Kemper is the only option?

Woody123

I must be like a lot of people on here.......not enough talent/too old to be in a band....but like to play my guitar selection in the house.
Don’t like tranny amps....only valves will do......but valve amps at their best seem to be 5 Watts....which is far too loud for home practice.......why doesn’t somebody make a 2 watt valve amp with spring reverb and an effects loop ideally with a 12” speaker.....that way I could run the volume at reasonable levels with whilst not strangling the dam thing........but I have yet to find one......there are a few with built in attenuators but I have yet to find something I like.
The answer maybe the Kemper profiling amp which has built in Effects and all the amp models in the world......there is also a company who make a tranny power amp which fits in the back rated at 25watts.....and as it is a tranny power amp it setting it low should not change the sound characteristics.
So the question is has anybody tried a Kemper.....or is there another option out there that I have yet to discover?

meltedbuzzbox

What a load of jazz. I play a 100w and 50w valve at home. 

uncledick

My Cornell will go down to 0.2W and it's still bloody loud.  I'm confused when you say that only valves will do but you fancy a Kemper.  It's a 'sort of' modelling amp  full of transistors.  There are a load of options out there for home use.  I'll suggest Katana before everyone else does but also look at Vox Valvetronix which offers some terrific sounds at stupidly low prices.

markblack

I was all set to go for a Kemper. And the then tried a Helix and went for that. 

The stuff I looked at was:

Kemper
Helix
Fryette Amplification Valvulator GP/DI
Two Notes - Torpedo + Le Clean for example

I mainly play thought headphones. But the Helix sounds great.

On the cheaper side of things I enjoyed my Yamaha THR10C

Woody123

Meltedbuzzbox      it must be real interesting living next door to you.
Uncledick      I had a Cornell Romany but the reverb was weird, if you turned down the Guitar the reverb went as well....hence it got sold....liked the amp though.....was after opinions on the Kemper as a replacement for valves....have yet to try one in the flesh.
Markblack     I’ll look into your recommendations thank you.

John_A

Helix
Axe FX
Kemper
Any amp with Freyette power station

and what's 'too old' to be in a band?

digitalscream

Woody123 said:

Meltedbuzzbox      it must be real interesting living next door to you.

Here's the thing...amps have volume controls for a reason

Seriously, what actually makes the difference is the taper on the volume control; many amps have a total hair trigger at the lower end of the sweep, so it practically goes from "off" to "gig volume" as soon as you lift it off the floor...the Laney VH100R is a great example of that, because it's impossible to run it at home volumes. My Jet City JCA50H, though, has a huge amount of control at home volumes.

Do higher-power amps sound the same at low volumes as low-power ones? No, of course not. They do, however, sound just as good but in different ways.

With that said, I'm 100% in the Helix camp now. I run it through my studio monitors at home with a 20W T-path power amp, and it sounds great, and with a Rocktron Velocity 120 and Matrix NL212 for gigs.

Oh, and the whole "not enough talent/too old to be in a band" - total rubbish, dude. We're all too old and lacking in talent, and most of us are in bands

koss59

I’m a Valve amp snob and wouldn’t even consider turning one on in the house after I got a blues cube. That goes for rehearsals and low volume gigs too.

Roland

Woody123 said:

I must be like a lot of people on here.......not enough talent/too old to be in a band....

Tell that to Keef.

Being in a band is about teamwork. I use a fraction of my guitar playing abilities. As for age, older people have more time because they don’t have as many distractions, such as young children. 

Getting back on topic. I’ve not been satisfied with any low volume valve amp, which is why I use digital modellling.

peteri

Always been a valve amp man 'nothing else would do', tried all sorts of attenuation.

Only one I was really happy with was the built in one in my last Carr amp.

Then I got a Fractal AX8, sold everything and now guitar->AX8->Yamaha DXR10 PA speaker.

Sounds absolutely amazing, either on headphones, at home or if I go very, very loud - and much more consistent, since it's just a 'make it louder' knob rather than anything in the amp really changing.

Sassafras

Power scaling or built in power soak.

