EQ all on 12.00 ...... check the video ..... but that's another issue.
Obviously ... in his video ..... Leo did not demonstrate this difference of how Tonex and LP's respond when the Gain and EQ is
pushed beyond the real amp settings.
If he had ...... he would have shown exactly what I showed above in my 2 links ...... and the Tonex ....
I can assure you.....would have [
and does] sound
just as horrific as the Kemper Generic Profiles when pushed beyond the Amps known settings ... whereas the Kemper LP's all respond "authentically" across the full real amp-range.
Its a bit confusing ..... I hope I've explained this well / clearly :)
All the best,
Ben