OnTheRopes

@Woody123 I guess I am in a similar situation to me. I have a Vox DA5 which has 5.0w, 1.0w and 0.5 watt settings. Even at 0.5 watts it can be too loud unless I am at home alone, turn down the volume and it cuts off dead exactly as @digitalscream said.

A month or so ago a friend gave me a Kustom Coupe 72 valve amp on long term loan and I can testify that this will run as low a volume as I like and still sound good. The DA5 is just for standby now. 

Chris_J

A few months back I went over to a pals for a bbq. His dad was there and it turned out he was just getting back into playing music. He had a new band playing jazz, soul and rock n roll covers, could do 3 1 hour sets of material and they went about playing at working mens clubs, pubs and retirement homes. 

He was 79 and his enthusiasm was infectious! 

webrthomson

I'm with @digitalscream get a valve amp with a decent taper on the master volume. I currently use a pair of amps in the house a Diezel VH4 (100 watts) and a Diezel Herbert (180 watts) both can be dialled back to sensible volumes and still sound good.

That said I’d like to try a Kemper too

trolley

I will say that I used to find my Roadster was pretty much the same at bedroom volume as at gig levels.

However I now run a Helix - but more for the endless variety of sounds & the fx

supes

I have a Kemper (currently for sale as of yesterday!).
A kemper will do what you’re asking, in fact its brilliant at doing that, sounds like an amp even through headphones, but its so much more than that and i wonder if you’d only be using a small fraction of its capabilities and you might be better off going down a cheaper route? 

i’m actually selling because i just dont have time to use it to its full potential - you can add effects, pedals, cabs and any amp but i just didnt have time to do it. My job changed and i now need to be able to pick my amp and pedalboard up, set it up at gigs and just play. My time with my guitar at home has to be just that. 

So if i had time again, job change etc, I’d have another kemper in a heartbeat, but at the minute i just need something simple. I really rate them, and I’ve had loads of valve amps, gig every weekend. It would work for what you want to hear, but I think you need to weigh up the cost against something with built in attenuator.

FelineGuitars

digitalscream said:

Woody123 said:

Meltedbuzzbox      it must be real interesting living next door to you.

Here's the thing...amps have volume controls for a reason

Seriously, what actually makes the difference is the taper on the volume control; many amps have a total hair trigger at the lower end of the sweep, so it practically goes from "off" to "gig volume" as soon as you lift it off the floor...the Laney VH100R is a great example of that, because it's impossible to run it at home volumes. My Jet City JCA50H, though, has a huge amount of control at home volumes.

So is it possible to have a clever tech change this MV pot where it has a really slow ramp up at the start - almost admitting that you are 90% a home player and just need a huge range to get a nice volume for practise and if it means it's all a bit sudden to full gig volume later in the pot then it doesn't matter so much .

To be fair a system that has more than one master volume is great because you have way more scope to reign it in 

I find this to be true with the Synergy stuff in my rack .

digitalscream

FelineGuitars said:

digitalscream said:

Woody123 said:

Meltedbuzzbox      it must be real interesting living next door to you.

Here's the thing...amps have volume controls for a reason

Seriously, what actually makes the difference is the taper on the volume control; many amps have a total hair trigger at the lower end of the sweep, so it practically goes from "off" to "gig volume" as soon as you lift it off the floor...the Laney VH100R is a great example of that, because it's impossible to run it at home volumes. My Jet City JCA50H, though, has a huge amount of control at home volumes.

So is it possible to have a clever tech change this MV pot where it has a really slow ramp up at the start - almost admitting that you are 90% a home player and just need a huge range to get a nice volume for practise and if it means it's all a bit sudden to full gig volume later in the pot then it doesn't matter so much .

To be fair a system that has more than one master volume is great because you have way more scope to reign it in 

I find this to be true with the Synergy stuff in my rack .

From conversations I've had with @ICBM I'm not sure - a lot of it depends on the design of the amp itself.

Of course, there's another option - stick a volume control in the effects loop (if it has one). That's what a lot of people used to do with the VH100R. In fact, a lot of people used to use that technique with them when gigging, because they go from "silence" to "louder than god's farts" on a hair trigger, and hit loud gig volume at about 3 out of 10 even with a shitty inefficient set of speakers.